[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2805-H2809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2215
THE SCHOOL NUTRITION PROGRAMS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Duncan). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to advise the Speaker
that at some point in the discussion I will be yielding to my
colleague, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Clyburn], to enter
into a colloquy.
Mr. Speaker, on Monday of this week I had the opportunity to meet
with young students at Kenilworth Middle School in Baton Rouge, LA. I
had an opportunity to meet with them for breakfast and talk with them
about the school lunch program and the breakfast program. At that
breakfast meeting, Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to see young
students with real dreary eyes, and they were not Democrats, they were
not Republicans. They were simply hungry. They wanted the opportunity
to have breakfast and go to class and start the class day. At lunch
they had an opportunity, after staying in school for 4 hours, or so, to
go to lunch.
But one student had asked a very significant question. He walked up
to me after a briefing that we did at the school, and he asked the
question, he said, ``Congressman Fields, what is a rescission?'' And I
explained to him that a rescission was something that you rescind,
something that you take away, something that you grant and then at a
later time you take it away, and I guess I want to start tonight
explaining what actually took place and what is taking place here in
Congress and what took place in the subcommittee and the full committee
as relates to the rescissions that are taking place in education.
Last year we had an opportunity to review the budget and review the
priorities of this country, and we granted different budget items, and
now we find ourselves in this Congress rescinding many of the dollars
that we were able to allocate last year. Many local school boards, many
local governments, and many people in many departments across the
country find themselves in a very awkward position preparing for their
fiscal year, relying on the confidence of Washington, the Congress, as
a result of them approving a budget in 1994, and now we find ourselves
here rescinding the very dollars that we committed to them.
Now, I rise tonight because I represent, Mr. Speaker, a very, very
poor district. Last year I represented the poorest congressional
district in the entire country, but because of redistricting, now I
represent the second poorest congressional district in the country.
It really amazes me, because according to the Center on Budget and
Policy Priority, 53 percent of all of the rescissions fall on the backs
of poor people, low-income people in America, and I want to talk a
little bit about how these rescissions will affect my own State, the
State of Louisiana.
Nationally, $5 billion will be cut from the school lunch program. How
would that affect Louisiana? one hundred sixty four million dollars in
the school lunch program, the nutrition program, will be taken away
from the State of Louisiana.
Now, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle argue that,
``We did not cut funding for school lunch and school nutrition
programs. We, in fact, increase funding.'' Increase is in the eye of
the beholder.
Let us talk a little bit about the increase versus
the decrease. I submit to you today, Mr. Speaker, there was an
actual decrease, because last year we committed a 5.2-percent increase
for 1995. This year we rescind that, and we only give a 4-percent
increase. So according to my mathematical knowledge, that is a 1.2-
percent decrease in the school lunch program. The difference in the
annual increase will result in the loss of $1.3 billion nationally and
$78 million to Louisiana. That is how much money the State of Louisiana
will lose as a result of this rescission package.
Now, Louisiana has a very strong reputation in the area of school
lunches. I am proud to stand on the floor of the House tonight and
state that Louisiana is right at the very top as it relates to its
nutrition program, and they should be commended for that.
Now, there is also the need to be some clarity as it relates to what
type of lunch programs we are talking about, because many people when
you say school lunch, many people think it is free lunch. There are
actually three tiers of the school lunch, many people think it is free
lunch. There are actually three tiers of the school nutrition program.
First, there is the free-lunch students who can take advantage of the
free-lunch programs. Students can take advantage of the reduced-price
lunch program, or they can take advantage of just paying the regular
cost.
And the way this program is set up under the current law, if a family
income is 130 percent of the poverty level or less, they receive free
lunch; 185 percent of the poverty level or less, they receive reduced
lunches; and those families that are more than 185 percent of the
poverty level, they receive a simple, regular lunch.
If you look at the statistics, you find most schools cannot even
maintain their school lunch program based on the revenues from free
lunch or reduced lunch and, therefore, those individuals who come to
school every day and are able to have the wherewithal to pay the full
price for lunch or breakfast actually help sustain the lunch program.
Under this proposal, many of those individuals will be basically
knocked away.
The other problem is 57 percent of all students actually participate
in the school lunch program. In Louisiana 76 percent of the people, of
the students, who attend public school, attend school in Louisiana,
participate in the school lunch program. That is 622,000 students in
Louisiana that take advantage of the school lunch program.
