David Price: “Mr. Speaker, our budget reflects our values, and Democrats want to provide tax relief. We also want to take care of…”

“Mr. Speaker, our budget reflects our values, and Democrats want to provide tax relief. We also want to take care of other priorities, like paying down the debt and strengthening Social Security and adding prescription drugs to Medicare and making the investments we need in education and research and the environment, safe communities, affordable housing, military readiness. Quite simply, this Republican budget falls short on all of those counts, but nowhere more than in education. We need to be reducing class size in this country and building and modernizing schools and recruiting and training teachers and boosting Title I aid for disadvantaged districts, closing the achievement gaps between majority and minority students and increasing Pell Grants and meeting our obligation to special education students and expanding Head Start. This budget falls short even of what the President asked for, and that was already inadequate. For example, with this budget, President Bush and the Republicans break their promise to increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100.”