Tom Cole

These are actually the places where the American people want us to be making continual investments.

We talk a lot in Congress about the differences and get covered, but there are lots of things the chair and I work together on.

This is a program, as the chair knows, that she and I have worked on together for 7 years.

Doctor, we would love to put you out of business.

We seem to divide the body up. There is the head, and then there is from the neck down.

We are going to try to balance the two in terms of doing traditional research and then looking at the institute.

Your profession is pretty ably represented on our full committee by Mike Simpson from Idaho.

This is a problem I know the chair and I have wrestled with for many years.

I want to join you in thanking Mr. Jenkins for his service in uniform, but also suggesting that perhaps the service, Mr. Jenkins, you are doing now may be even more important than that.

Frankly, I don't think there is any other subcommittee that has anything like the number of people that want to come and participate, and it actually underscores something our chair likes to say quite frequently, that this is the people's…

Well, thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you for holding this hearing.

I would ask you--and you acknowledged this--to look at Impact Aid and Indian education.

I would ask you to really look carefully, Mr. Secretary, at this charter school issue.

Mr. Cole. I would appreciate it, because I agree very much with your basic point.

I have district concerns in both those areas. We have, as you know, a large Native population in Oklahoma.

I would like you to at least consider delaying changes to the program--these are pretty major changes--until next fiscal year.

Quite frankly, the regulations, in our view, would dismantle, you know, frankly, a successful Federal, State, and local partnership that really has enabled millions of children to have a public education.

Programs like civics education should be used to bring our country together and focus on our own commonalities while teaching respect for our differences.

I have introduced legislation called the, quote, 'can't Cancel Your Own Debt Act,' to prohibit Members of Congress from voting to forgive their own student loans.

Not only is this inflationary, but there are also people making literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year who aren't being asked to repay their student loans.

I believe that States, not the U.S. Department of Education, should continue to be responsible for what charters they do or do not authorize.

I agree with the 18 Republican Governors who have recently called for your department to pull back proposed regulations.

I believe to be executive overreach on the charter schools policy.

I take considerable pride in the fact that for 7 years in a row you and I have managed to get this bill across the line.

I want to reiterate again thank you, thank you, thank you for the bold stance that you took with respect to how we fund the Indian Health Service.