[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 26 (Thursday, February 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1403-S1406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--CONFERENCE REPORT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair lays before the Senate the
conference report to accompany H.R. 2546, the D.C. appropriations bill.
The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill (H.R.
2546) making appropriations for the government of the
District of Columbia and other activities chargeable in whole
or in part against the revenues of said District for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 1996, and for other
purposes, having met, after full and free conference, have
agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective
House this report, signed by a majority of the conferees.
The Senate resumed consideration of the conference report.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, once again we are here debating the
District of Columbia appropriations bill for the current fiscal year,
which is now fully 5 months old. The city began the year strapped for
cash and it has not received $254 million of Federal funds that will be
available once this bill is enacted.
The kids in the public schools are still faced with a community and
system that has not made them a priority. The Committee on Public
Education, known as COPE, is a group of local civic and business
leaders who have spent nearly 6 years studying the D.C. public schools.
In its report a year ago is stated that too many remain too invested in
the status quo. COPE also found that the District has not really tried
reform.
The kids in many District public schools continue to attempt to
prepare for life in the next century in school buildings that were
built in the first half of this century, and are in deplorable physical
condition. Many schools lack the infrastructure to accommodate the same
technology that the neighborhood grocery store employs.
If we do not begin the process of educational reform and fiscal
recovery by passing this conference agreement we can never hope to
achieve the goals we, the Congress, set for ourselves last year. A
financially fit and economically stable Nation's Capital that is able
to attract businesses, jobs, and people to support a tax base that will
enable a public education system that prepares our kids for the future
is an absolute necessity for this community and for our Nation. If we
cannot do it in the District, where can you?
Mr. President, we have a limited amount of time for debate and I do
not intend to restate the arguments that were made on Tuesday. But it
is important to restate that this scholarship program, limited, in both
time and scope, is not the occasion for a national debate on the
question of private school vouchers. We have an appropriations bill
that should have been enacted months ago. We resolved most of the
issues, some of which were controversial and the subject of intense
discussion, including the other education reform initiatives, in
relatively short order. But we had great difficulty finding common
ground on a scholarship program, which had to be a part of this
conference agreement with respect to the interests of the House.
Mr. President, I hope that Senators will consider the financial
plight of the District government and the educational future of D.C.
kids when they cast their vote today and not the fears of a few who are
invested in the status quo. I ask Senators to vote for cloture and
allow the city to get on with its important rebuilding work.
Mr. President, I will briefly mention again two other issues. We have
gone over the abortion issue many times, and about what was reached as
a compromise between what the Bush and Clinton administrations did. I
talked to you yesterday and, hopefully, removed from your mind any
concerns about Davis-Bacon problems. If there are concerns under the
interpretation, we are ready to take care of that before this goes into
law.
So I urge Senators, please, review what was said yesterday and please
pass this conference report by allowing us to have cloture.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my
time.
Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, just 2 days ago, on Tuesday of this week,
the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the conference report H.R. 2546,
the District of Columbia appropriations bill. The vote was 54 to 44.
For the benefit of Members who may have turned their attention to other
matters, let me inform the Senate that we are about to repeat Tuesday's
vote. However, and unless Chairman Jeffords otherwise indicates, I am
unaware of any developments affecting the issues that led the Senate to
reject the first cloture motion. My position therefore remains the
same, and I urge Members to vote against the motion to invoke cloture.
Although I am urging Members to oppose the motion at hand, I do so
with great reluctance. As Chairman Jeffords and I have already
indicated, the District is in dire financial straits. The
[[Page S1404]]
Chairman of the Control Board, the Mayor, and other officials agree
that the city will run out of cash if the balance of the Federal
payment--some $212 million--is not released within the next several
weeks. We need to act, not to debate. With respect to the voucher
program set forth in the conference report, the Senate has spoken. We
need to respect the decision of this body and move forward to develop a
legislation that will allow the city to pay its bills and operate in an
orderly fashion.
Mr. President, the Senators who voted against cloture on the
conference report are not satisfied with the status quo in the D.C.
public school system. In my opinion, it is a national disgrace that
children in our Nation's Capital do not have access to schools that
prepare them to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy.
I believe that all of us agree that District schools need to change,
and that they will be changed. The conference report includes a broad
array of reforms that received bipartisan support. These reforms
address many of the shortcomings in the District's schools and I urge
my fellow conferees to work with congressional leadership to find a way
to enact them.
