Frank Pallone: “I had the opportunity last night to go back to my district in New Jersey and I explained to my constituents that I saw…”

“I had the opportunity last night to go back to my district in New Jersey and I explained to my constituents that I saw at a function last evening how this do-nothing Congress was looking to adjourn and go home as quickly as possible because the Republican leadership refused to address education initiatives, refused to address the need for HMO reform and was talking about a tax break for the wealthy at the expense of Social Security. We need to save Social Security for future generations. But I was told by my constituents that the one thing that was the most important, that they did not want to see this Congress adjourn until we addressed it, was education, and the Democrats have two initiatives. One is to hire 100,000 teachers, new teachers across the country with Federal dollars that would reduce the size of the classroom, and the second one was to try to provide some funding to help local school districts to modernize their schools, to either build new schools or additions or to upgrade the schools that need to be restored. We are going to make sure that that happens here. We are telling the Republican leadership and our colleagues on the other side we are not going to run out of this place quickly. This has been a do-nothing Congress but at least before you go home, try to do something, put some sort of down payment on these education initiatives that are so important, not to Democrats, not to Republicans but to the American people. These are the kids.…”