Arlen Specter: “listening to the passionate presentation by the Senator from Connecticut, I agree with virtually everything he said but…”

“listening to the passionate presentation by the Senator from Connecticut, I agree with virtually everything he said but nothing more than when he said that Senator Harkin and I have thankless tasks. It is very hard to reply to what the Senator from Connecticut has had to say about the importance of Head Start without agreeing with him, and his reminiscences back to January following the 1980 election when 18 new Senators came to the Senate--16 Republicans and 2 Democrats. I was one of 16, and Senator Dodd was one of 2. His class has maintained 50 percent representation. Our class is down to one-eighth, 12\1/2\ percent. Senator Dodd and I formed the Children's Caucus. He wasn't a chairman anywhere because he was in the minority. He wanted to have a gavel--at least half a gavel. I chaired the Juvenile Justice Subcommittee. We talked and formed a caucus. I think we did very good work. I think some of the work we did has followed its way into Head Start and very important juvenile programs. As Senator Dodd has said, it is a thankless job to manage this bill, to make allocations of $145 billion among education, health care, and labor and work safety. We have done the very best we could in our allocations. It has been crafted, as I said, jointly by Senator Harkin and myself. Over the years, I have been and still am a steadfast supporter of Head Start. We have in this budget almost $7 billion for Head Start, a very substantial sum of money.…”