Mr. President, I know other Senators would like to address the Senate
so I will yield the balance of my time to Senator Kennedy. Thank you
and I yield the floor.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the Senator from
Wisconsin and also the Senator from Vermont for understanding that if
we did not have these three inappropriate sort of riders that have been
placed on the conference report, this legislation would go through in a
moment by a voice vote. But it has been the judgment of the House of
Representatives to add three different measures--one dealing with
Davis-Bacon, in order to depress the wages of workers in the District;
second, in restricting even private funds that could be used to help
and assist a woman if she makes a judgment and determination for
abortion; third, the issue on the vouchers in an appropriations bill
that reduces the total funding, cuts back $11 million, but provides $5
million for vouchers.
Now, Mr. President, just at the outset of this discussion, we have to
understand that there are certain issues where there is a public
response and a recognized public obligation. We have recognized that
with regard to national security. We have recognized that with regard
to electricity, for example. And we have recognized that with regard to
the Postal Service. Nobody would say we ought to have just the market
of electricity and postal. Why? Because we know that the houses at the
end of the street would not receive it, or those houses at the end of
the street would not receive their mail.
As a nation, for education it will require public investment of
funds, and it will be compulsory. We are asked to accept this
particular amendment because we are told that it will be an experiment,
but it is not an experiment, Mr. President, because what you are doing
is rigging the system at the very outset. What you are not giving is
the choice and decision for the independent student to make a judgment
to go to a private school. What you are basically doing is taking
scarce resources from the local community and transferring them to the
school. The school makes the judgment as to which young person it is
going to select. It is not the individual, it is the school that makes
that judgment. It is not choice for the individual or the individual
parents, it is choice for the school.
What are we going to learn from this? If the school system accepts 2
percent of the 80,000 students in the District and are able to educate
them, are we supposed to assume that because they can, in effect, skim,
they do not have to meet other responsibilities or requirements in
accepting students that may have some language difficulties, or may be
homeless, or have other kinds of difficulties? Are we going to say,
well, it is a great experiment? Well this has been rejected by 16
different States. The only city that has tried that has been Milwaukee,
and any fair evaluation would show that it is not successful.
We do not reject innovative, creative ways at the local community to
enhance the achievements of education, and we have included and
supported many of those proposals in the Goals 2000 legislation and
other proposals.
Basically, those people who are supporting this system said, ``Let's
have a competition.'' What happens in the United States when you have a
competition, you have winners and you have losers. What happens on the
stock market, you have those that make money and those that close their
doors.
That should not be the test for education in America. We are not
saying you will have winners and losers. We are saying that those
children who have those needs ought to be educated in our society, and
that reaches the fundamental objection to this proposal. Effectively,
we are saying, OK, the 2 percent will be winners, they will be able to
go ahead in terms of a private school system, and we are basically
abandoning all the other children with scarce resources.
Mr. President, I think it is very clear what the will of the people
in the District of Columbia is. It has been so interesting during the
course of this debate and other debates. We hear the statements that
Washington does not know best. We have here an issue that was rejected
8 to 1 by the District of Columbia and is being jammed down the throats
of the people of the District of Columbia. They do not want it. The
very way it is constructed in this conference report says that, if they
do not use it, they do not get the money. That is a fine choice. That
is a fine choice to give the people in the District of Columbia. We do
not here know what is best. The people in the District of Columbia have
rejected it and 16 other States have rejected this, but we, in our
almighty knowledge, are saying you will have to take it, people in the
District of Columbia, or otherwise we will not provide these resources.
It is an unwise education policy. It will not demonstrate any
different kind of factors in terms of schools. It is so interesting
that those who make the argument talk about what is happening in the
schools. Give the children an opportunity to escape from crime and
violence. At the same time we are reducing the support for drug-free
schools by 50 percent. Give those children a chance to learn. And at
the same time we are reducing our commitment to give those children the
advancements in the title I programs and math and science and other
literacy programs.
What is happening, Mr. President, is a choice. Now, are we going to
abandon the children of the District of Columbia? I say we should not.
By doing so, we will vote ``no'' in terms of the cloture vote.
I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
Wisconsin and the Senator from Massachusetts. The truth of the matter
is that this is really a dirty trick on the schoolchildren of the
District. Mr. President, 51 schools are in the District of Columbia,
and only 8 of the 51 qualify for this so-called $3,000 scholarship. Mr.
