[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1704-H1707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PROPOSED CUTS WILL HURT EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleague, the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], during this special order to 
really call some attention to an issue that I think is near and dear to 
the hearts of every American family, everyone in this country, and that 
is the whole issue of education and educating our children and 
providing for our children that opportunity, that first start, if you 
will, on the road to what their lives will be about in terms of 
opportunity, of economic ability, their ability to compete, to succeed 
in this great Nation of ours, something that, in fact, has been part of 
the American dream.
  What we want to try to call attention to in this time period is the 
fact that there are, as proposed by the congressional majority, 
devastating cuts to education. In fact,there are cuts that have been 
passed into law by our Republican colleagues.
  Congressional Republicans are on the brink of making the largest 
education cuts in our Nation's history, and thereby are on the brink of 
harming, truly harming, our Nation's children. At a time when Americans 
are rightly anxious about their job security, at a time when we all 
know that a good education is the key to a good job, we have 
congressional Republicans who are launching an assault on American 
education.

  Last week, Secretary of Education William Riley delivered his annual 
state of American education address. In those remarks he said, 
``American schools are where the future of America is being created 
each and every single day.'' That, in fact, is so true about what goes 
on and is supposed to go on in our American schools.
  In fact, public education is the great equalizer in this country. It 
allows children, all children, regardless of their economic status, to 
be able to go as far as their God-given talents will allow them.
  That is what we are here to talk about, the fact that public 
education is under attack in this Congress. Ensuring a bright future is 
a basic part of the job that we have here, Mr. Pallone's job, my job, 
each and every Member of the Congress who is given that public trust, 
to come here. What we need to try to do is to ensure, in fact, a bright 
future for our children.
  Part of our sacred trust as elected officials is to honor those who 
have come before us, for example, by ensuring that our seniors have a 
dignified retirement and making the investments in our future so that 
the generation that comes after us can live a full and a prosperous and 
a secure life.
  Despite this obligation, we have congressional Republicans today who 
are making times tougher for kids who are trying to get a good 
education and for their parents, hard-working parents, I might add, who 
want to see their kids get ahead in life. They are making the largest 
cuts in the history of Federal aid to education.
  The temporary spending measure that they have passed that funds 
education, what is known as the continuing resolution, cuts basic 
skills training, which is known as title I, by 17 percent. Funding to 
keep our schools safe and free of drugs is being cut by 25 percent. 
Before we can expect our kids to do all of the great things that we 
wish them to do and they are anxious and excited to do, we need to 
provide them with some essentials, training in the basic skills, a safe 
place in which they can learn. But it is in these areas where my 
Republican colleagues have made the most crippling cuts.
  This temporary spending measure expires on March 15 so that Congress 
will soon have to face a choice. Will my Republican colleagues extend 
these cuts through the end of the fiscal year, or will they restore the 
funds that they have taken from America's classrooms?
  Let me tell my colleagues about what happens in my State of 
Connecticut. These cuts spell disaster. Yesterday, I met with parents 
and educators at a school in my congressional District, and we had 
represented there both urban schools and suburban schools.
  I will tell my colleagues what the parents and the educators are 
concerned about. They are concerned that these cuts will hurt school 
kids who are trying to build their basic skills, stay off the streets, 
and stay away from drugs. Under the Republican proposals for basic 
skill training, funding

[[Page H1705]]

would be cut by $8.6 million in Connecticut, affecting 9,200 needy 
students. Schools in my district will lose $1.5 million. Under the Safe 
and Drug Free School Program, $729,000 would be cut in Connecticut.
  Let me read a quote from one of the parents who was there yesterday. 
Carolyn Jackson, who met with me, said the proposed cuts would 
eliminate students' chances of being competitive. This is her quote.
  ``They won't make it, they won't be trained, they won't be able to go 
on to a trade school or to college,'' she said. These after school 
programs that would be cut keep kids off the streets. It keeps them 
occupied, it gives them something positive to do. If they cut that out, 
the only place that they have left to go is to the streets.

