Don Nickles: “Mr. President, when we marked up our budget, we put in a couple of billion dollars actually over the President's…”

“Mr. President, when we marked up our budget, we put in a couple of billion dollars actually over the President's request. I mentioned to my colleagues then: No matter what we put in, there are going to be amendments on the floor to increase education. I might show our colleagues--Senator Gregg did this far better than I--education funding under this President as compared to President Clinton has exploded. It has gone up dramatically. Title I, which addresses the issue we have before us on No Child Left Behind--if you look at the rate of growth we have in title I grants, it is a dramatic increase. The Senator from Washington has an amendment. This might even show it better. It shows that the spending level basically in the last few years, under this President compared to the previous President, has had a dramatic increase. As a percentage, I might mention, it went up in title I percentages of 10.3, 18.1, 12.9, 8.6--big increases. The Senator from Washington has an amendment that says let's do No Child Left Behind and let's go from $23 billion--let's add another $8.9 billion, which would be a 38.7 percent increase for 1 year.”