Omnibus Appropriations

OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS

Mr. DAYTON. I also wish to comment briefly on the Omnibus appropriations measure which is before us and to express my concern about one omission which has severe consequences for my home State of Minnesota, which is the elimination of the Senate's action to prevent Minnesota and other States from having their title I education funding cut last year and this year.

In 2004, Minnesota was 1 of 12 States to suffer a reduction in title I funding. Minnesota schools received $12.3 million less in fiscal year 2004 than we did in 2003. We lost that $12.3 million in funding, even though our number of title I-eligible students increased by over 3,600. For this fiscal year 2005, Minnesota is only one of two States in the Nation to lose title I money, even though the number of our title I-eligible students will increase again.

In this conference report, Minnesota will receive $15.3 million less than we did 2 years ago for title I education with probably 10,000 more poor students.

The Senate bill corrected the worst of that injustice. It said that no State would lose title I funding if their number of poor students increased. It didn't give those States any more money, even though that is what we should get-more title I money to serve more title I-eligible students. It only protected us from getting less funding. Now even that protection has been removed.

Presumably, the House conferees would not agree to it. They have all of their porkbarrel projects in the bill, all of their unnecessary spending, and even their shameful attempt, as has been discussed here tonight, to allow their leaders to examine the tax returns of law-abiding Americans. All that garbage is in the bill, but the funding for poor students in Minnesota was taken out of the legislation.

Our schools in Minnesota are already hard hit by other funding cuts. Now they must provide their services to more students with less money.

So much for compassionate conservatism, so much for No Child Left Behind. Those slogans ought to be prosecuted for consumer fraud. They don't tell the truth. Even worse, they are betrayals of our Nation's children, of our neediest children.

Once again, this legislative process has impoverished the truly needy while it enriches the truly greedy.

Poor schoolchildren don't have full-time lobbyists to prowl the Halls of Congress and serve their interests. Poor schoolchildren can't make big campaign contributions to big people who even make bigger contributions to their special projects. Poor schoolchildren have to depend upon us and on the House.

The Senate stood up for poor schoolchildren in Minnesota this year. The House Republicans let them down in the $388 billion spending bill, a foot and a half of paper. In all that money, the House Republicans cut our funding by $25 million for the poorest kids in Minnesota. And then they went home.

They should come back on Monday and remove the tax inspection atrocity from this bill. And when they do, they should also correct the terrible injustice they served upon the children of Minnesota.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.