Kay Bailey Hutchison: “It almost seems to me as if we are not reading the same pages. To say that there is no new money in this budget for…”

“It almost seems to me as if we are not reading the same pages. To say that there is no new money in this budget for education is incomprehensible to me. In fact, this chart shows exactly what the increase in spending in education is. This is just the baseline. We are probably going to increase spending even above this. But this is the Clinton request. This is the Bush request. This is what we are voting on right now. The difference is $40 billion, and the Bush request we are voting on as a baseline is $44 billion. We probably have $6 billion on top of that. When we are talking about no spending increases when the President has clearly given an 11.6-percent spending increase, the largest of any Federal agency, I think it is just some vast miscommunication. Senators understand what is in this budget resolution. We are increasing spending 5 percent above last year's level. That is bigger than the rate of inflation. There is not a business or household in this country that considers a 5-percent increase a cut--a cut in our spending needs? I think what we have here is really a difference in basic philosophy and basic priority. The budget we will be voting on today increases spending in priority areas, such as education at the 11-percent increase. It will also increase defense. It will increase other high-priority areas. It will bright-line some areas; there is no doubt about that.”