                              {time}  1630

  The teachers, the administrators, both again from urban and suburban 
schools, talked about having to cut math and reading programs, remedial 
programs, programs that provide our young people with being able to be 
ready to learn when they go to school. If these cuts go through, how, 
in fact, will we be able to deal with these issues?
  Mr. Speaker, what makes these cuts so wrong headed is that our Nation 
now stands at a crossroads, and I know my colleague, Mr. Pallone, 
understands that. We have been listening to and talking to people about 
if our people in this country do not have the basic skills to compete 
to win in the global workplace, how can we allow our people, our kids 
and their futures, to fall further and further behind as they try to 
compete with low skilled workers around the world for low skilled jobs? 
That is not what we want to do. We want our young people to have all of 
the advantages that they need and all of the tools that they need to be 
able to compete in a world order, in a New World order, to be able to 
compete right here in the United States so that they can have highly 
skilled, high paying jobs so that they can make their way for the 
future.
  Getting a good education has always been a big part of what enabled 
the people of this country to stake their claim in the American dream. 
My parents, other parents, have worked hard to see that their kids get 
the opportunities that they need so that they can serve, that they can 
have good paying jobs. We are taking away this American dream for 
parents today, but also for youngsters. These cuts will dash that dream 
for too many of our children.
  For generations, as I have said, public education has allowed 
children, regardless of their economic status, to go as far as their 
God-given talents will allow, but despite that public education is 
under attack today in this Congress. This week, as Congress considers a 
new spending measure for the rest of the year, I urge my colleagues, 
Democrats and Republicans and Independents, to remember the children in 
classrooms all over America and their hard-working parents, parents who 
have bright hopes for their kids' future. Please remember these people. 
We need to restore the Federal funds that enable our children to make 
those dreams a reality.
  And what I would like to do is to ask my colleague from New Jersey, 
Frank Pallone, to talk about his concerns about this issue and what 
effect it has in his own community and for us to have a conversation 
and a dialog about this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank my colleague from Connecticut, Ms. 
DeLauro, for raising this issue again this evening on the floor of the 
House of Representatives, and I guess you know I approach the education 
issue from two perspectives in the House.
  First of all, I think most people realize that maybe it needs to be 
stated again that the amount of money that the Federal Government 
contributes for education is really very minuscule. I think if you look 
at your local school budget, for example, in the municipalities that 
any of us represents, you will find maybe 7 or 8 percent of their 
budget is Federal dollars.
  So we are not really talking about a tremendous amount of money that 
the Federal Government actually does contribute, particularly on the 
local level, and if that is cut significantly, as is being proposed by 
the Republicans, then the Federal role, the Federal commitment to 
education, will even be more minuscule.
  The other thing, I think, is a lot of people believe that because of 
this budget battle that we have had between Democrats and Republicans 
over the last year and because it is not resolved at this point, 
perhaps that the status quo continues and that the money continues to 
flow to local districts for various educational functions, and that is 
simply not true. As you pointed out, the level of funding under this 
continuing resolution, if that level of funding were to continue 
through the rest of this year, would be about a 20-percent cut overall 
in Federal education funding on every level. That is a significant cut 
from 1 year to the next, and the impact on local school districts, on 
colleges and universities will be severe.
  Already I know that in my own area State and local officials have 
told me that they are unable to plan for the coming year in terms of 
their education budget. They do not know whether or not they can keep 
as many teachers as they have. They do not know whether or not they can 
offer certain courses, you know, whether their curriculum is going to 
change. So this uncertainty, if you will, that exists out there because 
we are operating under these continuing resolutions, where we have to 
keep extending the funding every 2 weeks or every month or so, really 
is having a terribly negative impact on the ability for local and State 
officials to plan for educational purposes over the next year.
  The other thing that I guess disappoints me a great deal is that if 
you think about the effort that President Clinton has made in trying to 
highlight education, when he was first elected and in the first few 
years of his administration he established a number of initiatives on 
the Federal level that really have already started to make a difference 
in terms of improving education at every level, and those initiatives 
are right now very much in limbo because of the Republican leadership 
budget.
  I just wanted to mention a couple of them because, for example, the 
National Service Program, which allows students to work in the 
community when they are in college and then use the money that they 
earn to pay for their college tuition or their college education. He 
actually came to Rutgers University, which is in my district, and 
announced that program a couple of years ago, and Rutgers and students 
in my district have taken advantage of that to the hilt. I mean 
basically it was a supplemental program where right now you can get 
some grants for scholarships, you can get some student loans from the 
Federal Government. But this now allows a whole other area where I 
think you can earn up to about $4,000 a year, which is a significant 
amount of money, you know, given the cost of tuition and the cost of 
higher education today, and the community benefits because the students 
are back in the community working either in hospitals or on 
environmental projects or in schools, whatever it happens to be. And 
this is the program, this National Service or AmeriCorps, which the 
Republican leadership wants to eliminate outright. Their budget 
actually just kills the program completely.
  The other thing is if goal 2000----
  Ms. DeLAURO. Let me just interrupt my colleague for a second because 
I think the AmeriCorps Program is a perfect example of how we have, how 
they have, our values backward, what AmeriCorps is all about, and just 
to say that about 691 young people in Connecticut would be denied the 
opportunity to participate in the National Service Program if the 
funding is eliminated.

