Burgess Owens: “H.G. Wells said that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. Catastrophe has stared us in the face as…”

“H.G. Wells said that civilization is a race between education and catastrophe. Catastrophe has stared us in the face as we go forward with these reckless cuts that have been proposed by the Republican majority in this House. Speaker Gingrich says his objective is to remake America. And in this process of remaking, this behavior has become very reckless. Education, which is the cement, the glue, the adhesive which helps to hold our society together, is being destroyed. We have proceeded step by step, starting with Ronald Reagan who offered the report or commissioned the report called 'A Nation at Risk' and moving from that to George Bush, 'America 2000,' and moving from that to President Clinton's 'Goals 2000,' all of which had some continuity. We were moving in the right direction. Suddenly the Republican majority proposes to wreck all of that. Instead of remaking America, we are going to destroy America because we do not recognize the critical role of education. These cuts are very mean, they are very extreme. They are very dangerous. The Republican majority in the House of course proposes to wipe out the Department of Education totally.”