Political Quotes

“today I introduced, along with Senator Murkowski and 22 other Senators S. 1692, the County Payments Reauthorization Act of 2011. The bill would provide dependable funding to support public schools, transportation infrastructure, and other critical county programs in more than 1,900 counties in 49 States. Specifically, it would continue to fund for 5 more years the Payments In Lieu of Taxes Program, and it would reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The Secure Rural Schools Act expired at the end of September. Economists have long said that funding for local governments not only provides one of the most efficient and immediate ways to create and save jobs, it also helps to ensure that essential community services on which economic growth depends are maintained. These programs have proven that point in recent years. They have been lifelines for financially strapped rural counties and the thousands of Americans they employ and they contract with. They employ a multitude of public school teachers, support countless miles of county road projects, fund thousands of collaborative forest and watershed restoration projects, and pay for hundreds of community wildfire risk reduction programs in all parts of the country. I would like to give one example from my home State of New Mexico. Many of my colleagues may know that the Wallow fire this summer grew to become the largest fire in the history of Arizona.…”