Richard Gephardt: “here we are again on another continuing resolution some 11, 12, or 13 days into the fiscal year; and we have not begun…”

“here we are again on another continuing resolution some 11, 12, or 13 days into the fiscal year; and we have not begun to finish our work. I am very disappointed that we come to the floor again to debate another continuing resolution simply to keep the government going. We should have had all of the appropriation bills done 12 days ago. This Republican Congress has been so busy throwing money at things, helping candidates, and our time and our energy have been so taken up by the contrived 90-10 scheme put out by the other side, that we have been unable to do our most basic work. My biggest fear is that in all of this, education, which is the most important challenge and issue facing our country, is being shortchanged. We should not be taking another full week in which we drift aimlessly and squander, as Republicans would have us do, key opportunities on education. So we are going to vote for this resolution, but we are putting the Republican leadership on notice. Until we have an opportunity to deal with education, this is the end of the line on comfortable stop-gap measures that keep the government open week by week. Democrats believe that education is priority number one, two and three.”