Political Quotes

“just briefly, first of all, both of the speakers on the other side of the aisle are men with whom I have worked extensively on this program as well as others, and they have the tremendous interests I think of the students, as we heard from their testimony here today, at heart, and I think everybody over here does as well. I do get a little frustrated I guess at some of the economic arguments here. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) pointed out that over the last 10 years we have increased the funding for IDEA by 360 percent, from $2.3 billion to $10.6 billion, and comparably, before that, the increases had never, ever gotten above 10 percent. We are up to 20 percent now, and we are on a glide path, if you will, to try to get to 40 percent before it is all said and done. I think it is important to understand that because of the court- ordered aspect and the way IDEA was born, that the States have the responsibility to make up that difference. So, essentially, when we pick up that extra amount of money, we are basically letting the States spend that money on something else, which may or may not be disabilities. Usually it is something else. And we are trying to continue to move that along and give the States fuller funding. But a tremendous effort has been done in a bipartisan way on that in the last 10 years. I just want to make sure that that is recognized. I appreciate the comments from everybody on both sides of the aisle on this.…”