Rob Bishop: “in a prior existence, I spent eight terms in the Utah legislature and 28 years as a public classroom teacher. And in…”

“in a prior existence, I spent eight terms in the Utah legislature and 28 years as a public classroom teacher. And in both of these situations I recognized, first of all, as a legislator, the capacity of the State to fund public education. And as a teacher, I understood firsthand the need for adequate funding of education. And it seemed as if in all cases there was some gigantic blockage that made it impossible for those two needs to kind of coalesce together. Well, today I am a Member of this august body, I am a member of the Federal Government, and I have identified what I think is that blockage that made it so difficult to bring these two needs together. That blockage is we. It is the Federal Government. It is the amount of land that the Federal Government owns. Like a dam in a creek that artificially stops the flow of water in that creek, there is a dam on the stream of funds for kids, and that dam is the biggest landowner this side of the Soviet Union: we, the Federal Government. Let me try and illustrate what I am talking about. If you look at this first map, notice the States that are in red. These are the States that have the most difficult time of increasing their funds and their commitment to public education. And you will notice that these red States are predominately in the West. Twelve of the 15 States with the slowest growth in public education funding are actually found in the West. And it is a significant difference.…”