Political Quotes

“I thank Congresswoman Torres for her leadership and Ms. Cheney for her hard work on the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Higher Education Act, he said that it meant ``that a high school senior anywhere in this great land of ours can apply to any college or any university in any of the 50 States and not be turned away because their family is poor.'' Unfortunately, 53 years later, the promise of an affordable education is out of reach for millions of students. In May of this year, America's outstanding student loan debt surpassed $1.5 trillion. With the cost of college education and the debt needed to afford it growing each year, Americans are demanding action to lower the crushing costs of higher education; and thus it is imperative that we pass a comprehensive update to the Higher Education Act which deals with the full menu of Federal policy that will keep higher education affordable. Unfortunately, the majority has failed to bring HEA to the floor in that long overdue rewrite, and today we are only left with the Financial Counseling bill that we are going to vote on, which is just a sliver of what we need to do to build America's future workforce. In 2008, the last HEA was negotiated under then-Chairman George Miller and passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.…”