David Obey: “Our target has never been this bill; our target has been the constraints on our committee imposed by the budget that…”

“Our target has never been this bill; our target has been the constraints on our committee imposed by the budget that mean that we will be providing an ever-smaller increase in funding for education at a time when we need to be providing more. I must say, I am a little bit confused by some of the rhetoric I have heard today. We heard three Republican speakers in a row try to suggest that it was the Republican Party that in fact had done a better job than Democrats in terms of funding education. Then we heard the gentlewoman from Kentucky get up and take the opposite end of the same argument and bemoan and decry the fact that we had the temerity on one occasion to ask for a $10 billion increase in investments in our children. That is absolutely right. We did, and I make no apology for it. I think we should have done more. The gentlewoman from Kentucky mentioned people's concern about red tape. The mother-of-all-red-tape programs in the education area is No Child Left Behind.”