Jon S. Corzine: “I want to say a few words to reflect what I know the people of New Jersey believe with regard to the debate we are…”

“I want to say a few words to reflect what I know the people of New Jersey believe with regard to the debate we are having on the floor about the omnibus appropriations bill, particularly with regard to the two priorities we talked about today-- homeland defense, but particularly as it relates to our educational priorities in this country. I feel as if I am living in a different world from what I hear talked about on the floor of the Senate. We are experiencing in my home State a severe fiscal crisis. We have a $5 billion budget deficit this year that has to be closed at the expense of our kids and investing properly in our homeland defense. Then I hear, by the way, that we are having on average, across our local communities, about a 7-percent increase in property taxes, which is really going to fund education. Since I have been here in Congress, we are doing a lot to put new mandates on our local communities about what their responsibilities are with regard to education. But we are not providing the kind of resources that will allow them to fulfill those mandates effectively to meet the needs of our kids--those 6 million children left behind under title I whom Senator Kennedy so appropriately tried to address with his amendment.”