Political Quotes

“while legislation is not presently pending before the Senate, I understand that the leadership intends to soon call up an education proposal by Senator Coverdell, a tax cut that would allow families with an adjusted gross income of up to $95,000 for single filers, $150,000 for joint filers, to make contributions to individual retirement accounts up to $2,000 per child for K-12 education expenses, including private school tuition, during the tax periods from the year 2000 to 2003. As I understand it, the revenue loss of this proposal is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.3 billion. I believe I am correct in so characterizing this proposal. First of all, I am somewhat surprised this legislation is coming up at this time. We are about a week away from the education committee of the Senate reporting out, I hope, a bill on elementary and secondary education. We are required under law to authorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act once every 5 years. That bell actually tolled last year but obviously we are still in this Congress, so we have an obligation to report to our colleagues our thoughts and solutions on the needs in elementary and secondary education in this country.”