Todd Rokita: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for organizing this here tonight. I think the gentleman is…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for organizing this here tonight. I think the gentleman is exactly right. We need leadership. Leaders are supposed to lead. When you look at what the gentleman rightly put here on the House floor in terms of the stack of work that sits in Harry Reid's--the Senate majority leader's--in-box, you realize what leadership isn't, and that is a real problem. If my constituents, Mr. Speaker, saw that pile in my in-box, I don't know how much longer I would last. I wonder what the citizens and voters and taxpayers of Nevada think at this point. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, I rise today to discuss with my colleagues the importance of improving education in our country. This House has done excellent work in that regard. We understand here in the House--and parents, teachers, and school administrators are all too aware--that the current state of our education system threatens the American Dream for the current and future generations of students. I know that we want to help create a better world and the possibility of a better life for our young students. Leaving the world in better shape than we found it is as much a part of our American exceptionalism as is the freedom we enjoy that allows us to pursue the American Dream.…”