President, seven of the eight are religious schools. The $3,000
scholarship is not going to get them into schools. They will get them
into the courts. It is a dirty trick. It is throwing a 50-yard line to
the child 100 yards offshore and telling them to swim for it.
Most of all, the very crowd that is sponsoring this nonsense--here I
call it nonsense. We are not living up to the needs of public
education. The fact is, in order to get this, this year, this Congress
would be going into the $5 million a year program, cut $3 billion from
public education. It is unheard of to try to start a private program.
And the very crowd that sponsors this nonsense is a group that comes
around here and beseeches us about balancing the budget and
constitutional amendments to balance it and everything else of that
kind. We are without money, running a $286 billion deficit last year,
1995. We do not have the money for this, and we are going to start a
multibillion-dollar spending program?
I said that was my suspicion earlier this week. Now I find it to be
the fact, looking at the ``Education Daily,'' and the plan of
Representative Steve Gunderson, Republican of Wisconsin, saying the
national program authorizes the spending of up to $1 billion a year for
vouchers. The $5 million program
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over the 5 years, in a few days' time, has already gotten to $5
billion. Suppose the program works? Where is the money? Where is that
crowd that is going to come up now and start talking about balancing
the budgets?
Yes, we have to cut spending; yes, in this Senator's opinion, we have
to increase taxes in order to pay for what we get--not cut taxes. More
than anything else, we should not start off on fanciful programs not
the responsibility beyond the constitutional function of this Congress
that will cost billions more. Do not have this group saying they want
to balance budgets and in the same breath start $5 billion programs for
private endeavor.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I thank my
friend and colleague from Vermont. Here we are again. Here we go again.
I do not know whether we will change any minds, but I do think this is
an important issue to debate and an important vote.
I am disappointed by the extent of opposition to this bill that is
desperately needed by the District of Columbia apparently primarily
because of the portion that would establish a scholarship fund for poor
children. I do not get it.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from
Mayor Marion Barry dated February 23, 1996.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The District of Columbia,
Washington, DC., February 23, 1996.
Hon. Joseph Lieberman,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Lieberman: As a member of the Democratic
Party, supporter of the District, and a champion of
progressive and democratic principles, policies, and ideals,
I want to appeal to you to assist the District on our FY 1996
Budget. The Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture for the
District of Columbia Appropriations bill, HR 2546, on
Tuesday, February 27th. I urge you, in the strongest terms,
to support cloture and conclude this long delayed District
business.
Two hundred forty-seven million dollars ($247) of the
District's Federal payment, the compensation that attempts to
make up for the significant Congressional limitations on
local revenue sources and governing authority, are still
unavailable because the appropriations bill, almost 5 months
after the start of the fiscal year, has still not been
finally approved. The needs of hundreds of thousands of
District residents are being held hostage to this delay.
Fiscally speaking, we can wait no longer for our Federal
payment. We have just completed our 1995 audit showing that
we have significantly cut spending in 1995 by $281 million
and decreased payroll by over 3,000 employees. The FY 1996
budget emphatically shows that we have stopped the
hemorrhaging of spending and reversed the tide. Last week, I
released my transformation document and the FY 97 budget
which shows a decrease of 10,000 employees by year 2000 and a
radical transformation of the D.C. Government. However, this
transformation and FY 97 budget is predicated on the FY 96
budget and the full Federal payment. Our radical savings in
1997, 98 and 99 are integrally related to this Federal
payment in 1996.
The District is significantly cash short. We are in a
desperate situation. If we do not obtain our $247 million in
Federal payment now we will run out of cash by the end of
March. We have urgent needs for these delayed funds. Although
the Federal payment is less than 20% of the General Fund, it
is a critical resource. Our cash flow depends on the $660
million in Federal payment that we should have received on
October 1, 1996. Unlike the Federal Government, we cannot
borrow right away.
Public safety is our top priority yet the delayed Federal
payment is hampering our crime fighting capabilities. We have
business vendors that are going out of business because of
our delayed payments to them. Businesses are laying off
employees, closing their doors and vowing never to do
business in the District again. School books and building
repairs are not possible due to lack of funds. Trash pickups
suffer because equipment is old and cannot be repaired. We
are 3\1/2\ months behind in our Medicaid payments. Our
situation is desperate. We need this money immediately.
In addition, it is incredible that we have begun the budget
process for Fiscal Year 1997 without having Fiscal Year 1996
resolved. We are just beginning our local Council hearings on
the FY 97 budget yet we have no FY 96 budget. This situation
makes accurate budget determination impossible.
