[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4658]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EDUCATION CUTS

  (Ms. McKINNEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and include extraneous material.)
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I am no longer astonished by the lengths 
to which Republican leaders will go just to cut education funding. 
Monday's Washington Post reported that the Republican House majority 
leader favored cutting education in order to pay for a repeal of the 
gas tax. Now, that's audacious stuff coming from someone who used 
Government loans to get through school.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership could have easily paid for a 
repeal of the gas tax by not giving the military $7 billion more that 
what it asked for in 1996.
  In fact, what guarantee do we even have that the oil companies will 
reduce their prices once the gas tax is repealed?
  Once again, Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership has demonstrated 
that it is only interested in greasing the rigs of the oil companies, 
while giving the American middle class a Texas-sized wedgie.
  I include for the Record the following article from the Washington 
Post of Monday, May 6, 1996:

                 Armey: Cheaper Fuel Via Education Cuts

                        (By Serge F. Kovaleski)

       House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) yesterday 
     suggested that the revenue loss from a repeal of the 1993 
     gasoline tax could be offset by cutting spending on 
     education.
       ``Maybe we ought to take another look at the amount of 
     money we are spending on education,'' Armey said on NBC's 
     ``Meet the Press.'' ``There is a place where we're getting a 
     declining value for an increasing dollar. It's in education.
       ``If in fact we can get some discipline in the use of our 
     education dollar, I think we can make up the difference,'' 
     Armey added.
       The White House said yesterday that targeting education 
     funds is not acceptable.
       Reducing the federal 18.3-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax by 
     4.3 cents, as proposed by Republicans, would save the average 
     motorist about $27 a year in taxes, but would reduce federal 
     revenue by $30 billion to $35 billion over the next seven 
     years, the White House estimates.
       Senate Marjority Leader and presumptive GOP presidential 
     nominee Robert J. Dole (Kan.), who has made repeal of the 
     1993 gas tax a focus of his campaign against President 
     Clinton, plans to introduce legislation Tuesday to repeal the 
     1993 tax temporarily. The increase was part of the deficit 
     reduction package that Clinton pushed through Congress in 
     1993 without a single Republican vote.
       Under the Dole proposal, the tax would be rolled back 
     through January 1997 and a permanent repeal would be 
     considered as part of the budget for the fiscal year starting 
     Oct. 1. Clinton has said he would be willing to consider 
     scrapping the tax if Republicans found a fair way to make up 
     the revenue loss.
       But in a statement yesterday, White House Chief of Staff 
     Leon E. Panetta called on Dole and House Speaker Newt 
     Gingrich (R-Ga.) ``immediately and unequivocally'' to 
     repudiate Armey's suggestion that education spending could be 
     cut to finance a reduction in the gasoline tax.
       White House economic adviser Laura D'Andrea Tyson, also 
     interviewed on ``meet the Press,'' refused to say whether the 
     President would sign a freestanding bill to kill the tax 
     hike, but argued that any cut should be part of a balanced 
     budget plan. ``It's going to be very hard for them to find 
     $30 billion to $35 billion,'' she said.
       Tyson stressed the White House would prefer tax reductions 
     for education or a family tax credit or an IRA expansion 
     rather than a gasoline tax cut.
       Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), on ABC's ``This Week With David 
     Brinkley,'' said the best way to offset the tax repeal would 
     be to cut welfare benefits for legal immigrants, which would 
     result in savings of about $14 billion a year. He also said 
     Congress should not twin the gasoline tax repeal and a 
     minimum wage increase, which Dole has suggested to appeal to 
     Clinton and the Democrats.
       Gingrich echoed that view in remarks on CBS's ``Face the 
     Nation.'' He said the gas tax legislation would be a 
     ``simple, narrow bill'' that would not be lined to the 
     minimum wage issue. He said the House Ways and Means 
     Committee would meet Tuesday to consider how to pay for the 
     tax repeal. He did not embrace Armey's suggestion or reject 
     it.
       He said that Dole's ``proposal to repeal the gas tax 
     increase has been generally pretty popular. I think it will 
     pass by a big margin,'' giving Clinton ``a chance to sign it 
     into law before Memorial Day so that Americans who drive over 
     Memorial Day will pay slightly less for gasoline.''
       The Clinton administration, however, said that wholesale 
     prices are already going down after the President's decision 
     last week to sell 12 million barrels of oil from the 
     Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
       Economists have noted that when the price of gasoline is 
     adjusted for inflation, it is cheap by historical standards. 
     In 1995 dollars, average gasoline prices are at 1991 levels 
     but are well below where they were for most of the 1980s. The 
     average national price for a gallon of unleaded regular 
     gasoline at the pump is $1.273. That is also far cheaper than 
     gasoline prices in most of the world. In some European 
     countries gasoline is three times the U.S. price.

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