Why do we have such a disproportionate number in Louisiana versus the
national average? The national average is 57 percent, Louisiana 76
percent. Well, because Louisiana is a poor State. That is one of the
problems I have with this school lunch program, the revised version,
the rescission package that passed the committee. What is going to
happen is it is not going to award States that have a very, very high
poverty rate. It only awards States based on their participation in the
lunch program, based on the number of students who participate in the
school lunch program.
In my State, I am going to be judged by other States that are very,
very wealthy States. They do not have the
[[Page H2806]] poverty rate that we have in Louisiana. As a result, we
are going to get a disproportionate amount of money appropriated to our
State simply because this formula that this committee adopted did not
give any deference whatsoever to those States that have a high, high
poverty level.
Let us talk a little bit about how this block grant will actually
work and how it will affect local government. But most local
governments, they like the idea of block grants, because they feel they
have the opportunity to manage their own affairs. That sounds great,
Mr. Speaker.
{time} 2230
That sounds great, Mr. Speaker, but the problem with that, first of
all, it gives local governments the opportunity to cut 20 percent or to
use 20 percent of the 100-percent funding in that block grant for
something else. They do not have to use it for school nutrition, so we
are going to be sending money to local governments with a blindfold,
money that is appropriated for the purpose of feeding children, who
cannot afford to buy meals, children who can only pay a reduced price
for their meals, and students who, in fact, can pay the full price, 20
percent of these dollars can be allocated for other programs. So that
is a 20-percent cut in and of itself, so we are not actually allocating
a hundred percent block grant. We are only allocating an 80-percent
block grant.
We also give a 2-percent--give local governments the opportunity to
use 2 percent for administrative costs, so that is, in fact, 22 percent
that would not go on the tables of cafeterias all across the State of
Louisiana and cafeterias all across American, and I think that is a
crying shame, to add insult to injury. The whole though and the whole
idea of giving local governments the opportunity to manage their own
affairs--from people, for many of my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle, they say the reason we want to do that is because we want to
cut out the bureaucracy, we want to cut out the Federal Waste. But what
we actually do is we create more bureaucracy. I would be the last to
say or state on this floor that Federal Government is not a
bureaucracy, but what we are doing is we are dismantling the Federal
bureaucracy, and we are creating 50 separate State bureaucracies under
this program that passed the house.
The other problem that I have with it, and the biggest problem that I
have with this proposal, is that it gives no consideration what so ever
to what we feed children. We put the blindfold on, and we send millions
upon millions of dollars to the States, and we do not them that they
have to feed children a balanced meal.
Now, my God, if the Federal government does not have an interest in
the well-being of individual students in this country, then what do we
have an interest in? Why should we not make it a requirements of every
State who receives one of these block grants, participate and live up
to a certain nutrition standard?
I, along with other members of my--of other colleagues of mine will
be introducing legislation, introducing amendments trying to amend this
legislation so we can take out the 20 percent. We are going to be
making serious attempts on this floor to try and take out the
percentage that gives local governments the opportunity to just use
money however they see fit. We are going to try to put nutritional
standards within this block grant proposal because we feel that it will
be a step in the wrong direction to just give States an opportunity to
take--to use money and not give them any guidelines in terms of
nutrition.
States, some States, may adopt policies. I think the fast-food market
will just take over the school system at school lunch programs. We are
going to be serving our kids french fries, and who is to say one State
would not choose to choose to serve kids peanut butter and jelly? No
standards whatsoever.
Mr. God, do we not have an interest in what children eat? But
according to this proposal we do not. But do we have an interest in
what we feed prisoners? Yes, we do.
It is a crying shame in this country that this very Congress, we
appropriate $10 billion to build more prisons, and another 20 billion
for more prisons and other programs for prisoners, and every prisoner
that walks into a jail cell receives three balanced meals a day, and
they regulate it, and if they do not receive one, they can complain,
and then the Federal courts in this country will come to their rescue,
and the Justice Department will come to their rescue, but we are going
to have child who walk into school houses all across this Nation,
trying to learn, get a decent education, and then when that stomach
growls, walk to the cafeteria. There is no guarantee any one of them
will receive a balanced meal. But if you are a prisoner, you can
receive a balanced meal. So I think it is wrong that we choose to try
to fix something that is not broke.
