Don Nickles: “Not just yet. My point is--and I have not even alluded to the education issue, and I am going to hand that to Senator…”

“Not just yet. My point is--and I have not even alluded to the education issue, and I am going to hand that to Senator Gregg who knows far more about education than this Senator--no matter what level we had in this resolution, I was more than confident somebody would say that is not enough for education. I have looked at the total education function we have, and it totals $97.6 billion. That does not include the additional $5 billion--yes, it does. That includes the $5 billion Senator Gregg has put in for higher education reauthorization. I looked at what we spent. That is $97 billion. In 1990, we spent $39 billion, almost three times as much. In the year 2000, we spent $49 billion. It is right at twice as much as we spent in the year 2000. We have had dramatic increases in education--dramatic increases--including the last several years. But no matter what that amount is, people are going to say that is not enough and, oh, yes, we want to increase taxes a lot more and throw a lot more money at it. I am just not sure that is the correct result we should be following. I want everybody to know this is a tax increase. I want everybody to know this is a humongous increase in this program. I have not figured the percentage.”