Judd Gregg: “I am not sure what budget the Senator from Maine is talking about, but it is not the budget we brought to the floor as a…”

“I am not sure what budget the Senator from Maine is talking about, but it is not the budget we brought to the floor as a Republican Senate. The budget that was reported out of committee by the Republican membership funds vocational education. The President's may not have, but our does, and there is $1.4 billion in the budget for that program. We actually put in money that would allow the TRIO Program, the GEAR UP Program, the LEAP Program, and the Perkins loan programs to be increased if the committee wants to do that. We added $1.5 billion of additional funding. What the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Massachusetts are suggesting is that we should blow the caps by $6.3 billion, raise taxes by $6.3 billion, and do that to fund accounts which already have received significant dollars and which are going to continue to receive significant dollars. As I mentioned, the higher education funding has received a $9 billion infusion just by the passage of the reconciliation bill in February which was voted against by the Senator from Massachusetts.…”