I know that many Senators rightfully have serious problems
with the voucher programs established in the appropriations
bill. So do I. I have disdain for vouchers and have opposed
them at every turn in the District. This Appropriations Bill
is not a vouchers bill: it does not authorize the District to
initiate vouchers, it only gives local officials the option
to do so if they chose. As much as I dislike the voucher
issue, I cannot go another week without our full Federal
payment. Real human suffering is at stake.
I urge you to vote for cloture. It is crucial that the
District of Columbia be fully funded, as it should have been
months ago. Senate Democrats need to allow the District's
appropriations Conference Report to be considered so that the
District can finally receive its fiscal 1996 appropriations.
You have been supportive of the District in the past and I
thank you for your support. Today I ask for your support
again. I urge you to release this budget and allow us to get
on with the business of radically transforming the D.C.
Government and providing our residents with the services they
deserve. If you have any questions, please call me at 727-
6263.
Sincerely,
Marion Barry, Jr.,
Mayor.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. In this letter, Mayor Barry literally pleads for us,
for the sake of fiscal continuity of the District of Columbia, that we
pass this bill. In it he says:
I know that many Senators rightfully have serious problems
with the voucher programs established in the appropriations
bill. So do I. . . . This appropriations bill is not a
vouchers bill . . . it only gives local officials the option
to do so [which is to say initiate a voucher program] If they
choose.
Then he says, ``As much as I dislike the voucher issue, I cannot go
another week without our full Federal payment. Real human suffering is
at stake.''
What is stopping us? It is the voucher program. We all know this is
controversial. I notice in the paper that some of my friends from the
National Education Association claimed victory on the vote the other
day, one saying, ``This is much bigger than D.C.''
The big point here is the District of Columbia and its future. I
think maybe there is something bigger involved in the voucher program,
but it is just a question of whether we are going to feel obliged to
defend the status quo and the American public education system, which
we know is not working for a lot of our children, or whether we will
experiment, a very, very small amount of money compared to the billions
spent on public education, to test what is going to happen to the kids,
poor kids, whose parents decide they are trapped by their income in
schools that are not educating them, schools in which they are
terrorized very often, tragically, the ones who want to learn, by young
hoodlums, stating it specifically. This program would allow them to
break out of that. Let us see what effect it would have on those kids,
and let us see what effect it would have on the public schools in the
District.
My mind is open. I have been a supporter of this voucher or
scholarship program, but if these cuts occur and they occur more
broadly than contemplated in the bill Senator Coats and I introduced,
and somehow we find they cripple the public school system, we will step
back and decide maybe it was not a good idea, was not worth it.
I doubt that will happen. I think what is going to happen is we are
going to create some opportunity for kids to break out of the cycle of
poverty and maybe we are all going to learn a little bit, including the
public schools, about how to better educate our children. There are
tens of thousands of heroes working in our public school system. That
is the heart of our hopes for the future of our children, the public
school system. But it is just not working for a lot of our kids.
I really appeal to my friends in the teachers organizations: Do not
be defensive about this. You are strong. The public education system
gets so much of public investment. I so actively support all the
efforts to reform our public schools. This is not an either/or. If you
are for the scholarship bill, it does not mean you are against public
education.
The fact is, what we have to focus on here is the kids. What is best
for our children? Is there only one established way to educate them and
brighten their future, or can we try another one, without doing damage
to that?
I am not hopeful about the outcome of the vote, but I appeal to my
colleagues here. Listen to Mayor Barry's appeal to pass this bill and
give this alternative and these 11,000 poor kids in the District a
chance for a better education and a better life.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, how much time is left?
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. There remains on the time of the Senator from
Vermont, 5 minutes and 50 seconds. The opposition time is 3 minutes and
17 seconds.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I will proceed, then.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator wants to make a final
remark, out of courtesy he is entitled to it. I would make just a brief
response, but I intend to use the 3 or 4 minutes that remain. So,
whatever is agreeable to the floor manager.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I would prefer--if the Senator would like to proceed at
this point, I will allow him to do so.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, just a final few facts. It has been the
Republican Congress that cut back $29 million last year from funding,
public support for schools and schoolchildren in the District. They are
cutting back $15 million this year and giving the $5 million as a bonus
prize that if the school districts are going to use the voucher system,
they can get it. If they do not, they will not. It is legislative
blackmail, using the worst form of legislative blackmail by using the
children of the District of Columbia as pawns.
