Floor Discussion on Budget for Fiscal Year 2004 (Continued)

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, this amendment, which is a bipartisan amendment, cosponsored by Senator Biden of Delaware, Senator Snowe of Maine, Senator Smith of Oregon, Senator Bayh of Indiana, and myself is simply a sense-of-the-Senate amendment that when we come back with a tax proposal, it ought to increase the deductibility of college tuition.

As you know, we worked 2 years ago and this year for the first time tuition is deductible, $3,000. It goes up to $4,000 in 2004.
    
This amendment is a sense of the Senate, a bipartisan amendment that urges that tuition deductibility be raised from $3,000 to $8,000 in the year 2003, and from $4,000 to $12,000 in the year 2004 and the years thereafter. The high cost of tuition, we know, is a huge burden, particularly on middle-class families.