[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14169]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   H.R. 3010, LABOR-HHS-EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  (Mr. BISHOP of New York asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, the Labor-HHS appropriations 
bill we will continue debating later today is a stunning example of the 
impact that this Congress's misplaced priorities can have on what most 
consider to be a basic human right, access to a quality education.
  With this bill we have made a conscious choice. While we give away 
tax cuts worth $140,000 dollars a year to millionaires, families 
earning $30,000 a year will not be able to afford sending their 
children to college. It is an unconscionable choice that defies our 
values.
  The bill turns its back on priorities like No Child Left Behind and 
IDEA, which have been cut by $40 billion and $4 billion respectively, 
as well as College Work Study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity 
Grants, which are frozen for the second year in a row.
  Before I was elected to Congress, I spent 30 years as a college 
administrator. I came to understand just how difficult it is for 
students and their families to afford college.
  Every day I worked with them to scrape up the money, grants, 
scholarships, whatever we could find to help them realize part of the 
American Dream, the opportunity to earn a college education.
  Mr. Speaker, with this bill we have made a conscious choice to 
provide more comfort for the comfortable at the expense of those who 
are trying to make a better life for themselves. Our students deserve 
better.

                          ____________________