Political Quotes

“I am amazed to see H.R. 2746 here again today. These are from the same folks who a few weeks ago characterized government-owned schools as a communist legacy. So now we have H.R. 2746 here to talk about how we are really going to educate children. Our Nation has the ability to provide the highest quality of public education in the world, but the question remains, who will receive this education? My Republican colleagues' answer is with the HELP Scholarship Act, again, a voucher program. The HELP Scholarship Act is a school voucher program that is intended to do nothing but harm public education because it is taking money out of what should be going to public education. This bill does nothing for the Nation's 50 million students who attend public schools. We are not defending public education here on the floor today by opposing this bill. We are defending those 50 million children who are in public education and need more resources, but they are taking away even current resources, money that should be used to improve the public schools and instead will go to a small number of students to pay for private and parochial schools. Private and parochial schools are great, but they should not have public funds to do it. This bill is not only unfair to those 50 million children who will not be able to participate, but I consider public education is an American legacy, not a communist legacy.”