[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5805-H5812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SAFETY NET FOR CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the 
Children's Defense Fund and Marian Wright Edelman and all of the other 
sponsors of Stand for Children which took place here in Washington last 
Saturday, June 1.
  They came from all over, all parts of the Nation. They came from 
every ethnic group, every religion, every race, they were all together, 
children and families, making it clear that in America the great caring 
majority stands for children and American policies. Government policies 
at this point in our Nation's history reflect this fact. They reflect 
the fact that this Nation stands for children. The policies of the 
Government stand for children.
  Mr. Speaker, the problem that they did not talk very much about on 
Saturday is the problem of the present attempt to change those 
government policies, to turn our policies around and make this a Nation 
whose policies are hostile toward families and children.
  In contrast to the Stand for Children that was taking place in 
Washington here, more than 200,000 people by the official estimates, in 
contrast to that Stand for Children, let us consider for a moment the 
problem of Brazil and Colombia, where large numbers of children are 
being found dead in the streets every day. They are being found dead as 
a result of being shot the night before. They are killing children in 
Brazil. They are killing children in Colombia. They are killing 
children in certain other South American countries.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not mean child abuse in the usual sense. There is a 
high degree of child abuse in these nations, but there is a phenomenon 
which we have not yet experienced in America. That is they are shooting 
children at night, and you find the dead bodies the next day. The elite 
classes of Brazil and Colombia and certain other South American 
countries are the classes of people that are envied by our Republican 
majority here in this country.
  We have an elitist philosophy driving an attempt by the Republican 
majority to change the policies that have an impact on children. The 
previous speakers talked about they were not cutting school lunch 
programs because after all the figures, the numbers will show that 
there is an increase in the numbers over the years. They do not tell 
you that the number of children will increase faster than the dollars 
that they have put in the budget will increase. If you did a simple 
mathematical calculation of dividing the number of children into the 
number of dollars available, you will see that the amount of dollars 
available, you will see that the amount of dollars per child will go 
down as a result of the cuts that they are proposing.

  They are also taking out large blocks of children and saying that 
immigrant children shall not be served and we are going to just leave 
them on their own. We are going to leave them to fend for themselves. 
So the contrast is very important, to take into consideration the fact 
that in this Nation at this point in history, the majority of Americans 
still stand for children. They stand for

[[Page H5806]]

children regardless of what the Republican majority in the Congress 
right now is trying to do.
  They are going to reject the attempts wholesale to change the 
policies which favor children and families. They are going to reject it 
in November, but in the meantime we have a serious problem of trying to 
beat back the threats to the policies and the programs in our 
Government which support families and children.
  There are three examples I would like for you to consider. Consider 
the fact that in America we do stand for children. Still our Government 
policies are favorable to children and families. In Brazil, Colombia 
and certain other South American countries, they do not have the safety 
net for families and for children, so they have gone in the opposite 
direction.
  They have created so many problems with families and children that 
large numbers of children roam the streets day and night, and they have 
begun to hate those children. They have begun to demonize those 
children. They are wiping out those children at night through vigilante 
groups. Many groups involved are even considered to be close to the 
police, or in a few examples the police themselves have been accused of 
murdering children at night.
  These children become a nuisance because they steal in the daytime. 
They obstruct the beauty of the sidewalks. They do a lot of things 
which make people very upset with them. Society will not deal with them 
in a rational way. Society will not provide programs which will 
guarantee that they have a decent home or decent meal, school lunches, 
will not guarantee that they have some safety net so that families are 
not thrown into the streets, that society ends up at the other extreme, 
exterminating children, large numbers of children are being killed.
  Contrast the societies of the industrialized nations that the United 
States is in economic competition with. Brazil, not Brazil, Italy, 
England, France, Germany, those societies have safety nets which are 
far greater than any safety nets that we have here in America. They 
treat children far better. Recent articles in the newspaper, the New 
York Times talked about in Italy the mothers under the provisions which 
allow family leave have abused it to the point where certain mothers 
have stayed off a whole year from work and gotten paid. That was an 
example of abuse. But then they described the kinds of programs that 
they have for family leave in a country like Italy. They showed how a 
person who wanted to abuse the system could do that. What they were 
saying is that there is a very strong family net there for people who 
have children.
  In this country, which has a gross national product which is smaller 
than ours, Italy is not a rich industrialized nation, as rich as the 
United States, but in Italy they have policies for families which are 
far better. In France, they are always citing the day care programs in 
France, unparalleled, no parallel programs anywhere in the world to the 
kind of day care programs they provide in France.

