Chicago Tribune | Bush exposes his gap in education: "It is stunningly clear that Bush and the Republican Congress have quit on the kids. The questioner at Kansas State was correct. In December, the Senate passed a $12.7 billion cut in loan aid, which would force college students and their families to pay much higher interest rates on their loans. Pell grants would remain capped at $4,050 for the fourth straight year, further depressing purchasing power that has declined, according to the American Council on Education, from covering 84 percent of the cost of a public four-year college in 1972 to 34 percent today.

On the K-12 front, despite the immense budgetary authority originally granted by Congress to make No Child Left Behind work, Bush and the Republicans took the assets at their disposal and shuffled them over to what is becoming a needless trillion-dollar war in Iraq. They shuffled them over to the needless trillion-dollar tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts they still want to make permanent."