Paul Coverdell: “I first want to make clear, this is a bipartisan legislative effort. The chief cosponsor of this legislation is Senator…”

“I first want to make clear, this is a bipartisan legislative effort. The chief cosponsor of this legislation is Senator Torricelli of New Jersey. When this legislation was before the Senate last, it received 59 favorable votes, Republican and Democrat. The first point is this is a bipartisan bill. It has received significant passionate and dedicated support from both sides of the aisle. There is no one who has fought harder for the legislation, as I said, than Senator Torricelli from New Jersey. He has been rather courageous about it, candidly. The second point I wish to make is to frame the nature of the overall bill. The component that gets talked about the most is the education savings account, which we know will benefit about half the elementary school population in the United States. Fourteen million families, we estimate, will open an education savings account for their children. They will be the parents of about 20 million kids. That is just under half the entire population going to kindergarten through high school.”