  In Germany, the programs for workers that allow vacations and sick 
leave and so forth are unparalleled in terms of any workers anywhere in 
the world. So on the one hand you have families and children in certain 
industrialized nations who are far better off and supported far more by 
the government and the country as a whole than we have in this country.
  On the other hand, you have the other extreme, the elite minorities 
of South America, the rich leadership of South America who are envied 
by the elite minority here in this country. They do not pay very much 
taxes. They are not bothered with the nuisance of taxes. You have 
billionaires in South America who are scot-free from responsibilities 
of trying to guarantee that there is a safety net for children and 
families, and our Republican majority here wants to create a situation 
for our elite minority to have a similar situation. They want more and 
more advantages for the rich, less and less taxes, less and less 
disturbing their abilities to make maximum number of dollars in 
profits.
  In South America they do not have environmental laws. They do not 
have a number of things which force our corporations and businesses to 
act in a more humane way, ways which are supportive of life in general 
and of families and of children. So they have gone to the extreme in 
places like Brazil and Colombia.
  On the other hand, we are at least in the middle. We have some safety 
net programs. Right now we are at a critical point in our history where 
a Republican majority in control of the Congress is striving to try to 
eliminate those safety net programs.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk in a little while about specific 
examples of programs for children that the Republican majority has 
attempted to eliminate, programs for families that the Republican 
majority is attempting to eradicate at this very moment. One of the 
most important programs of course is Medicaid, the Medicaid 
entitlement. Families will be hurt a great deal if the program passed 
by the Republican majority in this House were to be signed into law.
  Last Thursday there was another program, the reauthorization of IDEA, 
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That, too, was under 
the hammer by the Republican majority. They are chipping away at that 
program now and creating a situation where it is possible that the 
Federal Government may pull out of its support for children with 
disabilities, the education, completely. I will talk more about that 
later.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just go for a moment to some clippings related to 
Brazil. I want to make the point clear here that, if a society takes 
the route of accepting no responsibility for the poor families within 
that society, the society takes the route that it is against minimum 
wage. So those who are working cannot earn a decent living and then 
takes the route that those who are not, those who cannot find jobs and 
are on unemployment do not deserve any help from government. If it 
takes the route of cutting back on job training programs as all of 
these routes taken by the Republican majority here in this Congress, 
you take that route, you are eventually going to end up in a situation 
where the children are demonized and hated because they are running out 
there without any support. Families cannot keep them at home. Families 
cannot keep them. Families cannot house them. Families cannot clothe 
them. So they are on the street.

                              {time}  1815

  Where do they go if not onto the streets? And once they are on the 
streets, they become scum in the eyes of the general population. It is 
not surprising that it is the police that sometimes end up being 
involved in trying to eradicate these children.
  These are not my words. Let me just quote from a story that appeared, 
a United Press International story, on April 25, 1995. I use this story 
because it is an example of a situation where they caught, for the 
first time they caught some of the people who were doing the 
eradication of children. Children have been dying, being shot, like 
flies. You know, they have been dying in large numbers and being found 
on the street dead, shot in large numbers, and nobody has been held 
responsible. This is the one example where there was a witness, and 
they actually arrested people, and a trial was taking place last April 
related to the killing of these children.
  Let me just read from the United Press International article of April 
25, 1996. A former military police agent in Brazil confessed Thursday 
to his part in the 1993 killings of eight street children as they slept 
outside the Candelaria Church in Rio de Janeiro and said people 
scheduled to go on trial are innocent. The police agent was one of 
those accused, and as he came up for trial, he confessed, but he said 
certain other people that were accused were not innocent.
  The important thing about this is that the prosecutor, Jose Muinos 
Pineiro, said that this trial was the first ever in the case of the 
killing of street children, and the trial was to begin as planned, and 
it would be a landmark in Brazil, although for years they have been 
finding children shot in the streets in the morning, and nobody has 
ever been punished. So this was the first case.
  Mr. Santos, who was a former policeman, confessed, said he decided to 
confess because of conflicts of conscience, conflicts of conscience. 
The witness who identified Mr. Santos and the others is a boy named 
Wagner dos Santos,

[[Page H5807]]

and Wagner dos Santos, the little child who identified the assailant, 
the assassins, has suffered two assassination attempts since the time 
he identified them and the time of the trial. He has been so threatened 
that he had to be moved to Switzerland and kept there between the time 
of the assassinations of the children and the time of the trial; the 
only trial being held; only time they have caught the killers of 
children in the streets of Brazil.
  Now, am I exaggerating the situation? Here is another article dated 
October 12, 1995 from Inter Press Service, and it states that a study, 
according to the article, a study by the United Nations Children's 
Fund, UNICEF, reported that Colombia's average of 2,219 child killings 
each year now outstrips the more notorious death by violence of 
children in Brazil, where the figure was 1,533 annually.
  Now, I am not talking about child abuse, I am not talking about child 
deaths as a result of neglect. We are talking about children being shot 
in the streets, children being shot like rats.
  The Colombian city with the highest children's death rate in 
Medellin, with 64 children murdered for every 100,000 inhabitants. The 
city of Cali, the third largest city, has 13 deaths per 100,000 
children. We know some of these names because they are drug centers in 
Columbia. In the capital of Colombia, Bogota, they have a better 
record: Eight children die violently each year per 100,000 inhabitants.
  Now, I quote these statistics to let you know, you know, in a 
civilized society, and these are civilized societies, they are quasi-
democracies in some cases, but the situation has deteriorated to the 
point where instead of standing for children, the citizens stand 
against children, enough of them stand against children to allow this 
to go on day in and day out, night in and night out, and the children 
are picked up in the morning like rats, dead rats.
  Human Rights Watch stopped short of describing the widespread murder 
of street children as government policy, but it did state that the 
police agents are involved in a broad range of abuse against minors, 
including torture, corporal punishment and widespread killings. Human 
Rights narrated the story of Frankie, a Bogota street urchin who had 
managed to escape three social cleansing operations. It also discussed 
the case of Andres, a child prostitute who, according to three friends, 
was taken out of the center when he was working by three armed men 
dressed in police uniforms, and several days later this body was found 
on the outskirts of Bogota.
  The report notes that the most extreme attack took place November 15, 
1992, when eight children and one adult who were members of a community 
group were murdered in Villatina, a marginal barrio of Medellin, in the 
northwest of Colombia. According to witnesses, the youths were gathered 
at night on a street corner in the barrio when 12 men in three vehicles 
approached and demanded that they lie on the ground, and opened fire on 
them.

