Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “in the words of President Reagan, there they go again. Fresh from the missing page debacle, we are back with more of the…”

“in the words of President Reagan, there they go again. Fresh from the missing page debacle, we are back with more of the same. It seems that pieces of paper are not the only things missing as we appear here today. The administration and the leadership talk a very good game. They tell us they want to increase education spending, they tell us they want a prescription drug plan for seniors, they tell us they want funding for disaster relief. But the numbers say something entirely different, because they just do not compute; they just do not add up. The American public will not be fooled. Because, in fact, it seems there is a lot more missing than two pieces of paper. Missing: there was $21 billion in education funding missing from this budget. This budget, as filed last week, provides even less money than the President requested in his budget; $21 billion less than requested. The leadership talks a good game about a bipartisan education bill; and that is all well and good, but having a bipartisan bill and talking about it does not do much when a good-faith effort is not made to fund education for our children.”