I want to also Mr. Speaker, about infant mortality, another
rescission, $25 million from Food and nutrition services, WIC. Only
$3.5 billion remain. Fifty to a hundred expectant parents, expectant
mother, women pregnant, just cut off the rolls.
In my State I take a moment of personal privilege because in my State
we lead the Nation in infant mortality. We have more babies that die
after they are born in Louisiana than from anything else.
So I just think this Federal Government should have an interest in
children once they are born, and the only way you can have an interest
in children once they are born is by taking an interest in the mother
while she is pregnant. That is the way we reduce infant mortality rates
in this Nation.
According to GAO, WIC saves $3.50 for every dollar we spend, so this
is, in fact, a cost savings. We are now going to spend less money by
cutting this nutrition program by $25 million. We are going to spend
more money. Healthy Start and other very, very important programs for
expectant mothers cut. One hundred million dollars remain, $10 million
cut, not to mention elementary and secondary education infrastructure.
I mean every time I walk into a school house in my own State and many
States across this country, many times the ceilings leak, the air
condition does not work, heating system does not work, kids in
buildings that were built in the 1950's, lead paint, asbestos, and here
we have the audacity to take $100 million for infrastructure for public
schools and in the same breath appropriate $10 billion to build more
jails.
And we tell our kids that in the future--education is the future.
Teach the children well, and let them lead the way. I believe the
children are our future, and we take $100 million in building schools
and building schools' infrastructure so they can be safe, and we spend
$10 billion more in building jails.
So, if you are a prisoner in this country, you get three square meals
a day, and you walk into a prison where the air condition works during
the summertime, the heat works during the wintertime, and the ceilings
do not leak. But if you are a kid, wants to get an education in this
country, your food program is in jeopardy. No standards for national
nutrition. Your ceilings will continue to leak, air condition will
continue to not work, and you may freeze during the wintertime, but we
care about your education, and we care about our children.
You know, 86 percent of the people who are in jail in this country
are high school dropouts for crying out loud. There are some serious
correlations between education and incarceration. If we reduce the
drop-out rate, then we can reduce the prison rate, and it just appears
that we put more time and emphasis on putting people in jail than we do
in educating a young child. Twenty-eight to $30,000 a year to
incarcerate a prisoner, but, if you are a child, we only spend about
$4,000 a year to educate you. We have kids who walk in public school
every day that do not have a book for a subject, and I think there is
something wrong with that, and we continue to cut money from education.
Public broadcasting, another rescission, $141 million cut over 2
years. Promise that we have made to kids all across America, it is cut,
and I commend the Speaker who decided to give $2,000 a year to public
broadcasting. But with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, $2,000 compared to
$141 million does not even come close. How can one cut $141 million out
of a program and then
[[Page H2807]] write a check for 2,000 and expect people to be happy
and kids to jump for joy?
We know about the violence that we have on our networks. I mean last
year we debated that issue in committee. We had all the major networks
to come to this Congress, and thank God for our Attorney General
Janet Reno who tried to make these individuals more responsive in
their programming, and yet we still take away this very viable, clean,
wholesome opportunity for children to learn.
Twenty-eight million dollars we take out of the drop-out program. How
much money remains? Zero. Why take issue with that? Because in my State
we lead the Nation in high school dropout. So I cannot be happy
tonight. When we were saying $28 million from a drop-out program, you
would think, based on this budget, we have no drop-out problem.
Everything in education is perfect. So now, kids, the message is it is
okay to drop out of school because we are not going to give any money
to try to keep you from dropping out.
Literacy program; you would think we led the Nation, lead the world,
in literacy. We all know that is not the case as much as I would like
to stand in this House tonight and say, ``America leads the world, all
of our citizens are literate, we don't have a drop-out problem, we
don't have an educational problem.'' If you look at this budget, you
would think that is the case, $54 million from literacy programs. Here
again a direct impact on the State I represent, direct impact on the
district that I represent. I have a literacy problem in the district I
represent, and in the State we rank high in the Nation.
You know, I was looking at this budget with staff the other day. I
said, ``Maybe Louisiana is not a member of this Union anymore, or maybe
the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Economic Opportunity
know nothing about Louisiana's statistics.''