  One of the victims reportedly managed to tell his mother before dying 
that he recognized his killer as a member of the judicial police. One 
human rights organization linked the Villatina massacre to the deaths 
of two police officers the same day and said that because those police 
officers had been killed, they were out to get revenge on the children 
before this massacre took place.
  Now, I only mentioned police and make a point about police because 
police are an agent of government. Police are the front line of what 
people really want. And when societies have degenerated to the point 
where they are killing children and policemen are involved or turning 
their back, refuse to investigate, then you know that the society is 
culpable. It is not something out there on the outskirts, on the edges 
of society, taking place that does not have approval from a large 
number of citizens.
  You know Daniel Goldhagen has written a book called ``Hitler's 
Willing Executioners,'' and in the book, ``Hitler's Willing 
Executioners,'' Daniel Goldhagen says that what Hitler did could not 
have happened if the Nazis had not taken over the government. They had 
control of the government, and they had power over people, but the 
extent to which the mass murders occurred, the massacre of 6 million 
Jewish people occurred, they also had to have a willing population, and 
that too many people in the German population cooperated because they 
had come to the point where they demonized Jewish people and saw them 
as subhuman, and because they saw them as subhuman, they could 
participate in these outrageous acts without any conscience.
  When a society reaches the point where frustrations and failure of 
government and failure of institutions is such that children become a 
nuisance, a threat, and the society begins to demonize its children, 
then they can do unspeakable things to its children, like murder them 
in the streets like rats.
  Mr. Goldhagen also makes some references to slavery. Slavery took 
place in a situation where large numbers of human beings were treated 
in a outrageous subhuman, criminal manner for 232 years in America. 
Slavery in South America lasted longer. Slavery in South America was 
more brutal. Slavery in South America did not have the constriction of 
early laws which forbade the import of slaves, so for a much longer 
time in South America they were importing slaves. And South America was 
much more brutal in the treatment of its slaves because they were 
expendable, they did not try to keep their property alive the way the 
American slave owners did, they did not set up breeding farms and try 
to breed slaves and take care of female slaves because they were 
valuable property. In South America they had an access to large numbers 
of incoming slaves, and the tradition was they just worked them until 
they worked them to death. The brutality was so much greater and the 
heritage of that brutality probably has something to do with the fact 
that they are shooting children down in the streets of certain South 
American countries right now.
  I might add, my colleagues, that in these South American countries 
there is a black population. Colombia has, I learned on the radio this 
morning, 6 million, at least 6 million, people who are of African 
descent. In Brazil at least half of the people in Brazil are of African 
descent, and probably, if you use the general yardstick that is applied 
in America that if you have one drop of African blood you are of 
African decent, the majority of people in Brazil are of African 
descent.

  The children who are shot down in the streets are usually black or 
mixed children in the streets of Colombia; it is the black and the 
mixed children who are being murdered in the streets of Brazil because 
they are the bottom of the economic ladder, they are the despised ones 
who have no safety net, there is no welfare program, there is no school 
lunch program, there is no Medicaid, there is no program for children 
with disabilities. So they are thrown into the streets.
  This is my introduction to my discussion of the Stand For Children. I 
applaud the Stand For Children because it says a lot about where the 
majority of Americans are at this point.
  There was one thing that happened with Stand For Children that 
disturbed me. Marian Wright Edelman, who is the organizer of this Stand 
For Children, on last Saturday did a brilliant job, and we all know 
Marian Wright Edelman on the Hill very well. Republicans and Democrats 
are familiar with the work of the Children's Defense Fund, and they 
have done a great job, and they are very knowledgeable about the 
political process. They are nonpartisan, and sometimes they have 
appealed to us to act in a bipartisan way, but they are political. I 
was disturbed in Marian Wright Edelman's final speech, her closing 
speech on Saturday when she said to people, ``Go back home,'' and she 
asked them to follow God. ``Don't follow politicians, follow God.''
  Now, by all means they should follow God. But I wonder why she had to 
say do not follow politicians. It struck me as strange and sounded 
dangerous because in my community I have had a problem with people 
putting down politicians, not wanting to get involved in the political 
process, not even bothering to go out and vote because they are so fed 
up with following politicians, they are fed up with the political 
process, they do not participate, and therefore the people who do 
participate and those who have the power are making

[[Page H5808]]

rules and laws which are very much to the detriment of those people. 
``Don't follow the politicians.''
  You know it is strange in many ways because it lets all of us off the 
hook. All politicians, Members of Congress, city council members, 
members of State legislatures, you are off the hook if you do not have 
responsibility for children because we have been told, the people have 
been told, not to follow us.
  I do not think Marian Wright Edelman meant this at all; I am positive 
she did not, because nobody has more political sophistication in 
America than Marian Wright Edelman. But it came over that way. For a 
layman listening, it sounds as if we should not follow politicians, 
that God, you know, cannot be for politicians.
  Some politicians are not following God. You know, the scenario, as I 
see it, is God is up front there, and if you want to get something done 
through the political process, you have to have certain laws change, 
you have to have programs in this country and public policy in this 
country which benefit children; then to do that you got to get behind 
the politicians. God is in front, the politicians are behind God; some 
of them are, some of us are. We are the advocates of God's work, we are 
the advocates for children.

