Rob Bishop: “the first chart that will eventually come up here, and I am sorry about this, indicates the States in the United States…”

“the first chart that will eventually come up here, and I am sorry about this, indicates the States in the United States that have the hardest time increasing their education funding. This is where the funding is growing the slowest. You notice the common denominator with these is not an attitude towards education, it is that most of these are land-based States. The land has been taken away from us to develop a property tax base. Fortunately, God has given us resources underneath that to compensate for that. But any program that would retard the leases or the royalties that will come from those will harm education in Western States. My kids in Utah will be put at a disadvantage because of this particular amendment. There is collateral damage that takes place with amendments, and one of those deals with education. If you can look at this chart in the proper way, this chart shows the salaries that are given for first-year teachers in Wyoming versus the salaries on average for fourth-year teachers in Montana. Now, this should not be that way, because Montana has the fewest amount of public lands of any of the Western States. They have more of a property tax base. The difference is Wyoming has the resources that they have developed, which allows them simply to put more money into their education system. My colleagues who are still teachers deserve a decent salary, they deserve a decent retirement, we deserve the right to build our public schools.”