Jumping Our Business Strength (Jobs) Act

JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT-CONTINUED

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased today to rise in support of the amendment offered by Senators GRASSLEY and BAYH that would extend certain tax provisions to prevent their expiration.

The Grassley-Bayh amendment contains a number of useful provisions, but one in particular that I commend to my colleagues would extend for two more years the $250 deduction provided to teachers who purchase supplies for their classrooms out of their own pockets. Senator Warner and I were the principal authors of this law.

This is a modest, but appropriate, step toward recognizing the invaluable services that teachers provide each and every day to our children and to our communities. So often teachers in Maine, and throughout the country, spend their own money to improve the classroom experiences of their students. While many of us are familiar with the National Education
Association's estimate that teachers spend, on average, $400 a year on classroom supplies, a more recent survey demonstrates that they are spending even more than that. According to a report released last year by Quality Education Data, the average teacher spends more than $520 a year out of pocket on school supplies.

I have visited more than 100 schools in Maine, and everywhere I go, I find teachers who are spending their own money to improve the educational experiences of their students by supplementing classroom supplies.

The teacher tax relief we passed overwhelmingly in the last Congress was a step in the right direction. As Tyler Nutter, a middle school math and reading teacher from North Berwick, ME, told me, "It's a nice recognition of the contributions that many teachers have made." I commend the authors of this amendment for including the extension of the Collins-Warner Teacher Tax Credit on this important piece of legislation, and I invite all of my colleagues to join us in recognizing our teachers for a job well done.