Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair. This amendment would reduce the operations and maintenance defense- wide account by $250 million, the same amount appropriated by section 8122 of the bill. Section 8122 appropriates another $250 million in FY12 for the Secretary of Defense to use for the Office of Economic Adjustment, or to transfer to the Secretary of Education to make grants to public schools located on military bases for construction, renovation and repairs. I will just summarize what's happening here. We have some schools that are on military bases. Now, some of the schools on military bases are run by the Department of Defense. That's not what we're speaking about here. The schools that we're talking about here, LEAs, Local Education Agencies, run them. In the FY11 budget, we appropriated $250 million of defense money--this is in the Defense bill--to go to schools that are the responsibility of Local Education Agencies. Now, some of these schools are in disrepair. They're in bad shape. Nobody's questioning that. Education budgets are tight everywhere around the country. Ask your own States. Ask your local school districts. But we cannot continue to divert money from the Department of Defense simply because that's where money is and few people question it. I'm sure the gentleman will stand up here and say, hey, these schools are in bad shape; they're on military bases; we've got to fix them, and the Local Education Agencies have said these schools are in disrepair.…”