Arlen Specter: “I think we have had a very solid, constructive debate this afternoon. The Murray amendment seeks to deal with class…”

“I think we have had a very solid, constructive debate this afternoon. The Murray amendment seeks to deal with class size, which I believe is a very laudable and praiseworthy objective. A difficulty I have with the amendment of the Senator from Washington is that it adds some $200 million to the bill, which is already, in my judgment, at the maximum level. It now calls for $91.7 billion; $16 billion is forward funded. Last year $8 billion had been forward funded. This bill has been crafted by the subcommittee, then accepted by the full committee, after 17 hearings, after having more than 2,000 requests from Members, more than 1,000 letters, 1,000 inputs from the citizenry. Our subcommittee, a group of experts on staff, sat down and crafted this bill which was then approved by Senator Harkin, the ranking Democrat, and myself. We have some 300 items which we have weighed and evaluated. We have allocated $1.2 billion to the generalized subject of teacher initiative, which is perhaps the same as class size. When I say perhaps the same as class size, I say that because the determination of precisely how that money is to be used is up to the authorizing committee. For those watching on C-SPAN II, if anyone, a word of explanation might be in order; that is, we appropriate. We put up the money. But we have another committee, headed by Senator Jeffords, which decides authorization, as to how the money is to be spent. That is the way we do business in the Senate.”