Marcy Kaptur: “I rise this evening to question the fiscal responsibility of the current administration and to question their…”

“I rise this evening to question the fiscal responsibility of the current administration and to question their priorities. On May 23, I came to this great House floor to vote for positive sweeping changes to our Nation's education programs, along with 384 of our colleagues who passed H.R. 1, the Act to Leave No Child Behind. H.R. 1 passed this House and it also passed the other body and was signed by the President this past January. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle stood next to the President to sign the legislation we believed would finally make education what it should be, a number one priority. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening because the administration's budget, its budget for next year, does not make education a priority. The President's education budget is a broken promise. President Bush has stated that he is the education president. Yet resources in his education budget did not match his rhetoric. Last month, President Bush visited my home State of Ohio and told a crowd of citizens in Cleveland that we must make sure every child in America gets educated. However, the President's rhetoric does not match the resources in his budget. President Bush did not mention the education programs that would not receive funding in the State due to his budget cuts. Indeed, the education budget that President Bush sent to Congress falls $7.2 billion, not million, billion short of the funds needed to implement programs that we passed in H.R. 1.”