Kent Conrad: “we are here discussing the education bill. Yesterday, the Senate passed a measure to increase funding for education over…”

“we are here discussing the education bill. Yesterday, the Senate passed a measure to increase funding for education over what is in the baseline by $150 billion. I supported that. But we have an incredible disconnect going on between what we are doing on the floor of the Senate and what we are about to do in the budget resolution. The budget resolution that has come out of the conference committee has no new money for education-- none, zero. So we are all out here talking about education being the top priority--and, indeed, it is--but we have a budget resolution coming out of the conference committee that gives no priority to education--none, not one thin dime of additional resources to education. It is really an incredible disconnect--the difference between the rhetoric on the floor and the reality of this budget resolution. The new President of the United States proposed a very modest increase in education over the so-called baseline. He proposed $13 billion of new money for education over the 10-year period. In the Democratic alternative budget, we proposed $139 billion of new money for education over the 10-year period. What passed on the floor of the Senate when we considered the budget resolution was an increase of $308 billion. We passed the Harkin amendment, which reduced the tax cut by $450 billion and allocated half to education and half to debt reduction. The Harkin amendment added $225 billion to education over the next 10 years.”