There is not a person in this body who has not said they would vote
for this D.C. appropriations bill, if these three amendments were
removed, by voice vote. We can do it now. We can do it this afternoon.
This concept has been rejected about trying to jam vouchers down the
throat of the District of Columbia. It has been rejected by them 8-to-1
previously. Why do we know better, we here? We could pass the D.C.
appropriation this afternoon by voice vote in a matter of minutes. But,
no. They say, even though we have had the vote in the U.S. Senate and
even though their position has been rejected, we are still going to
play the card of ``we are on the side of the District of Columbia's
children, and those that will not permit this to go through are not.''
Mr. President, the parents of the District of Columbia ought to know
who has been standing by them, not just on this legislation but
historically--historically. We reject that. We believe the time for
political blackmail is over. Let us drop these three provisions, voice
vote that, get the money and the resources in the District and fight
for them to try to get some additional resources to enhance educational
achievement and accomplishment for the children of the District of
Columbia.
I retain the remainder of our time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator
from Massachusetts. All those comments and dire remarks he made would
have been perfectly appropriate if we had been talking about the
original House provisions that were in the bill. But that was before
the conference report. We are not dealing with the problems that have
been referred to by my friend from Massachusetts.
Let me go through this. There is no jamming it down anybody's throat.
That comment was made. The District council can refuse to spend a
single penny on tuition scholarships--not a penny. If they do, the
money may be lost if there is no agreement with the scholarship
corporation, but there does not need to be a cent spent unless the city
agrees to spend it.
There is a corporation set up which, must agree with the city
council. The corporation will approve all applications for
scholarships. In other words, it is not a helter-skelter, ``Here is a
tuition payment and you can go anywhere you want.'' It has to be
approved by the scholarship corporation, which must also be reviewed by
the District council.
Under the conference agreement, not the House version, schools
enrolling scholarship students must conform to all of the
constitutional protections. The disbursal of the funds must be balanced
economically. The disbursal of the funds must be balanced
educationally, so we do not get a disparate amount of money being spent
towards those who are better off, even among those who are eligible for
scholarships--it is all low income--just that they are the economically
relatively well-situated.
Second, there are two sets of scholarships in the bill. All of the
money can be spent on remedial scholarships, which everybody agrees to.
The worst problem the city has right now is we have 20,000 or 30,000
young people going through the system who are going to either graduate
functionally illiterate or drop out. Those are the ones we are focusing
on in all of the educational reform. The city council priority, I am
sure, and the pressure of the city, I am sure, will be to spend all of
that money or almost all of it on the scholarships which are for
remedial use, after-school use, or other programs so these kids can be
brought up to the status where they can be functionally literate.
Also, we must consider what may happen, and I hope does not happen,
on the House side. We have been told that if this loses here, this very
scaled-down proposal that we are voting on here, not the one that has
been described--if this fails, if this modicum of tuition scholarship
fails, then we may lose the whole educational package. That would be a
travesty; hopefully that will not be the case if we do fail here today.
Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield on my time for just a very brief
question?
Mr. JEFFORDS. I will suspend at this point for the Senator from
Massachusetts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Just on that reference, as I understand it, under the
conference committee it creates five new boards, five new boards, and
defunds the elected school board of the District of Columbia. Am I
correct?
Mr. JEFFORDS. No, the Senator is not correct. This was not the
intention of the bill, and that will be rectified. But, because the
District council reduced the budget for the board's staff and
operations, after the conferees had agreed to this provision, that is
the way it could be interpreted. We are willing to reprogram some of
money in this bill for purposes of the board.
Mr. KENNEDY. But as it stands in this bill, you have funded five new
boards and failed to fund the school board, as I understand it?
Mr. JEFFORDS. On Tuesday the Senator from Wisconsin and I had a
colloquy to clarify the status of the board. Yes, there are other new
boards that are created for the purposes of educational reform. That is
correct.
May I inquire how much time I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has a minute and 53 seconds
remaining. Your opponents have 21 seconds remaining.
Mr. KENNEDY. I yield whatever time I have.
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I want to close here. I hope this is
very clear to my colleagues, and I will make sure they know what we are
voting upon today. I hope you would concentrate on what the actual
situation is as to the tuition scholarships. There may be not a single
penny spent unless the city council agrees to it. Keep that in mind. It
is all local control. The Mayor says it is fine with him because it is
all local control. So I urge my colleagues to support cloture. I yield
the remainder of my time.
____________________