Frank Riggs: “Mr. Chairman, I was looking for the appropriate juncture to join this debate and did not want to help us digress even…”

“Mr. Chairman, I was looking for the appropriate juncture to join this debate and did not want to help us digress even further from the debate on the underlying amendment, but I have to say that this has been a remarkable discussion on something called Whole School Reform, a program that has never been reviewed or authorized by the majority party of the Congress, the Republican Party. I can say that from a position of authority, since I chair the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families. I am looking through the statute now, trying to understand what the previous Democratic-controlled Congress that authorized something called Whole School Reform might have meant by Whole School Reform, and I think I have figured out what is going on in this debate: pure politics, educational payola, in an effort to craft, quote-unquote, a bipartisan bill that can get enough Democrat votes to pass the House of Representatives. Now, my good friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller], who is a distinguished member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, did get it right. He said, this is new money.…”