                              {time}  1830

  You have to get behind us. If you are going to go in another arena, 
you want God to be up front. If you want educators and teachers to be 
up front, get behind them. If you go into the arena where you are 
talking about health care and you want the doctors in the health care 
system and the nurses, God is up front and the doctors and health care 
system and nurses are behind God.
  If you want to accomplish something in this world, you have to do it 
through men and women who make decisions. God is not a dictator. God is 
not totalitarian. God has left us with free will. God will not 
intervene in America and deal with whether the Medicaid entitlement 
stays in place or not. God is not going to come down and deal with that 
directly. God will act through agents.
  There are some advocates that follow God and will fight to guarantee 
that we keep Medicaid, because it is a life and death matter. We must 
keep the Medicaid entitlement. There are some advocates who are on the 
side of God, who are behind God, who will guarantee that we have 
children with disabilities be supported by the Federal Government. God 
will not get involved. God will not intervene. That is what free will 
is all about.
  I am not a theologian or deep philosopher, because we have gone 
through that over and over again. The decision has been made that God 
leaves mankind free to make certain decisions. God sits and watches, 
and he is disappointed sometimes. He must spend a lot of time crying 
about the kinds of decisions that we make. From time to time horrible 
things are done by men and women who are making the decisions. Horrible 
things are done by men and women who have the power. God must be very 
disappointed.
  On the other hand, there are men and women who do things that God, I 
am sure, appreciates a great deal and supports, and in the final 
analysis I think that those people who are following God, doing God's 
work, will triumph. But never tell people not to follow politicians, 
follow God. Tell them to follow the politicians who are in line behind 
God, and it makes much more sense.
  The Children's Defense Fund certainly knows that the political 
process requires that you talk to politicians, that you confront the 
Members of Congress, confront the Senators, confront the Members of 
the House. All that is necessary in order to get things done.

  I think that the Children's Defense Fund does its homework very well. 
Some of the documents they put out clearly show that they do not 
believe that politicians should not be followed. Or maybe what she is 
really saying is do not follow them, push them; get behind them and 
push them. Or maybe it meant that you should get in front of them with 
some ropes and pull them, because the Children's Defense Fund certainly 
engages us. We are engaged in problems with children, and I applaud 
them for that. I applaud them for engaging us year in and year out on 
problems related to children.
  They gave us a list. They sent it around to all the Members of 
Congress. This list says, ``Who's for Kids and Who's Just Kidding?'' 
This came from the Children's Defense Fund, the top 10 kids' votes in 
the 104th Congress. In after school and summer programs for kids, they 
give a record of how the Congress voted on the after school and summer 
programs for kids.
  Cut school lunch, that is another vote that was taken. They give a 
record of how Republicans and Democrats voted. Cut basic education and 
Head Start and summer jobs, a third vote that was taken which directly 
impacts on children, on families. Allow parents to block out violent or 
sexual TV shows. That was a vote that directly affects children and 
families. If you stand for children, they indicate that you would have 
voted yes on that vote.
  No. 5, cut student loans and children's health and nutrition 
programs. We heard a discussion before from our Republican colleagues, 
that they really are not cutting student loans and they are not cutting 
children's programs. The amount of money is increasing, but they do not 
tell us that the number of children, the number of students, is 
increasing, and when you divide the number of children for these 
programs into the amount of money, as the children increase, the amount 
of money is going down per child.
  No. 6, restore $3.1 billion in education cuts. We restored that, yet 
the vote to do that is important. Cut education by $3 billion, that was 
a vote taken. She is recapitulating past history over the last few 
months, where the Republicans tried to cut education and to cut job 
training and to cut summer youth programs and to cut school lunches, 
and we stood firm. We took our case to the American people. We made it 
clear to everybody out there what was happening, and they backed down. 
But she is recounting how the votes went down. These were votes against 
children.

