I am very heartened to hear about your determination in reopening schools full time.

I really want to flag this, because I can tell you, the political opposition to what I consider a bipartisan bill and something we ought to be working on together is growing and it is growing across the political spectrum.

A proposed 41 percent increase for the Department of Education in a single year will leave the next generation saddled with the highest national debt our Nation has ever seen.

I think most of my Republican colleagues share that view. We think we live in an extraordinarily dangerous world right now.

You are spot on in terms of the need and the importance of forward funding those programs to protect them, just like we do the veterans program.

the biggest single problem we have is just the shortage of trained professionals and probably anything you could do to incentivize the education of more professionals.

I simply think that is a wrong sense of priority.

Madam Chair, you are the chair of this subcommittee and the full committee. I don't think you have to apologize to anybody when you take some time.

I believe we can do better than that for these students and for our future.

First, to all of you, thank you for your testimony. Just superb testimony, as the chairwoman said, across the board.

I love the Appropriations Committee. I mean, I really tell people I don't care if you are on the left or the right, the appropriators are deal makers in the end.

I think we can make those efforts bipartisan.

I was pleased to see support for special education.

This proposal, in my view, exacerbates that.

But that registry notice did not unite us. It is doing quite the opposite.

Again, there is a big unanimity across very many different perspectives here that is actually very helpful to us as a committee.

I agree with your statement we should not be dictating curriculum at the Federal level.

We need to look toward some way to get at least some mandatory funding.

I appreciate your remarks, by the way, honoring our teachers.

The level of proposed spending is simply unnecessary, irresponsible, and unacceptable.

Rep. Tom Cole and Rep. Betty McCollum championed an amendment in the Rules Committee to strike Section 3003 from the NDAA.

Shame on us if we miss the opportunity to actually reclaim our authority when we actually have an administration that wants to help us.

I think forcing Congress to put its fingerprints on these kind of decisions is really something that we need to do.

Frankly, there is no topic more important or serious than Congress' authority to declare when, where, and how our Nation chooses to go to war.

it is very difficult when it is a President of your own party