Political Quotes

“I would like to also compliment the bipartisan leadership in bringing this bill to this particular point, and in recognizing that it has traveled many miles. One particular mile left to go is as it pertains to special education. I disagree with my colleague who says that this has to be put off for a year before we substantially will be able to go through a reauthorization period. I do not question the reauthorization time frame, but I do recognize that back at home, where we did increase funding, we started out at a very low level. So a 50 percent increase, while it sounds great and large, really in terms of property taxpayers and children and families with special needs and special education, really it has only gotten up a smaller percentage of where we made a commitment to the communities and school districts throughout this country when the Federal Government 25 years ago said we would cover 40 percent of the cost. All we have done is shifted those costs onto the property taxpayers, because we have regulations that say they have to comply. So we have a substantially unfunded Federal mandate that needs to be corrected. We need to do it now, because we are not going to have the budget surplus, if we have a surplus at all, to be able to deal with this; and it is better to act now when there are so many others that are trying to attempt to get at that particular budget in the resources that are being made available.”