  Accept the Senate's proposal for higher spending on education. That 
is a vote that is important. Provide a $5,000 adoption tax credit. That 
is a vote for children on which I think we almost had unanimous 
consent, we almost had every person on both sides of the aisle voting 
for the $5,000 adoption tax credit. They note that. That was a vote for 
families and for children.
  Cut funding for basic education and Head Start by 20 percent. 
Originally the Republican majority voted to cut Head Start by $300 
million. I am happy to say that we had yet another vote where we put it 
back in. I do not know how many Republicans voted to put it back in, 
but the bill passed which put the money back in for the Head Start cut. 
Those are concrete things the Children's Defense Fund, the stand for 
children people, sent around as examples of votes that impacted on 
children. They understand the political process. They understand 
clearly.
  In another place they make it clear that the Republicans have come up 
wanting as a party. As a fact, they say, and it is not that they are 
bipartisan, they are not Democrat or Republican, but they state the 
facts clearly. I am going to quote from an item in a letter of March 
27, 1996, signed by Marion Wright Edelman. This is when the Children's 
Defense Fund first announced it was the prime sponsor for the Stand for 
Children.
  ``Every child in America needs and deserves a healthy start, a had 
start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life. Yet this 
year's book shows that we continue as a Nation to leave millions of our 
children behind. Despite overwhelming evidence of child suffering and 
neglect, proposals pending in Congress would return America to the past 
rather than prepare children for the future; weaken rather than 
strengthen the guaranteed safety net for children and families during 
times of need, recession, and disaster; and decrease rather than 
increase cost-effective child investments in order to give a tax cut to 
the non-needy. At a time when more than 15 million children are poor, 
over 3 million are abused and neglected, and more than half a million 
drop out of school, it is essential that Congress strengthen rather 
than shred the Federal guaranteed safety net for children.

[[Page H5809]]

  ``I hope that you will find this information, including State by 
State tables contained in the Appendix, valuable as a resource and as a 
guide for future action on behalf of America's children. If I or my 
staff can be of assistance, please contact,'' et cetera, et cetera; a 
letter from the Children's Defense Fund in March of this year, saying 
that we still are taking steps that threaten children and threaten 
families.
  Here is a statement that came out just last week, along with a copy 
of the top 10 votes for kids. I read from the statement: ``The record 
of the Republican-led 104th Congress on protecting our children is 
truly an outrage. While Republicans talk about a pro-family agenda, 
they have voted repeatedly to slash funding for education programs, 
student loans, child nutrition, health care for children, foster care 
and other child protection services, and aid for disabled children. The 
Republican agenda of the 104th Congress has been everything but kid-
friendly. In fact, it's been hostile.''
  Continuing to quote from the item distributed by the Children's 
Defense Fund last week, it says ``This Republican agenda threatens the 
education and well-being of our Nation's children, effectively 
abandoning the promise and future of America. Without healthy children 
in good public schools, our businesses will not be able to compete in 
the new global economy, and yet throughout, the Republican agenda 
essentially balances the budget on the backs of our Nation's future.''
  We heard our Republican colleagues talk before about how important it 
is to get rid of the deficit and to deal with the budget so children in 
the future can not have the burden of having to pay for those programs. 
The debt must be eliminated because of the children in the future.
  It seems to be a pattern of the Republican Party that is escalating. 
It is the children in the womb, they are very much concerned about 
unborn children. We all should be, because you do not have children 
unless they get born. But they are excessively preoccupied by the 
unborn children, but the minute the children arrive and get here, they 
abandon them.
  They do not care what happens to them in terms of the WIC program and 
the program for infants and mothers. They do not care what happens in 
terms of mothers who have to stay home to take care of their children. 
They do not care what happens when the children go to school and have a 
school lunch program. It is the unborn child, and then it is the child 
in the future, posterity.

  Republicans are concerned about children who are unborn and they are 
concerned about children who have not been conceived yet, those in the 
far future. There is something wrong with the sudden lapse and the gap 
between the child who arrives here and the child in the womb and the 
children of posterity, there is something radically wrong with the 
reasoning.
  I wrote a little rap poem on April 19 which talked about this, and 
said that it seems that we are sending a message to the fetuses, and I 
place the situation in terms of a message from the newborn to the 
fetus. The newborn is saying ``I've arrived here and I find all this 
hostility. Stay in there. Don't come out here. Don't come into this 
mean world, you know. ``There is a real danger here.'' The people who 
talk about a right to life make the right to life just an empty slogan 
unless it is accompanies by programs and policies which provide an even 
playing field of opportunity for all children.
  At that time I was announcing on April 19, 1996, my support, my 
applause for the Children's Defense Fund's call for a Stand for 
Children. Quoting from my entry into the Congressional Record on that 
day, I said, ``On June 1st the Children's Defense Fund is sponsoring a 
great summit in Washington called Stand for Children. This is a 
gathering which deserves the support of all Members of Congress. We 
should all join the Stand for Children on this specific day, and for 
all the days before and after June 1, Congress should refocus on the 
business of protecting our most precious resource, children outside of 
their mothers wombs, as well as children inside the wombs.'' The I go 
on to give the rap poem which I will read later.
  To close out this particular item that was circulated last week by 
the Children's Defense Fund, and I quote again from it, ``Fortunately, 
the Democrats in Congress and the Clinton administration have 
successfully fought off many of the damaging cuts that the Republicans 
have put forth. For example, Democrats have successfully restored most 
of the education cuts endorsed by the GOP, and President Clinton has 
vetoed many damaging cuts in children's programs in the GOP welfare and 
budget reconciliation bills.''
  This is material that was distributed, despite the fact that this is 
a nonpartisan group. They just stated the facts. Those are the facts. 
This is a nonpartisan group that said they did not want any politicians 
to speak. I accepted that. I was there Saturday. I did not think it was 
a great problem that politicians could not speak, Republicans or 
Democrats. There were many other voices that ought to be heard. But I 
do have a problem if you tell people not to follow politicians, not to 
follow any politicians, to put us all in one category. That is very 
unreal and dangerous.

