Tom Harkin: “I want to speak a couple minutes on my amendment. The amendment we will be voting on has to do with school construction.…”

“I want to speak a couple minutes on my amendment. The amendment we will be voting on has to do with school construction. Actually 3 years ago, this Congress appropriated almost $1 billion for school construction around the United States. This money has gone out to States all over the country. Some of it has been used and some of it still is going out for construction and renovation purposes. But what it has done is leveraged for every Federal dollar about $15 or $20 of local money. So we are getting a heck of a bang for the buck by putting money into school construction and renovation. That happened in Iowa, and it is happening in every other State in the country. The American Society of Civil Engineers 3 years ago gave a report card on the infrastructure of America, and they gave the schools a D minus, the lowest grade of any category, lower than sewer and water and highways and everything else. They said schools were a D minus 3 years ago. Just yesterday they came out with their report card again and said there has been no progress at all.”