David Obey: “This amendment says, instead of spending $700 billion dollars on tax cuts, instead of spending $90 billion in tax cuts…”

“This amendment says, instead of spending $700 billion dollars on tax cuts, instead of spending $90 billion in tax cuts for people who make more than $300,000 a year, instead of giving $200 billion in tax cuts to the richest 400 people in this country, instead, do two things: provide an increased number of teachers so you can have smaller classes and it says provide more teacher training. This amendment that we are trying to add would add 1 billion additional dollars for teacher training, not for class size, for teacher training. We add $690 million to help upgrade existing teachers in the classroom, and we use the other money to help recruit and retrain new teachers in high-poverty areas. That is what it does. We are taking the criticisms from that side of the aisle last year and responding to them. We are saying, do not just do smaller class size, do both smaller class size and additional teacher training.”