Burgess Owens: “I want to address two major issues tonight. They are related in the long run. One is, schools and education are still in…”

“I want to address two major issues tonight. They are related in the long run. One is, schools and education are still in a state of crisis despite the fact that the American people have indicated that education is one of their number-one priorities, probably the number-one priority by the majority of the American people. This first year of the 105th Congress session of Congress is coming to a close, and we are not dealing with the crisis. We have done nothing which really addresses the crisis in the manner that it requires. Certainly, the crisis in our inner-city schools, where most of the African American children attend school, where the poorest Americans attend school in the inner-city schools and crisis in the rural schools is not being addressed. We are still going backwards in New York City, for example, in terms of addressing the education crisis. So I want to talk about that. I also want to talk about an issue that would seem unrelated, but it is related, and that is the present preoccupation concern with the Internal Revenue Service.”