On the recordAugust 10, 2010
You don't get a second chance to educate kids. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that this package will do as much as we ought to be doing to ease the squeeze on the national economy. We will have partially offset with this bill the human wreckage caused by the recession, but we will still have done nothing in this round to address the macro reality that the economy is still incredibly weak. This bill will soften the blow of State budget cutbacks, but those very cutbacks have had a negative and neutralizing effect on the Federal fiscal stimulus in the first place. This is a far less dramatic action than the Nation needs to recover from the recession. But this aid is long overdue, and the time for arguing is past. The cutbacks in food stamps in the bill are plain wrong. Our Nation's kids are getting ready to go back to school. They need this help now, inadequate though it is. I urge all Members to vote 'yes' to give it to them. It's the least we should do.