Eleven point two million dollars for Trio program, a program that is
designed to help young people who are disadvantaged, who had a tough
start, who may have one parent at home versus two. Maybe the parent
died, one of the parents died. You know, I also take personal privilege
on that program, Mr. Speaker, because I am a product of that program,
as I am the lunch program. You know all parents, all kids, do not have
two parents because one parent walked out. Some kids have one parent
because one parent died, like it was in my case, and this government
thought enough of me to give me a Trio program to help me to give
teachers an incentive to help me believe in myself.
Do we still have that problem today? We know that the number of kids
who are coming from single parent households went up, did not go down.
Who does this budget represent?
Drug-free schools and communities, safe schools and drug-free
schools. Now it does not take a rocket scientist to know that in this
country we have a serious problem with drugs, and guns, and violence
within our schools. Does this budget represent that? Absolutely not.
How much money do we appropriate for safe and drug-free schools? Well,
we committed $481 million. We committed to Louisiana $10 million. They
have already planned to spend that money because there is a serious
problem there. How much did we put in this budget? Zero. We cut $481
million, the entire safe and drug-free schools budget, out of this
rescission package.
Now I do not know about in other States, but in Louisiana we have a
drug problem in schools and a violence problem in schools. We have kids
who bring guns to school. Problem needs to be addressed. And I do not
come from the school of thought that you just throw money at problems,
but you should have a structure there to assist teachers, and parents
and school administrators to deal with these very, very serious
problems.
{time} 2245
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Goals 2000 last year we appropriated $371
million. This year we took away $142 million. Louisiana, my State, will
lose $8,200,000, money that is needed to develop our educational
system. School improvement programs last year we appropriated $320
million. This year we took away $60 million.
How would it affect my own State? Seven million dollars the State
will receive, $1.3 million will be rescinded from the State. Education
for the disadvantaged, we appropriated in this Congress $6.7 billion.
We took away $105 million. Louisiana will lose $2.9 million as a result
of this recisioin package.
What about education for the homeless, children, and youth? We are
supposed to be family friendly. We appropriated last Congress $28
million. How much did we appropriate this year? Zero. We took it all
back. These are no monies for 1996. These are monies that we committed
for 1995. We just zeroed the budget.
How would it affect my State? Seven hundred ninety-five thousand
dollars in my State, gone. Do we have a children and youth problem and
homeless problem in our State? Yes.
Tech prep, I have received more faxes from people across my district
about this program. Vocational and adult education program, Federal
funding, we funded for 1995 $108 million. In this recision package we
took each and every dollar away from that program, $108 million
rescinded. In my State $2.2 million, gone.
Every student can't go to college. Every student--some students just
don't want to go to college. But should we say we should have nothing
between high school graduation and college? If you graduate from high
school, and you don't go to college, then no programs? I don't think
so. The only thing we got between school and college are jails. We
rescind all of the money for tech prep and educational programs that
helped kids.
State student initiative program, took away all that money. My State
will lose $901,000.
And let me start closing by talking a little bit about summer jobs
and yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
I really have real difficulty with the summer jobs program--I have
real difficulty with the elimination of the summer jobs program. One
point two million children will lose the opportunity to become employed
and educated over this summer. Many students use this as an opportunity
to buy school clothes, opportunity to buy school supplies.
And here again I take a moment of personal privilege. I guess I
reflect my district because I benefitted from many of these programs.
And it would be hypocritical for me to not stand on this floor and
defend some of these programs because maybe some people here think that
these programs are just pork-barrel programs and they don't really
affect real people.
I couldn't wait for the summer--not to play, not because we didn't
have school. I wanted--I was waiting for the summer because I was ready
to go to work. I wanted to be on somebody's payroll. I wanted to help
my mother buy my school clothes. I wanted to be able to buy books and
supplies.
Can you imagine not a student will be able to benefit from the summer
jobs program this summer? And we want to decrease crime? So not only
are we going to take mothers off welfare rolls, we want to take
students off payrolls.
How do we in good conscience in this Congress just wipe out a jobs
program for young people overnight? You have to have very little
conscience or just no idea how these programs affect people.
