Rob Andrews: “Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank and congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), the gentleman from Florida (Mr.…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank and congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for the outstanding legislative product they have put before this body, and to strongly endorse this motion to instruct. One of the areas that I am most especially pleased to see is the substantial increase in special education funding under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, the IDEA. In the fiscal year that ended September 30, we committed $6.3 billion to help educate students with these needs. In the House bill, that number now exceeds $7.7 billion, an increase of well over 20 percent. This is a double victory. It provides much higher quality education for children with special needs, and it frees up resources in local school districts around the country to do many other things: to help reduce class sizes for children who are not in special education, to free up money for school construction, for teacher quality, or for tax relief. We need to do more of this, and we need to do it for the reasons my friend, the gentleman from Indiana, just cited: State budgets around this Nation are feeling and will profoundly feel the effects of the economic slowdown. That will mean substantially lower State resources for education. Now more than ever it is important for us to step in and help fill that void.”