Russ Feingold: “just briefly, my amendment accomplishes three things: It provides States some modest funding to promote one of the…”

“just briefly, my amendment accomplishes three things: It provides States some modest funding to promote one of the single most effective reforms we can make to improve the education of our children, and that is smaller class size; it eliminates a notorious piece of corporate welfare in the budget; and it reduces our budget deficit by $2.1 billion over the next 5 years. The amendment authorizes a limited number of innovative demonstration grant programs to assist States in their efforts to reduce public school class size and to improve learning in the earliest grades. My State of Wisconsin has been a leader in the effort to reduce public school class size, and this amendment is modeled after Wisconsin's successful pilot program, the so-called Student Achievement Guaranty in Education, or the SAGE Program. Mr. President, we have been very proud of this program. It has worked well, and I think a model for it on the national level would be extremely helpful. The amendment is fully offset by cuts in a wasteful and unnecessary Federal subsidy that benefits research and development for the world's largest aircraft manufacturer. We can fully fund this important SAGE Program and still reduce the Federal budget by more than $2.1 billion over 5 years if this amendment is adopted. As we near the end of the 105th Congress, I fear that Congress will somehow go home having done nothing to reduce public school class size.”