In Louisiana, for example, 19 million eliminated. How many summer
jobs? Thirteen thousand students in Louisiana will not go to work this
summer. What are they going to do? Well, we are building $10 billion
more in jails, putting $10 billion more in jails. It is almost the
attitude we are not going to give you a job, we are not going to
improve your schools, and we may not even give you lunch, but we are
going to give you a jail.
I can't go back to my district or to my State and tell 13,000 young
people that they don't deserve a summer job this summer. They are not
committing crimes. They are not on drugs. All they want to do is work.
They want to work. They want to wake up every morning, go to work, and
then come home at the end of the day.
And lastly, many say we do this to balance the budget. We ought to
cut some of these programs. I would be the last to state that we should
not cut the
budget. But I have strong debate and strong, strong opposition to this
rescission package because where are the
[[Page H2808]] cuts? It cuts innocent people, children, young people,
poor people, people who can put up the least amount of defense.
And if we really want to balance the budget, then why not rescind the
$14.4 billion that we are going to send outside of this country? How
can we tell kids in Texas and South Carolina and Louisiana--I certainly
can't go back to my direct and tell kids in Baton Rouge and Appaloosa
that they can't have a summer job but we are going to give Russia $1.2
billion. I cannot tell them that. I can't tell a child in one of the
high schools that you may not have a balanced meal but we are about to
send $1.2 billion in foreign aid to other countries.
How can you tell them they are not going to have a summer job when
you send economic aid to the tune of $2.3 billion outside of this
country?
How can you even tell them we cannot spend money on people in America
when we just signed a $20 billion note for Mexico?
Yes, I want a balanced budget, but if we are going to balance the
budget, let's be real. If we are really balancing the budget, then
let's not give Mexico a $20 billion loan and let's not give these other
countries $14 billion.
And I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for being patient, and
at this time I want to yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. CLYBURN. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of the 104th Congress I have become
increasingly alarmed at the rapid speed and harmful nature of much of
the legislation that we are passing on this floor. But as the gentleman
from Louisiana has just indicated, none has caused me more concern thus
far than the proposal that would actually take the food out of the
mouths of our Nation's youth.
I am referring of course to the legislative proposals that are before
us that would threaten the very survival of such programs as
supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children, better
known as WIC, and the school lunch program.
Now, the gentleman has gone through most of these and so I will not
be redundant and mention them, but there are a couple of other things
in addition to the feeding programs that I am particularly concerned
about.
For instance, if you look at this rescission package, one of the
things you will see in there will be rescissions that will take away
52,000 slots for dislocated workers. Now, I am particularly concerned
about that because just outside of my district, within my State, and,
of course, having a tremendous impact on my district, happens to be
that area down in Charleston where we just closed five Naval
installations and we have now begun to hand out pink slips to the
people who have worked 20, 30 years in those installations, and we, in
closing those installations, led people there to believe that we would
be there for them to help assist them as they seek other employment, as
they, in fact, become dislocated workers.
But here we are now, after all that has been done, we are now saying
to the people down there that we are going to pass legislation to
rescind at least 52,000 of those slots.
Now, I don't know how many of those will fall on people who live in
my congressional district. Though the naval base is not in my district,
many of the people who work there live in my district. All of
them are in South Carolina. And I feel as much responsibility for them
as I do the people who are in my district.
But we are United States Congress-people. And there are many other
sections in our country where dislocated workers are going to find
their futures dimmed tremendously because of these rescissions. And so
now we are going to see 52,000 fewer slots.
I do not believe that that is a fair way to go about trying to find
monies to balance the budget or to cut back on the so-called deficit.
The interesting thing in all of this is that I began to analyze what it
is that we plan to do with this money. I don't see that it is going in
that direction at all.
In fact, I have just read with some degree of interest what we are
planning to do with the new food stamp proposals. We are now saying
that we want to cut billions of dollars out of the food stamp program,
not to correct and do away with fraud. We are now saying we want to
balance the--or eliminate funds for the food stamp program so that we
can have enough money to fund a tax cut for people who make more than
$200,000 a year. That seems to be somehow the mind-set of many of the
people in this body. And I think that that is a tremendous
demonstration of the lack of compassion that I think all public
servants ought to have for those people among us who are less
fortunate.
But let's look at a couple of other things as well. The Department of
Labor has made a four-year commitment to funding 17 communities where
we have these youth fair chance programs. According to the rescission
package, approximately 2,000 at-risk youth per site will not be served
if we go forward with these rescissions.
