Jeff Bingaman: “let me speak for the 4 minutes I was allocated by the Senator from Washington to support the amendment Senator Murray…”

“let me speak for the 4 minutes I was allocated by the Senator from Washington to support the amendment Senator Murray and Senator Kennedy have put forward. I compliment them on the leadership they provide on education issues and this amendment in particular. I heard my colleague from New Hampshire talk about how we cannot just increase funding ad infinitum, that what this amendment would do is throw out numbers that are irresponsible. That was one of his phrases. As I understand the amendment, and the reason I am cosponsoring the amendment, this amendment proposes to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act. All it is saying is we made an agreement on a bipartisan basis. The President participated in that agreement. We told the people of our States and our school districts that we were going to provide a certain level of support to help them implement the No Child Left Behind Act. The budget before the Senate does not do that. The suggestion is made that the reason it has not done that is because there is surplus money that has come into the State and we prefunded things and they have not been able to spend the money in the pipeline. This is news to the school districts in my State and to the people involved with trying to educate the children in my State. In fact, when I go home, what I hear from people in my State is that we have these new requirements, we need assistance, we need resources.…”