  Let me just return to this list. In this list of the top 10 votes in 
the 104th Congress, there are some things that are left out. There are 
some things that we need to add. If needs to go beyond 10. We need to 
bring to light the fact that programs that will impact on children go 
beyond these 10 areas.
  The cuts in public library aid, public libraries receive very tiny 
amounts of Federal money, but those amounts are very important. We even 
cut those tiny amounts. We get the best bargain in education in public 
libraries. For the amount of money spent we get a greater return than 
anywhere else. They were cut.
  Summer youth employment, they did mention that in the 10 points that 
were made. The destruction of opportunity to learn standards. Most 
people do not know that the Congress passed a reauthorization of the 
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which had in it an item which 
called for States to establish opportunity to learn standards.
  This is all voluntary. States do not have to do it, but if States are 
going to participate in the program where they establish curriculum 
standards and they establish testing standards, the curriculum 
standards and testing standards focus on the children. The onus is on 
the children to live up to the curriculum standards. They are going to 
be tested. We added, after much debate, a set of standards called 
opportunity to learn standards. Opportunity to learn standards mean 
exactly what they say, the opportunity to learn.
  You must have standards which talk about what opportunities to learn 
are you providing at the State level. Are the teachers qualified? That 
is an important opportunity to learn standard. Are the buildings safe 
and conducive and modernized so that learning can take place? Does the 
library have books that are current, or do they have 35-year-old 
history books or geography books that are dangerous for children to 
read, because they read the wrong information?
  Do they have laboratories for science and math? That is important. Do 
they have laboratories for science? Do they have supplies for the 
laboratories? All of these things are basic, commonsense items. That is 
what opportunity to learn standards are all about.

                              {time}  1845

  We had a great debate during the time when we were reauthorizing the 
Elementary Secondary Education Act, a great debate among ourselves in 
the House. Then when the bill was in conference, there was a great 
debate between the House and the Senate, and those of us who are in 
favor of opportunity to learn standards prevailed in the authorization 
process in the 103d Congress. Lo and behold, it violated all the rules. 
The appropriations process, this Republican majority, through a stealth 
attack, in the conference process took out the opportunity to learn 
standards.
  They do not want to talk about ways in which we can help children to 
learn and have that discussed openly the way we discuss testing 
children. We want to test children until they are tested right out of 
school, but we do not want to provide a discussion of what are 
qualified teachers and what is an appropriate set of learning aids in 
science and math. We do not want to deal with

[[Page H5810]]

the responsibilities of the local education agency, the 
responsibilities of the State government, and the responsibilities of 
the Federal Government.
  So the destruction of opportunity to learn standards should be added 
to this list of votes that hurt kids.
  Last Thursday, in the reauthorization of the Individual with 
Disabilities Education Act that I referred to before at the committee 
level, the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee 
reauthorized a bill which has a drastic set of cuts and a drastic set 
of negative provisions which do not advance current law but, in my 
opinion, they build a beachhead for later destruction of the Federal 
Government's participation in programs to educate children with 
disabilities.
  I sit on that committee, and I am very much aware of the dangers 
there; and, of course, the Children's Defense Fund could not know 
exactly the extent of what was happening at the committee level, 
because the process has gone on for several weeks.
  I congratulate the chairman of the committee for holding up the 
process for 3 weeks while a number of programs that deal with children 
with disabilities, representatives of organizations, tried to get them 
to change critical parts of the bill. They at least entered into a 
dialogue, and for 3 weeks the process did not go forward while the 
debate took place and the groups were involved.
  Finally, in very critical areas, the majority of the groups agreed; 
and they were overridden by two or three who did not agree on certain 
critical provisions of the bill.
  One of those critical provisions was the provision related to the 
cessation of services for children. Children with disabilities now are 
protected in current law. You cannot expel them and throw them out on 
the streets no matter what happens in terms of their problems in the 
classroom. You have to, if you are going to remove them from the 
classroom, most all States now under the Federal law are obligated to 
provide alternative education. You cannot just throw them out.
  In many States, they have State laws which say you cannot throw 
children out. Whether they have disabilities or not, you cannot throw 
them out of school without providing them some alternatives.
  But there are many States that do not have it. Those children who 
have disabilities and would for some reason be expelled would be thrown 
into a situation where it would be very difficult for them to, without 
the support of public schools and public education, get an education or 
to get acclimated. They would be thrown out there on the streets and 
abandoned.
  That is the worst thing we can do. We do not want to go in the 
direction of Brazil and Colombia, South American nations which, by 
ignoring their children, set up a situation where later on their 
children are despised and demonized, and later on they are murdered. We 
want to maintain some sense of civilization as reflected through how we 
care for the least among us.
  So I made a statement at the beginning of the markup, which to save 
time I will just read it here. It summarizes some of my concern with 
IDEA, Individuals with Disability Education Act reauthorization. I 
said, and I quote, at the beginning of this markup, ``It would be 
useful for all concerned if we made a sincere effort to move away from 
sensational headlines about special education and establish a more 
objective perspective as advocates for public education.''
  I am talking about sensational headlines that appeared related to 
special education being too costly or special education threatening 
mainstream education because it takes money away from the children who 
are in regular classrooms. That is a situation that has been generated 
from this Capitol. This is a situation that the Republican majority has 
blown out of proportion and made it appear that there is a great threat 
out there to mainstream education flowing from special education 
concerns.