But then we move from the youth, the most vulnerable among us, and go
over and look at the next most vulnerable among us, the elderly, and we
look at this rescission package and then we see 3,300 fewer elderly
workers will be provided employment opportunities in this program year.
Now, it is kind of interesting as we go through this rescission
package, we look at educational programs, educational programs for the
youth. We look at the Labor Department, their programs for people who
are considered to be disadvantaged and people who are the elderly.
Now, why is it necessary for us to only look in these directions in
order to find funds to cut back on the level of expenditures?
There are billions of dollars to be found in other areas. And many of
them, if we were to bring them to this floor, I would not only vote
for, but I would be a strong advocate helping to work the floor on
behalf of their passage.
{time} 2300
Mr. CLYBURN. But to focus on those who are the weakest, those who do
not have high powered lobbyists to argue their causes, to me is a bit
much for us to be doing, and so I want to congratulate the gentleman
from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] for bringing us here this evening to talk
about this rescission package because in the next day or two, we are
going to begin to focus. Now, I have had a lot of visitors in my office
in the last few days. I would be there at 7:30, I will be having
breakfast with people from the technical education people in my
community, vocation educational people are all here, wanting us to
really be sensible about some of these cuts.
But I want to mention one last area because I think it is so
important, and that is the area of literacy. The interesting thing,
there are three significant literacy programs that these rescissions
will just terminate; not cut back so that we will serve fewer people.
They are terminated altogether. The workplace literacy partnerships,
terminated. The literacy program for homeless adults, terminated. The
literacy program for prisoners, terminated. Here we are building more
prisons, and what we seem to be focused on is a warehousing of
prisoners. It would seem to me that we ought to be looking at ways to
rehabilitate people, and the best way I know to rehabilitate many of
the people who find their ways into our prison systems is to teach them
to read and write. We know that significant numbers of people who find
themselves incarcerated need basic literacy training, and here we are
terminating that program.
So what we are going to do, we will take a person off the street, the
person who does not know how to read or write, incarcerate that person
for a number of years, or what have you, under these new no-parole
programs we have got, and let them just sit there for five years or
whatever number of years and then when the time is up, turn them back
out on the street, not allow them an opportunity to learn to read or
write, and many other programs that we have already begun to take away
in other areas as well.
And so I plead with the Members of this body, I plead with the
influential people in the various communities across this country, to
use their influence with the Members of this body, to ask them to begin
to look seriously at the consequences of the actions that we take. What
it is that we can expect
[[Page H2809]] to get in return for the actions that we take here. Do
we really expect to build a better America, to build better people,
better communities by these kinds of actions? I don't think so. I do
think that we ought to feed our children. I do think that we ought to
take care of those people who find themselves in the twilight years of
their lives, and I do think that we ought to do what is necessary to
strengthen those who are the weakest links in our society and I believe
that we as a Nation will be better off because of it.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CLYBURN. Yes, I will be pleased to yield.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman for yielding. There
has been a lot of talk about contract and we often talk about our own
contract, our contract being the United States Constitution. Within our
contract, the preamble of our contract, which is the preamble to the
Constitution it states in no uncertain terms that we must promote the
general welfare of our citizens in our country. And it appears that
this rescission package certainly violates that contract, when you take
money away from kids in school, you take money away from summer jobs
and you put more kids on the street, but let me just add a couple of
other things.
Did the gentleman know that under the job training program, youth
training program that provides direct training to help economically
disadvantaged youth in my State, $7 million will be eliminated from
this program, cancelling about 2,500 young people's jobs this summer?
Did the gentleman further know that I have the poorest area in the
whole country in my State, in Lake Providence, and we have been
fighting very hard and profusely to get a job corps center and under
the 1995 budget. There were four new job corps centers in the budget
and the state--certainly Louisiana was an area that would fall right in
line with obtaining--appreciating one of those benefits. The benefits
of one of those programs, simply because it is so economically
depressed, particularly is teenagers. We have more teenagers who are
impoverished and who are dropping out of school than probably any other
state.