  But this says to young people you have an obligation to give back to 
your community. You need to participate in the life of your community, 
get involved with helping, whether it is in education, or in health, or 
in some other area, because if we are going to provide you with some 
help, you have got to do something for that. This is not, you know, 
just without any kind of responsibility. This is a way in which we try 
to instill responsibility in our people.
  And so many times today you hear from people about we do have, in 
whatever segment, if it is for young people,

[[Page H1706]]

with adults or so forth, that people just do not have the 
responsibility that they had in the past, they do not take on areas 
where they need to demonstrate that they are willing to put their heart 
and soul into something, but they only want to grab a handout and not 
give something in return.
  This program epitomizes the values of work, responsibility, and 
community, and if you engage in those ways, then, yes, we will give you 
a tool, if you will, to help you meet your goals. But it is a two-way 
street. This is not just one way, and this is what is so 
incomprehensible, that on one side of their mouth they want to talk 
about how we want to stop this handout for people, which is right. But 
they also want to take away the opportunity for young people to 
contribute as well as to be able to engage and to move forward with 
their own objectives, and that is wrong.
  We need to have people be responsible and take on a direction or an 
acton and get involved before we are willing to do something for them.
  Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely, and I think you are pointing it out, and 
again this is not pie in the sky. I have talked to students, as I know 
you have, college students who were involved in these various national 
service programs, and they are working, and they are in the schools, 
out in the community, they are in hospials. They are doing all kinds of 
things.
  The other thing that the President established was the direct loan 
program. Now again maybe it sounds a little bureaucratic, but it is 
important because again Rutgers University in my district has taken 
advantage of it where traditionally student loans, when I was in 
college and until recently, you had to go to the bank, and the 
Government would guarantee the loan. Well, some of the universities, 
including Rutgers, went to the administration and to the Congress and 
said, look, if we administer this program directly, if the money comes 
directly to us and the students apply directly for the student loans 
from us, then we eliminate the middle person, if you will, and we can 
expand opportunities and give out a lot more direct loans.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Costs you less money.
  Mr. PALLONE. Exactly, and they started it on an experimental basis at 
certain colleges and universities, Rutgers being one of the first, and 
at Rutgers it expanded the number of student loans that they can give 
out. Now all of a sudden we are hearing as a part of this budget that 
they want to cap the direct loan program, I think it is at 10 percent, 
and not allow it to be expanded to other colleges and universities.
  In my district, my college, for example, which was a 4-year 
institution, would not be able to establish a direct loan program under 
this Republican budget or proposal, and again it makes no sense. I mean 
it is essentially nothing but a special interest effort to say let us 
go back to the old way where the middleman, the banker, or financial 
institution, makes the money and no one is proposing that this makes 
any sense. It is certainly going to make it harder to get a loan for 
individual college students and obviously eliminate a lot of 
opportunities that students would have to be able to go to college. It 
makes no sense.

  Ms. DeLAURO. Let me just comment on that one because I think that 
there is--you made a very, very good point, which is that they are 
willing to do harm to young people who want to again further their 
education and go to college, hurt working families who are struggling 
to get their kids to school. I could not have gone to school without 
student loans. My folks could not have afforded it. This was, you know, 
they killed themselves to, you know, to see me through college and to 
utilize the student loan program to do that. But it is doing harm. But 
at the same time, and particularly with this one, is to cater to a 
special interest because the banks are up in arms about the direct 
lending program.
  Mr. PALLONE. They are not----
  Ms. DeLAURO. Because they are not going to make their percentage. 
That is what this is about. This is not saying to hard-working middle 
class families you get the advantage, you get the incentive. Banks are 
doing OK. They can live without this. We want to give you a break, Mr. 
and Mrs. America. You want to have your kids get ahead. Do not take it 
away from hard-working families to cater to special interests and wind 
up hurting the family and the youngster.
  In that program in the State of Connecticut we will see 14 schools 
forced out of the direct lending program, losing over 14,000 loans.
  Mr. PALLONE. Exactly.
  Ms. DeLAURO. And an opportunity for people and young people.
  Mr. PALLONE. And again what we are really talking about here is the 
recognition of the fact that today, unlike maybe 10 or 20 years ago, it 
takes a lot more money to go to college, and so if you do not have a 
national service program, if you do not have direct loans, if you do 
not have innovative ways of trying to pay for college tuition, you are 
not going to be able to make it.
  Now, the President in his State of the Union Address talked about 
families, parents, being able to pay up to $10,000 in tuition for their 
students and that that would be tax deductible. As you know, in the 
process of this budget debate the Republicans and the Democrats have 
talked about some sort of tax cuts or tax breaks. But again I would 
suggest that if you look at the tax breaks suggested by the Republican 
leadership, they are mostly for large corporations and for the well-to-
do, whereas the President now is saying here again education is a major 
issue. If we allow that kind of tax deductibility, it expands the 
ability of parents to help pay their kids' education, and if we are 
going to do any kind of tax cut or tax break, that should be the kind 
of tax cut or break that we should institute because it is an 
investment in the future of the country.

