Cut Bloated Pentagon Budget To Fund Education
The following is a press release from July 9, 2003, by Kucinich's office in Congress.
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Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, took to the House floor during debate on an education bill to challenge the budget priorities of the Administration and the Republican majority in the Congress. While all Members of Congress agree on the importance of education, it is clear that funding for education is being shortchanged by a bloated Pentagon budget.
Kucinich, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, issued the following statement:
"We will pass this bill today, the Ready to Teach Act, and in doing so, we all agree that the country needs the federal government to spend $300 million on teacher preparation and retention. But in fact, we won't spend that much on teacher preparation and retention. The President has asked that we spend only $90 million, or 30 percent of what we today all agree is necessary. Why?
"Yesterday we passed a Defense spending bill that spends $8.9 billion on the National Missile Defense system that doesn't work, and today we will pass an education bill that, if fully funded, would work. But we won't fully fund it.
"There is money for education. We could re-allocate the $8.9 billion for missile defense and put it into education. We'd have money to hire and train thousands more qualified teachers. We'd have money to buy 9 million new computers for our children and schools. We'd have the money to fully fund and expand the Head Start program, IDEA, and The No Child Left Behind Act.
"Instead, we are spending too much -- $8.9 billion â€" for a missile defense program that won't work, and we're under-funding the education account.
"Americans need to know the trade-offs when we give tax cuts to millionaires and billions to programs that don't work. National Missile Defense doesn't work. Teachers do. They work for our children, they work for America, and they work for our future."
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