Political Quotes

“obviously the gentleman does not listen any more than he listens in committee. I did not say we passed 21 bills into law. I made it very clear that we passed 21 bills out of the committee. I also mentioned that we passed Head Start, Higher Ed, Job Training, Special Ed, Voc Ed, Child Nutrition. If the President wants to sign them, they are there on his desk; let him sign them, they are there. And let me also tell my colleagues about Reading Excellence. I re- wrote the Reading Excellence bill. The trash that came up from downtown was ridiculous. It had nothing to do with preparing teachers in order to be better teachers of reading. It had nothing to with helping parents become reading ready. I rewrote it, it is there, it is in the omnibus, it will be part of the law when the President decides to sign it. Let me also mention that if my colleagues want to fix school buildings, if they want to reduce class size, they should put their money where their mouth is. For 30 years they have had a bill here, they had 100 percent mandate back to the district on special ed. They said, ``We'll send you 40 percent of the excess costs,'' the most expensive piece of legislation ever passed, the most extensive, and what did they do? When I became chairman, they were sending 6 percent or at least up to 11 or 12 percent at the present time.…”