Political Quotes

“I introduced this amendment with a bipartisan group of cosponsors, Senators Collins of Maine, Byrd of West Virginia, Feinstein of California, Voinovich of Ohio, and Ensign of Nevada. Its purpose is to reauthorize--in fact, to save--the Opportunity Scholarship Program or OSP for students here in the District of Columbia. We are introducing our amendment to this legislation, and I use the word ``save'' because without prompt action by Congress, there is a reasonable probability that the OS Program, the scholarship program, will not just be limited to the number of students who are in it now-- and, in fact, there have not been any new students admitted in the last 2 years--but it will be doomed. As I explained here on the floor of the Senate yesterday, the current administrator has advised Secretary Duncan that it will no longer--the administrator being a corporation, an entity--that it will no longer administer the program without a reauthorization. No other entity has yet expressed a willingness to take over, given the constraints imposed by Congress. So despite President Obama's intent, stated in his budget message to continue this program, admittedly only for those 1,300-plus students currently participating in it, it appears that even that will become impossible. I think that would be a tragic result.”