Political Quotes

“my goal in Congress has been the promotion of livable communities. A community that is safe, healthy and economically secure must make the education of our children a priority. The well-being of our families depends on the federal government adequately funding health, education and worker protection programs. Today's Labor-HHS Appropriations bill is a step in the right direction. It triples the President's proposed rate of new educational investment and significantly increases funding for health care and worker protection programs. The bill increases education funding by $7.0 billion over last year's level, and $4.7 billion over the President's request. Over the last 5 years, the average annual rate of new educational investment has been 13%. The Bush budget proposed to cut this rate in half to only 5.5%, but the bill passed today increases this to almost 17%--the highest in a decade. Today's bill increases Title 1 funding, special education funding and teacher training and class size reduction funding by over $1 billion. These vital funds will help schools to hire up to 20,000 teachers to reduce class sizes and provide intensive, high quality and sustained professional development to as many as 825,000 teachers. I applaud the Appropriations committee for approving a bill that does so much for health care in America.”