Ron Wyden: “I think he has raised a number of important issues and several that I agree with. During my 3 years in the Senate, I…”

“I think he has raised a number of important issues and several that I agree with. During my 3 years in the Senate, I have consistently stated, along with the Senator from Minnesota, that we must do more. It is a moral imperative that we do more in terms of the Head Start Program, child care programs, and the variety of domestic needs that the Senator from Minnesota is talking about. To build support in America for additional funding for those programs, we ought to go to taxpayers and show them that with programs such as Ed-Flex we are squeezing more value out of the existing $12 billion that we are spending. There is no quarrel between the Senator from Minnesota and I about the need for additional funding for these programs. It is absolutely essential. We also happen to agree about eliminating some of the tax boondoggles and get the money. But, if we are going to get support from the American people for additional funding, it seems to me we ought to pass the bipartisan Ed-Flex bill and show that we are squeezing existing value out of the current spending, get dollars out of bureaucracy and get them into the classroom. The one point I would differ with my friend from Minnesota on, and I am happy to discuss this with him, is that in the weeks and weeks that we have been debating on the floor of the Senate, there has not been one example given of how much this program has been abused in the past.”