  ``This markup is for the purpose of reauthorizing a program for the 
most needy children in America. In the overall constellation of Federal 
funding, IDEA receives only a tiny amount of money. $2.3 billion is 
proposed for grants to States in fiscal year 1996. Please consider this 
amount within the context of recent exposures of an unaudited slush 
fund at the CIA which totaled $4 billion.''
  Some $2.3 billion is proposed for grants to the States in the fiscal 
1996 budget for children with disabilities. That is less than the $4 
billion that the CIA had unaudited in the slush fund that they did not 
know they had. Let us keep our perspective straight. How can we be 
bankrupting America by providing $2.3 billion to the States for 
children with disabilities when we have lying around in the CIA $4 
billion that we do not even know we have?
  ``At the Federal Reserve Bank the GAO discovered an unaudited rainy 
day fund which totaled $3.7 billion even though that agency has not had 
a rainy day in 79 years.''
  The rainy day fund has been there. They have been adding to it. That 
$3.7 billion is far more than we appropriated for children with 
disabilities, sitting around at the Federal Reserve Bank unutilized. 
Let us keep our perspective and understand.
  The problem is not that there is too much money going to special 
education needs. The problem is there is too little money going to 
education as a whole. The problem is that we have to be concerned, 
members of the Education Committee and members of all other committees, 
with where the money is going. Education cannot be examined in 
isolation.
  The people in the education community have come to see the budget for 
education as being the universe that they have to deal with. So they 
are looking at the total amount for education at present and saying 
that special education is getting too much of what is available. Let us 
make more available so that you do not have to cannibalize each other. 
You do not have to take from one to give to the other. We have the 
money in the CIA. We have the money in the Federal Reserve Bank. We 
have the $13 billion additional funding for the Defense Department.
  My colleagues from the other side who spoke before never said a word 
about increasing defense by $13 billion. We talked about the need to 
balance the budget and need to be more responsible in government 
expenditures, but nobody said anything about $13 billion more than the 
President asked, which for has been added to the defense budget this 
year.
  Quoting again from my own statement, ``Against the background of 
continuing monumental waste in B-2 bomber programs and excessive farm 
subsidies, we should alert all members of the education community to 
the fact that there is no need to participate in cannibalization among 
education programs. Special education will not bankrupt the overall 
education budget. Long overdue increases for all education programs is 
the solution. Demonization and scapagoating special education 
promulgates a disaster for overall education funding.
  ``This bill,'' the reauthorization of IDEA, which is to come to the 
floor of the House in the next two weeks, ``attacks special education 
as if it was an enemy. This is a fatal flaw.''
  ``At the time I think it is appropriate to consider the conclusion of 
Kathleen Boundy, Co-director of the Center for Law and Education, and I 
quote from her and her closing comment on the present reauthorization 
bill.

  `` `Despite the earnest efforts of many who have attempted to improve 
this bill and existing law, it is our view that such efforts have 
ultimately been unsuccessful in both the Senate and the House, and that 
Part B of IDEA, regardless of its shortcomings, should be left alone in 
1996.' ''
  It is a bill that was not broken, did not need to be repaired, but is 
being drastically overhauled in the direction of cutting back on the 
commitment of the Federal Government. It will be to the detriment of 
children. The neediest children in America are children who are in 
special education programs. It is to their detriment that we have 
embarked upon a course which may end up cutting back on a long-term 
commitment to children in special education.
  The Senate has a bill that has not yet passed the House. It passed 
out of committee. We hope that the Senate is understood by all the 
people out there that care about education and care about children, we 
hope they understand that it is not too late.

[[Page H5811]]

  Certainly people in the Children's Defense Fund ought to put this on 
their list and consider calling it to the attention of people that care 
about children in America. If you stand for children, it is still 
possible to deal with the House legislation H.R. 3268 and the Senate 
bill S. 1578, part of the revisions of special education law, Public 
Law 94-142. It is still possible that we can wake up the decisionmakers 
here in Washington to the fact that they will hurt children if they go 
ahead with the provisions in this bill which call for a cessation of 
services completely for children who are disciplined for certain 
problems.
  Without getting into a debate about what those particular kinds of 
problems are, there are some, and I agree with them wholeheartedly, who 
take the position that we should never cease services for children, 
services of any kind. Cessation of services, the throwing of children 
in the street, will lead us step by step into where Brazil and Colombia 
are at this point.
  The provision which relates to the cessation of services is due to 
the fact that it is perceived that large amounts of disruption in 
classrooms is ruining the education process, and they want to stop 
disruption, whether it is by children with disabilities or anybody 
else.
  Discipline is a major problem in education. Discipline is what I hear 
teachers talk about all the time. In this Capitol, we ought to address 
the problem of discipline. The States do not seem to be able to solve 
the problem and bring it down to reasonable dimensions. The cities, the 
local education agencies are not able to deal with it and bring it down 
to a reasonable dimension. It goes on and on, the problem with 
discipline.
  So why not deal with the problem of discipline without invading 
special education? Special education suffers because large numbers of 
children who are discipline problems are classified as having a 
disability. I have complained year in and year out about large numbers 
of African-American males who have problems of one kind that lead to 
discipline problems being shunted off into a category called 
emotionally disturbed.
  We took steps when we reauthorized the bill several years ago to 
begin to deal with this in a constructive way. We wanted to bring more 
African-American teachers into the system. We had grants for that. 
Historically, black colleges were encouraged to get involved in 
training of teachers of children with disabilities.
  We wanted to get mothers and families and communities more in tune to 
what was involved in the way programs for children with disabilities, 
special education programs operate so that they would not be victimized 
one way or the other. The children who needed the service should have 
the proper identification, and they should be placed. Children who did 
not need special education should not be shunted there because they 
have certain discipline problems.

