Political Quotes

“We have held hearings in 16 different States. We asked that basic question. We asked them, what value is Washington adding to your educating your kids locally? The answer came back, we like your money, but other than that, you are not doing much for us. As a matter of fact, in some cases, you are hurting us because what is happening is you are sending us some money that we need, and we are spending it the way you are telling us to. But if we really looked at the kids in our classroom, if we looked at the kids in our community and identified what we really wanted to do with that money, we might spend it on something else. So what we are going to do tomorrow with dollars in the classroom is two things. We are going to not increase Washington spending, but what we are proposing is saying, instead of 60 to 70 cents of every dollar getting back to the classroom, let us get that to 95 cents of every dollar getting back to the classroom. That is a 25 percent increase in Federal spending without us spending anymore because we are just being more effective and more efficient in how we get that money down there.”