House Education and Labor Committee Calls For Investigation Of President’s Speech To Students
Sep 8th, 2009 by MariaEvans
Yeah, you heard me, the year was 1991:
Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”
Meanwhile Democratic Leadership was quick to pounce on the Bush Administration:
“The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader.
And even The Washington Post jumped on the pile:
The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
You can check out Bush’s speech to the students here. The speech was about working hard and staying in school and keeping away from drugs…
I am glad that the speech was changed to promote hard work in achieving a dream, and wasn’t anything political. Personnally I think that was the right decision.
All this means is that you can’t trust a democrat or a republican, because of the partisan politics. Neither party has anything to be proud of here.
Just my 2 cents which doesn’t go far these days.
You can toss the NEA in as well. The claimed that it was a travesty for the President to spend $26,000 of taxpayers money while cutting school lunches (which were not being cut) to address students. At least they have grown into the concept. Now it is great.