Burgess Owens: “I would like to use most of my time to talk about education, but I think it is important to begin by setting the…”

“I would like to use most of my time to talk about education, but I think it is important to begin by setting the discussion on education in the proper context, within the proper context of what is developing here in Washington and in the House of Representatives. Last week we voted, the majority voted, to begin the massive tax cut proposed by the President. This is a massive amount of money to be spent on tax refunds. A tax cut is a kind of expenditure. That is an important item to understand, put in place, because it is part of setting the parameters for any kind of action on education or any other program of the government. All other programs will have to respond to the fact that there is less money available if we have a huge tax cut. We have tried to set different parameters. Instead of a huge tax cut, the Congressional Black Caucus and the progressive caucus have proposed that at least 10 percent of the surplus be used for education. If we used 10 percent of the surplus for education, we would still have 90 percent left to use for other programs. So we propose that we use another 10 percent for housing, for social programs, for other kinds of programs that are important for human resource development. In other words, invest at least 20 percent in education and human resource development. There would still be 80 percent left of the surplus after that investment was made.…”