                              {time}  1645

  Ms. DeLAURO. That makes enormous sense, Mr. Speaker, because it is 
probably one of the areas that most parents are worried about, after a 
job or the increase in their wages, because they have not seen a raise 
for a number of years. But if you could target the tax cut to working 
families, to take the education costs as a deduction, it makes enormous 
sense.
  What you are seeking in that tax break package at the moment is that 
the richest corporations are winding up with the elimination of the 
alternate minimum tax getting a windfall again. You are seeing that 
special interest effort do very, very well. That is a $17 billion 
windfall for the richest corporations, if you will eliminate the 
alternate minimum tax.
  Mr. PALLONE. Exactly.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, to try to make it a little easier for 
working families to be able to see some realization of their dreams and 
their aspirations for themselves and for their children, this is the 
direction that we ought to go in. On that score, it is my hope that we 
will have an agenda over the next several months where we will 
introduce legislation in this body here, and that we can get it on the 
floor for a vote.
  Mr. PALLONE. Again, I do not want to prolong this, but we talked 
about higher education. If you talk about primary and second, as I 
pointed out before, the Federal contribution to local education is not 
very much in dollars. It is about 7 percent or 8 percent of the budget. 
But the Federal Government has traditionally, and again, President 
Clinton has talked about trying to create incentive programs that will 
basically try to improve the quality of education, with the few Federal 
dollars that go to the local districts.
  One of the areas that he has been a champion of is Goals 2000. 
Basically, this is where you set standards, if you will, for the 
quality of education, for curricula, whatever, within the school, and 
then you give the schools, on a competitive basis, a certain amount of 
Federal dollars to try to implement some changes, some innovations, 
that would improve the standards of the curriculum or the education. 
That, again, is something that is significantly cut back, almost 
eliminated in the Republican leadership budget.
  The other thing is that traditionally the Federal Government, I guess 
for at least 10 years or more now, has been involved in providing new 
equipment or high-technology type things, whether it is computers or 
ways of trying to improve the sciences; things that, as you know, many 
schools simply cannot afford to buy that kind of high-technology 
equipment or whatever, because

[[Page H1707]]

