Frank Pallone: “tonight I wanted to take our Democratic time to discuss the Democrats' education agenda. I have a number of my…”

“tonight I wanted to take our Democratic time to discuss the Democrats' education agenda. I have a number of my colleagues who are here to join me. We basically want to talk about what we have accomplished to date in this Congress and what we likely will focus on in the wake of these accomplishments. First, I think most of my colleagues are aware that in July congressional leaders and the White House reached a historic budget agreement that will balance the Federal budget by 2002. Included in this agreement were a host of tax breaks designed to help the average working American family meet the runaway costs of education in this country. The inclusions of these tax breaks, Mr. Speaker, I believe was a great victory for both the American people, but also for the Democratic Party because the education tax breaks have long been at the center of the Democratic education agenda, and I think it is important to remember as we move toward the next phase of this agenda that Republicans only agreed to the education provisions of the budget because the Democrats basically drew the line in the sand and said that these were the provisions that we wanted.”