Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. I support this legislation because it will save and create 319,000 American jobs--many of them in the education and health sectors. In less than a month, millions of American students will return to school eager to begin a new year of academic and personal growth. However, the quality of the schools they return to is a matter to be determined. Throughout the country, thousands of teachers have lost, or risk losing, their jobs. This is something our children and our educators can ill afford. As we work to regain economic ground, this legislation provides a total of $10 billion in funding for education jobs to sustain thousands of schools educating millions of children. Moreover, this includes $830.2 billion dollars for primary and secondary schools in the state of Texas. I am pleased that this legislation includes a provision that requires Governor Perry to certify that these emergency appropriations for public education will be used solely to add new funds for public education and not misused for other purposes. We all recall what happened last year when Governor Perry misused the Economic Recovery Act State Stabilization funds. In that instance, Governor Perry used $3.2 billion in similar aid last year as a substitute for, not an addition to, state aid to school districts. That was outrageous.…”