Political Quotes

“H.R. 2211 is a good bill. As its name suggests, the Ready to Teach Act works to ensure that our children, our future, are taught by well-prepared and qualified teachers. It also supports our schools so that they are able to recruit and retain the teachers who give so much of themselves for the children of others. We will pass this bill today; and in doing so, we all agree that the country needs the Federal Government to spend $300 million on teacher preparation and retention; but in fact, we will not spend that much on teacher preparation and retention. The President has asked that we spend only $90 million or 30 percent of what we today all agree is necessary. Why? Yesterday we passed the defense spending bill that spends $8.9 billion on a missile system which does not work; and today we will pass an education bill that, if fully funded, would work, but we will not fully fund it. There is money for education. We could reallocate the $8.9 billion for missile defense and put it into education.”