A total of 100,000 participants would be entirely canceled as a
result of this job corps reduction in this rescission package, and we
are going to have to cancel about 1,600 positions that we anticipated
that
we had the opportunity to get this program. Did the gentleman further
know that we talk about getting people off of welfare and adults need
to go out and learn a skill and go to work, but under this rescission
package how can people get out of welfare and learn a skill had we cut
funding for adult training?
I mean, employment training for adults and disadvantaged and
dislocated workers, as you stated, is eliminated. My State will lose
$700,000. And a thousand participants will be effected. That is going
to take place as soon as this rescission package passes this body and
the other body and perhaps signed by the man on Pennsylvania Avenue.
We didn't state the impact that it may have on housing. Let's talk a
little bit about those people who live in public housing, for crying
out loud, in this country. I think people in public housing need to
know that 63,000 families will lose housing assistance as a result of
this rescission package; 12,000 homeless families, homeless. These are
people who don't have homes. They are going to lose any kind of housing
assistance that they may be entitled to under this rescission package.
To add insult to injury, 2,000 disabled individuals. I just think that
is just a--it is almost a slap in the face, and I just want to close
with the damage that it does to veterans.
I mean, I don't know if the gentleman has served in the military, but
I know people in my district who have served in the military and I tell
you, nothing makes me prouder than to see a man in uniform who serves
this country. I mean, we sit and talk in this hall, in this Congress,
and we enjoy the freedoms of this country and we enjoy the protection
of this country, and we engage in debate and it is the kind of debate
where you are at one mike and I am at another, but these are people who
put their lives on the line and go and fight for our freedom so we can
be free and have this kind of exchange in a Democratic society.
But what do we do for them? Well, they are going to suffer $206
million in cuts, $50 million from equipment, $156 million in
construction projects, and approximately 171 hospitals and clinics will
be affected by the loss of this funding. I mean, if we can't protect
our children, can't protect our elderly, can't protect our veterans,
and particularly the poor, I mean, even the Bible says the poor shall
always be with us.
Mr. CLYBURN. If the gentleman would yield, I want to thank you very
much for mentioning the veterans cuts, because on tomorrow evening,
hopefully at an earlier hour than we are here at the moment, our
colleague from Florida, Ms. Corrine Brown, has organized a special
order in which we are going to go through all of these rescissions as
it relates to veterans, the two of us that serve on the Veterans
Affairs Committee, and we are very concerned about what these
rescission also mean to the veterans of our country.
{time} 2310
I had a significant number of DAV members in my office today,
Disabled American Veterans, talking about the impact that these
rescissions will have on them and you are talking about a contract.
This is breaking a contract. These people, we had a contract with them.
They went off to defend the Nation. They are now back, many of them
disabled, and we are now seeing that we are going to break faith with
them, if these rescissions go through, as well as proposed cuts for
future years. So tommorrow evening, we are going to spend an hour going
through those rescissions, section by section, and inform the American
people, especially those who served in the military, of the exact
impact that this is going to have on them.
So I thank the gentleman very much for bringing that up. That is why
I did not get into that this evening, because I plan to participate
tommorrow evening with the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Corrine Brown.
Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman for spending this time
with me on this special order. I thank the gentleman for making the
comments that he made about all the programs that are in this
rescission package.
Let me just close by simply saying, in basic contracts, when I was in
law school, Professor DeBassenet, who was my contract professor, taught
me, we often, I guess about almost half a semester we talked about what
is a contract. I learned that a contract was a manifestation to enter
into a bargain so made as to justify the other one's consent to that
bargain will conclude that bargain.
We entered into a contract with the American people. We entered into
that contract in 1994 in this hall, in this Congress. We told the
American people that we were going to fund this program and that
program, meaningful programs so that we could promote the general
welfare of this country. We come right herein 1995 and we rescind or
violate that contract. We call it a rescission, but it is not really a
rescission. It is a violation of the contract. We entered into a
contract with the American people. Now we are rescinding from what we
agreed to do. We are talking something away. Like that little kid at
Kenilworth who said, what is a rescission? It is when you rescind
something, when you take it away. We entered into a contract, and now
we are talking it away.
I want to thank the gentleman, and I want to thank the Speaker for
giving us the opportunity to talk about these very important issues. I
certainly hope that my colleagues, once this debate reaches this floor,
really will just put away their partisanship, throw away their
Democratic buttons, throw away their Republican buttons, but do not
though throw away their conscience.
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