[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H2313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         EDUCATION CUTS ARE THE LARGEST IN THE NATION'S HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, education is one of the priorities that the 
President and Democrats in Congress have stressed should not be 
severely impacted during these constant budget battles that take place 
on the floor of this House of Representatives. Yet, once again, we face 
a situation where the House-passed spending bill for the remainder of 
this fiscal year would provide the largest cut in education in the 
history of the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, this is really the work primarily of Speaker Gingrich 
and the House Republican leadership, whose radical plan would 
essentially cut $3.3 billion from the education programs, a 13-percent 
reduction in funds that schools around the country depend on to educate 
students of all ages.
  The Senate, as was mentioned by one of my colleagues earlier, 
fortunately has voted to restore most, or about $2.5 billion, of this 
lost education funding. However, Mr. Speaker, the Senate bill will not 
prevail if Speaker Gingrich and his extremist views hold sway.
  Today, the House Republicans passed another stopgap funding bill. It 
is the 11th, I believe, since the beginning of this session. This 
measure would only keep the Government running for another week. Its 
purpose is to give House Republicans an opportunity to attack the 
reasonable education funding levels in the Senate bill. It is nothing 
more, in my opinion, than another attempt by House Republicans to hold 
the Federal Government hostage to their agenda.
  President Clinton has already said that he will not sign any bill 
that funds education programs at the House-passed level. He also said 
that rather than sign any extremist Republican spending plan, he may 
refuse to sign all stopgap spending bills sent to him after Easter. 
Thus, if the House Republicans continue to insist on steamrolling 
through these radical cuts in Federal education programs, we could face 
yet another Government shutdown.
  I believe preserving a strong educational framework was something 
that traditionally Members on both sides of the aisle, in both Houses 
in Congress, used to be able to agree on before the current House 
Republican majority took over. What is happening here is that the 
Speaker and the House Republican leadership are basically going against 
this consensus, or shattering the consensus that we have had for years 
that says that education should be a priority.
  If we compare the differences between the House and Senate education 
proposals, we can see the differences between the radical Republicans 
here in the House and the more sane, if you will, Republicans in the 
Senate. The House-passed bill cuts title I programs by $1.2 billion. 
The Senate restored $815 million of that. The House-passed bill would 
eliminate the Goals 2000 Education Reform Program. The Senate restores 
$60 billion for Goals 2000. The House-passed bill cuts $266 billion 
from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. The Senate restores $182 
million. The House-passed bill cuts $27.5 million from the School-to-
Work Program. The Senate puts back $182 million.
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on with this list, but the point is that it 
is here in the House that the education cuts are being implemented. The 
fact that Senate Republicans will not go along with that only goes to 
prove, essentially, that it is the House Republicans that are forcing 
or taking this stand.

  Mr. Speaker, what does it mean back in our States and back in our 
districts? It means if this House Republican plan goes through, the 
teachers and teachers' assistants could be laid off, and schools in 
search of alternative sources of funding could force their local 
governments to raise taxes in order to maintain the same number of 
teachers. If alternative sources of funding cannot be found, fewer 
teachers would need dramatically decreased sizes of classes, and 
students in need of assistance in areas such as basic reading and 
writing would be denied the help of their local schools, because 
education money will have dried up.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no mistake about it. If we look at my own State 
of New Jersey, my own district, the taxpayers simply cannot afford 
these increases. The local property taxes, the local budgets, are 
usually turned down, because people do not want to have to pay higher 
property taxes. It is much more difficult for them if they do not have 
the Federal funding sources.
  What I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that it is time for the House 
Republican leadership to wake up. There should be no more of these 
stopgap funding bills for 1 week, 2 weeks, or 3 weeks. They should 
simply return to the mainstream and joint the congressional Democrats, 
the President, and now even the Senate Republicans in saying that 
education is a priority, that there should be adequate funding for it, 
and that education programs should not be part of this constant battle 
back and forth which leads us to these stopgap funding plans.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that more and more over the next few weeks, as 
we continue to battle over the budget and over spending priorities, 
hopefully we will see the House Republican leadership come over to the 
point of view that says education should remain a priority and should 
not be something that we cut severely, because it really is the future 
of America and the future of our young people.

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