Political Quotes

“Today parents have a choice of a second job, a second mortgage, or dipping into their savings to help pay for their kids' college education, and that is the wrong choice to ask parents to make. In Illinois, tuition last year went up, increases of 14.5 percent, the fourth largest increase of any State in America. Today when a kid graduates from college, they graduate with an average of $15,000 of debt. So on the front page they get a diploma, and on the back side, they get their first credit card bill. That is the wrong choice for America. You could not write the American decade if you didn't look at the GI bill and making a high school education universal in America. Those are the two most significant economic acts of the last 100 years. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle noted two examples. One, they are worried about the deficit. After $4 trillion of new debt, I appreciate your conversion to concern about increasing the deficit, but there is no deficit spending here. Second, and most importantly, they talk about the importance of the Pell Grants. This is after, in fact, the President's budget cut Pell Grants one year $1 billion, and froze it for the last 3 years. We are doing the right investment. Not one of us would be in this institution if it wasn't for two things: the love of our parents and the access to a higher education. We are providing Americans something different from the last 6 years.”