Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am the sponsor of House Resolution 1641, celebrating September 30, 2010, as the 60th anniversary of the Impact Aid program. Hawaii schools received $55.5 million in Federal Impact Aid for fiscal years 2008 and 2009, the most recent years for which data is available. The majority of public school funding in America comes from local property taxes. Unfortunately, in school districts where the Federal Government controls part of the land, districts cannot collect revenue in local property taxes. Hawaii, for example, hosts many large U.S. military bases where thousands of our brave men and women and their families live and work. These bases do not generate property tax revenue to help educate Hawaii's military children and all of our children in Hawaii's schools. In Hawaii, as in other States, our national parks, Federal prisons, Indian lands, and low-rent public housing also decrease the property tax revenue available for schools. Left uncorrected, our children in federally impacted areas would have less funding for education than their peers in areas with no Federal impact. This is patently unfair. In 1950, Congress recognized the need to address this inequity and created Impact Aid, the original civil rights education law.”