Joe Cunningham: “let me reiterate one thing that the gentleman from Florida spoke about. There is a problem called ``hold harmless'' in…”

“let me reiterate one thing that the gentleman from Florida spoke about. There is a problem called ``hold harmless'' in title I education funds, to where the States that are losing population maintain a certain level, but those States that are gaining children that are impoverished do not get additional dollars. I worked with a Senator in the other body from California, we brought it to conference; and we decided to fund both until we can find resolution to that. Guess what? There was not enough money to do that. So those children that are the poorest of the poor in title I funds, this supplemental takes care of it. That is one of the reasons this is important. Secondly, we met with Secretary Rumsfeld this morning. While all the 12 appropriations bills have been going up, if you have got a baseline, up to a level like this, Defense with all of the deployments we have had, the cost is down here in the cellar. Even this supplemental will only bring us up to a level here. It will not even bring us back up to the baseline.”