Bob Schaffer: “before we move on, it is important just to underscore that this really is a picture of the way Federal education dollars…”

“before we move on, it is important just to underscore that this really is a picture of the way Federal education dollars go from taxpayer down to student, and it is a system that is not designed by accident. It is one that is very deliberately conceived here in Washington and put into place over years and years of Federal tampering and meddling in the whole education system; and it is important, before we go on to why a tax credit is important and why it is important to try to connect in a more direct way the taxpayer with the child, to go through each of these agencies just so we have a sense, once again, of why the politics are so difficult here in Washington to put children first. The Treasury Department is a huge agency in and of itself, and we have had to go meet with the Treasury Department, and we just did that last week, with respect to this tax credit proposal. They are interested in the way we are proposing to change the tax law because they are the ones who administer it. So it is important to them and they care about it. The politicians here represent those of us here in Congress.”