David Obey: “I think to understand our concern about today people need to understand what the record was yesterday. And if my…”

“I think to understand our concern about today people need to understand what the record was yesterday. And if my colleagues take a look at what our Republican friends in the majority have tried to do on education since the day that they took over control of this Chamber 6 years ago, my colleagues will see the following: Over that 6-year period, they tried to cut the President's budget request for education by a total of over $13 billion. They shut down the government twice to try to force the President to buy their priorities which included the elimination of the Department of Education. They will claim, well, you are just talking about cuts in the increase, you are not talking about cuts in actual spending levels. I have two responses to that. First of all, we will have a million more children in our schools, and so any budget that does not provide increases for education each year, in fact, results in less dollars being spent on every child each year, and that is not a way to promote educational quality. My second point is that even if you only measure the cuts, which our Republican friends tried to make in preexisting spending levels, you will find that they, on four occasions in the last 6 years, they tried to cut education spending below the amount that was being spent at the time to the tune of more than $5.5 billion.”