[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
             THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM AND BASIC MATHEMATICS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lucas). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] has 
got a Ph.D. in economics, and the Dick Armey formula for basic math 
says, ``If you increase spending by more dollars the following year 
than you have spent on it in the current year, that's an increase. If 
you spend less dollars the next year, that's a decrease.'' That is Dick 
Armey basic math. I would offer a book called ``Basic Mathematics'' for 
my colleagues on the other side because I am the subcommittee chairman 
that went through the process, and we sat and figured out what is the 
best way to improve programs that work good, but yet we can still 
improve them.
  Mr. Speaker, I had a Democratic page come up to me and say, ``Mr. 
Cunningham, we see the rhetoric on this issue. I'm a Democrat, but why 
are my own Representatives lying about the facts over and over again?''
  We are adding dollars to the children's nutrition
   programs. What we are cutting is Federal bureaucracy, and the 
Clinton Democrats will do anything they can to protect those 
bureaucracies.

  Is the school based program, the children based program and family 
based program; are they fairly effective? Yes, they have been worked on 
with bipartisanship by my chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Goodling] and Mr. Ford who was his predecessor. And have they 
worked in the past? and do they work presently? Yes, but, if we can 
remove the mounds and mounds of paperwork, the Federal reporting that 
we have to go through every day. And back here in Washington we have 
got those Federal bureaucrats that have got to receive all those 
reports and justify their existence with those reports.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what the Democrats will fight to do, anything 
they can in their power to spend and be reelected.
  Let us take a look at what President Clinton projected in the 1995 
budget. He projected a 3.1 percent increase. We are increasing it by 
4.5. If I was a Democrat, I would say, ``Well, President Clinton is 
cutting children's nutrition.'' He did not cut it; he increased it by 
3.1 percent, and in the budget that he just spoke right up here, Mr. 
Speaker, in your chair, and pronounced to the American public, he 
justified a 3.6 percent increase, not a 4.5 like we did, but a 3.6 
percent increase.
  And again we could say, ``Well, the President is cutting children's 
nutrition.'' He did not. But what we are doing is taking a look at how 
we can make it more effective. Republicans believe that government 
works best that is closest to the people.
  I spoke yesterday to seven of probably the most liberal school 
superintendents in existence from Los Angeles, from San Francisco, from 
San Diego, and Oakland, and Fresno, and do my colleagues know what they 
said? ``Duke, we not only want you to block grant it, we want you to 
get the money to us directly in the LEAs so we can use it in the local 
school district, so we can disburse it and cut out the State 
bureaucracies, let alone the Federal rules and regulations. We want to 
get it to our kids, and, when we've got only 23 cents out of every buck 
that gets down to the local school district, something is wrong. There 
is too many bureaucracies, too many regulations, too many reports.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is what my colleagues on the other side will 
protest, and let me tell you something we did do in this committee.
  In California we have 400,000 illegal immigrants, children, K through 
12, 400,000. That is 800,000 meals per day to illegal kids. That is 
over a billion dollars a day. At $5,000 each to educate those children, 
that is $2 billion a year, and they want to feed kids.
  Do we want to feed all the kids of the world? Yes. But do we want to 
do it at the expense of American citizens and American kids? The answer 
is no on our side of the aisle. We cannot afford to feed the world. We 
want to feed American kids and make sure that the dollars get down to 
the people, and we are increasing those funds, not decreasing those 
funds. We are eliminating bureaucracies, not increasing bureaucracies 
and making it much more effective to do that.
  Now in practicality are schools going to go in and eliminate those 
kids? No, they are not.


                          ____________________