In a time of tight budgets, difficult choices have to be made. We must make sure our very limited resources are spent on priorities. I believe we should have no higher priority than investing in our children's classrooms and in their future.

We must now view our problems as opportunities - historic opportunities to change the failed systems of the past and do what's right for our future.

According to our Christian ethics, we're supposed to love God, love each other and help take care of the poor. It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax.

Government does not create jobs. It only helps create the conditions that make jobs more or less likely.

I think you'd change Alabama fundamentally if in six years someone said, 'If you want the best education in America, you've got to live in Alabama.' you'd change economic development, change the image of this state, you'd offer these kids an opportunity they otherwise would never have had.

If my house is on fire, I don't need the fire chief telling me I should not have built the house out of wood. I need somebody to put the fire out.

Ladies and gentlemen: There can be no greater investment in Alabama's future than an investment in education.