[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H2227]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE BUDGET DOES MAINTAIN EDUCATION

  (Mrs. KELLY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Speaker, my head tells me to balance the budget but 
my heart tells me to do it compassionately. Despite all the rhetoric 
that we have heard over the past week, the budget policies we have been 
fighting for maintain the Federal commitment to our children.
  Over the past year, I have had the pleasure to visit schools and 
child care facilities all over my district. Visits to the John Jay High 
School, the Fox Lane Middle School, the Poughkeepsie Magnet Schools, 
the Hawthorne Cedar-Knolls School, and the Katonah Country Children's 
Center, just to name a few, underscore the importance of our efforts to 
support all aspects of education and child care.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want all of us to 
believe that we are gutting education, that we are imposing 
inappropriate cuts to programs which serve our children. Mr. Speaker, I 
have to ask, how compassionate is it to continue to tax and spend, 
policies that have left our children a legacy of debt? How 
compassionate is it to pump millions of dollars into hundreds of 
programs of education that may actually not work? Compassion is not 
necessarily measured in dollars and cents, but the manner in which we 
spend those dollars. It is important. I think this institution may have 
forgotten that fact.

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