Political Quotes

“Dollars for the classroom is nothing more than a hollow sound and it is a joke, because what we are talking about is cutting the allocation to where every single district in my State would lose $12 million of money they badly need, and every other State loses money. These are the statistics I have read and have come from the department. I served at the State level. I know what it takes. I hear this talk about paperwork, and it is true. But the truth is, usually it is not Federal paperwork, it is either State or local. People want to point to and use that as a reason not to send money. Let me tell my colleagues what happens with block grants. I have been out there where block grants come from. But before I was the State superintendent of schools, I chaired the Committee on Appropriations of my State for 4 years, so I know how to use block grants. We send them out, and that is the best way I know; the next time comes there is a nice fat cut and we say oh, by the way, we are going to cut you this much and it is your job to reduce the administrative cost in it. And then pretty soon if you cannot get any more, you say well, you know, the problem with this program, we do not have enough accountability or enough money, so we are just going to cut out the program.”