Steven Gunderson: “I regret we are not here passing a comprehensive careers bill. I regret, like Mr. Clay, that there was any political…”

“I regret we are not here passing a comprehensive careers bill. I regret, like Mr. Clay, that there was any political activity that was in any way involved in this, and I think we all ought to make sure that does not happen again. But having said all that, I rise in strong support of this bill because if this is the best that we can do this session, then this is exactly what we should do. Many of us are aware that we tried to define priorities in this Congress, balancing the budget, figuring out what programs ought to still be a primary Federal role and which ones ought not. I think there is little doubt in this body on a bipartisan basis that we have come to that point in time when Sallie Mae and Connie Lee no longer justify being Government-sponsored enterprises. More than that, they do not want to continue to be Government-sponsored enterprises constrained by those restrictions. And, more than that, by privatizing them, we actually can make some money that we can direct toward other human resource programs that are so important.”