Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

The line is a pointed piece of partisan rhetoric: it frames a dispute over federal education spending as a matter of ideological extremism rather than policy judgment. By singling out “a liberal senator from Massachusetts,” Bush invokes a familiar political shorthand (often associated with figures like Ted Kennedy or John Kerry) to suggest that only someone far to the left would dismiss a large percentage increase as insufficient. The “49 percent” figure functions as a quantitative cudgel—meant to make criticism sound unreasonable—while also implying that the administration’s education agenda is adequately funded and that opponents’ demands are driven by politics rather than need.