they do not have the budget for it. Again, that is another area where 
there are significant cuts that are being proposed, and the President 
is talking about trying to come up with some innovations.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Yesterday when I went to visit the school I was in three 
kindergarten classes. You just see these little bits of kids, it was 
just astounding; there they are, in terms of the equipment, and they 
have these computers in front of them, and they are there with their 
earphones or their listening program, where they are listening to the 
story in order to prepare them to move on.
  But these kids with the computers, it is just really mind-boggling. 
There they are with the mouse going back and forth, and several of them 
were showing people how they were learning the alphabet, and they had 
the letter D, and then they were using the computer to point to a deer 
or a duck, and so forth, or using a C and pointing to a cake and so 
forth.
  Here they are, again, these little bits of kids, getting proficient 
in a technology which is our future, but it is their future more than 
it is ours. Why are we trying to be in the business of taking away 
these tools from them?
  One program that I wanted to mention was something called School-to-
Work. The heart and soul is being cut out of the School-to-Work 
Program. This is a program that says to young people who are seniors in 
high school, who do not want to, cannot afford to, or maybe do not have 
the skills to go on to a 4-year liberal arts college, and God knows, we 
probably have enough history and English majors to last us a lifetime, 
but these young people want to go on from school to work. They want to 
be gainfully employed, they want to get some skills.
  This program has allowed that bridge from school to work, really, the 
first piece of legislation that in so many years has recognized the 
aspirations of these young people, and their dreams of moving from 
school to work, without having a 4-year college education. That is 
truly the fate of most of our young people in this country. The largest 
percentage do not go on to a 4-year college.
  But this program is going to be cut and decimated, and we just say 
one more time to these young people, ``Sorry, you really do not make 
any difference. Do it on your own.'' Why are we not in the business of 
trying to provide a bridge from school to work; again, responsibility? 
``We will give you some tools so you can carry out what you need to 
make your way.''
  We cannot do it for you. That is not what anybody is saying here, nor 
should we. We do not have the resources to do that. But how do we 
enable young people to move ahead? This is a program that works, it is 
gaining all kinds of endorsements from the academic communities, from 
the business community, because they are seeing the fruits of the labor 
here, because they are getting these kids who are well-trained, who 
have the skills, who can make it in their jobs. Now we are saying, 
``Sorry, we are just going to close the door on this effort.'' It is 
wrongheaded. It really is wrongheaded.
  Mr. PALLONE. You talked about programs that work. Just the last one 
that I wanted to mention, of course, even earlier is the Head Start 
Program, preschool Head Start Program, because from 1992 to 1995, which 
is, of course, the span of the current administration, we have had an 
increase of 130,000 children that were able to participate in the Head 
Start Program over the last 3 years, because we were expanding a very 
successful program, which is enjoying--it really had support under 
President Bush, President Reagan, as well as President Clinton and 
President Carter. It has always been very bipartisan. Now all of a 
sudden this Republican leadership budget would deny Head Start benefits 
to 180,000 children over the next few years. So again, we are talking 
about misplaced priorities here.
  When I go out of my district, when I am in the State of New Jersey 
and I talk to people, they all tell me that education is paramount. 
Everyone understands that. I really for the life of me do not 
understand why the Republican leadership in this House does not get it. 
Education is crucial. If we are going to start talking about cutting 
education 20 percent here over the next fiscal year, it just makes no 
sense. It is totally out of sync with what the American people want.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Just in terms of translating that 20 percent, and I 
think you have made the excellent point that there is a minuscule 
amount of Federal aid in education--sometimes people do not realize 
that or understand that--from this minuscule amount of money, we are 
looking at, roughly, if things continue the way they are with this, at 
this level, we are looking at about a $3.1 billion cut from those 
funds. We are looking overall, in terms of the college loan programs, 
you know, at almost $5 billion over the next few years in terms of 
cutbacks in college loans, to say nothing of what is going on in the 
Pell Grant Program. In the Pell Grant Program, what they did, the bill 
eliminates assistance to students who qualify for grants of less than 
$600; about 250,000 students in this Nation are going to be eliminated 
from the program.

  Perkins loans. Again, these are not great amounts of money that are 
being put in play at the moment, but the removing of that kind of money 
has an unbelievable effect on how many young people can look to a 
brighter future.
  I think you would agree with me that we are at a crossroads. We truly 
are at a crossroads, because we have never seen the level of cuts in 
education that we are seeing today. Education has always been the way 
for people to expand their horizons, move forward, and have a brighter 
future. That has been true with succeeding generations.
  This is the first time in the history of this country that if you 
talk to American families, working families, that today they do not see 
a bright future for their kids. They do not believe that their kids 
will have the same kinds of advantages that they had. That is a sad 
commentary on what our values are in this Nation and what our 
priorities are.
  So that there is a full-scale assault, whether it is on Head Start 
and you are looking at preschool programs, readiness; whether it is in 
a school lunch program that they would like to away with; whether it is 
in a summer jobs program that is being cut out so kids can make some 
money, go back to school, and then, again, demonstrate some 
responsibility; whether it is in education, skills training, and 
school-to-work, or whether it is in moving kids forward in terms of 
higher education.
  I do not understand it. I think it is outrageous. My hope will be in 
the next 2 weeks, as we discuss what is going to happen before March 
15, that when it comes to the issue of education, that we are not about 
the business of doing harm, and doing harm for the special interests of 
this Nation, but that we are in the business of doing what people sent 
us here to do. That is to do something for the public good and 
particularly for the kids and for the future of the youngsters in this 
Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for joining with me this evening. I 
am sure that we will be engaged in this conversation over the next few 
weeks.
  Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely.

                          ____________________