Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Peace Corps as it reached its 45th anniversary on March 1, 2006.

Education should be one of our top funding priorities; talking about it does not help the teachers and students who desperately need promises fulfilled.

To date, nearly 100,000 Hispanics have died with AIDS. Since Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, our challenge is even greater.

Over the last five years, the Administration and the majority in Congress have appropriated less than $900 million for port security grants - despite the Coast Guard's determination that $5.4 billion is needed over 10 years.

This Congress has promised all manner of border security and port security to the tune of billions of dollars... yet we have - to date - funded our promises for port security at only $900 million. That's quite a distance between what we say and what we actually do.

I have fought to protect those benefits that ensure better salaries for teachers across the Nation such as grants to pay off student loans and funding for Teach for America. Still, we must all do more to show our continued appreciation for our Nation's leading role models.

I worked with the March of Dimes to enact legislation for a national birth defects prevention program to provide surveillance, research and preventive services aimed at reducing the rate of birth defects.