[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18293]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               HEAD START

  (Mr. RODRIGUEZ asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Mr. Speaker, today I rise on behalf of Head Start, a 
program which has been shown to help youngsters increase their 
vocabulary before they start school, a program which allows them 
writing skills before they start school, and to learn social behavior, 
a program which has been there to allow parent participation, allow 
health screening and services, a program that has been shown throughout 
the last 35 years to work for these low-income youngsters whose parents 
work out in the field harvesting food for this country.
  What has the administration and the Republican Party decided to do? 
Shame on you, you have decided to go after this program designed to 
help the most vulnerable youngsters of this country.

                              {time}  1015

  As he just indicated, the intent to cut the program, that program 
that has been there for our kids. Shame on you. This program has been 
there, has worked and now you have chosen to go back and basically cut 
this program and put it in the form of a block grant. In Texas, we 
should not allow it. I would ask for your serious consideration to look 
at the fact that this program has been there for us.

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