                             {time}   1900

  All of those things are cut out of the bill. The cessation of 
services was one very important item that we lost on. The majority of 
the groups that had debated the problem, had discussed the problem with 
representatives of the Republican majority in the final analysis said 
they could not accept the reauthorization bill as it is considering 
that it has the cessation of services.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record a letter addressed 
to the Honorable William F. Goodling, chairman of the Committee on 
Economic and Educational Opportunities, from the long list of 
organizations which includes the National Association of School 
Administrators, the National Education Association, National Parent 
Teacher Association, Council for Exceptional Children and many, many 
others. I would like to enter it in its entirety into the Record.

                                                     May 22, 1996.
     Hon. William F. Goodling,
     Chairman, Committee On Economic and Educational 
         Opportunities, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: Our organizations believe that all 
     students, even those who break school rules, should receive 
     educational and related services. In that spirit, we urge 
     your strong support for including provisions in the 
     reauthorization of the IDEA that ensure all students have 
     access to appropriate educational opportunities. Providing 
     quality educational opportunities to children and youth is a 
     critical component in the development of both individual 
     achievement and in achieving a highly skilled, competitive 
     workforce.
       The fact that students with disabilities have unique needs 
     is recognized through the policy and practice of 
     collaboration and individualized education programs. (IEPs). 
     Our organizations support provisions that would help schools 
     balance the rights of students with disabilities with the 
     need to maintain order and discipline in the schools through 
     preventive measures such as appropriate behavioral 
     interventions, additional classroom and student supports, 
     adequate financial support and other intervention strategies. 
     Should preventive measures not prove adequate, however, we 
     believe it is imperative that continuing educational and 
     related services be provided to all students--even those who 
     need to be served in alternative settings due to suspensions 
     or expulsions from the regular settings--in order to help 
     such students better adapt socially and educationally.
       We urge you, as the author of the reauthorization bill for 
     IDEA, to include language that will ensure access to 
     educational and related services for all students with 
     disabilities, even when they violate school discipline rules 
     or policies.
           Sincerely,
         American Association of School Administrators, National 
           Education Association, National Parent Teacher 
           Association, Council for Exceptional Children, National 
           Association of Secondary School Principals, National 
           Easter Seal Society, Bazelon Center for Mental Health 
           Law, National Association of Protection and Advocacy 
           Systems, Learning Disabilities Association, Brain 
           Injury Association.
         American Psychological Association, Adapted Physical 
           Activity Council, National Consortium of Physical 
           Education and Recreation For Individuals with 
           Disabilities, National Therapeutic Recreation 
           Association, National Coalition on Deaf-Blindness, 
           American Council of the Blind, Children and Adults with 
           Attention Deficit Disorders, American Occupational 
           Therapy Association, American Association on Mental 
           Retardation, Federation of Families for Children's 
           Mental Health.
         American Academy of Audiology, National Mental Health 
           Association, National Association of Developmental 
           Disabilities Councils, National Parents Network on 
           Disabilities, Association for Education and 
           Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, 
           National Association of School Psychologists, American 
           Foundation for the blind, American Association of 
           University Affiliated Programs, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. 
           Foundation, American Academy of Child and Adolescent 
           Psychiatry.
         Justice For All, The Arc, Council of Great City Schools, 
           National Association of the Deaf, Convention of 
           American Instructors of the Deaf, American Speech-
           Language-Hearing Association, National Association of 
           School Nurses, Washington PAVE, Project PROMPT, Vermont 
           Parent Information Center.
         Special Education Action Committee, Parent Information 
           Center of Delaware, Federation for Children with 
           Special Needs, Connecticut Parent Advocacy Center, 
           Inc., Very Special Arts, American Counseling 
           Association, American Physical Therapy Association, 
           Council of Schools For The Blind, National Council On 
           Independent Living, CAUSE.
         Center for Access to Resources and Education, National 
           Coalition For Students With Disabilities Education and 
           Legal Defense Fund, National Down Syndrome Congress, 
           Systematic Training of Military Parents, Washington 
           State Special Education Coalition.

  On the other very important controversial point that I spoke on, 
personnel standards, children with disabilities are now in a situation 
where they require people who have special training. That has been 
recognized for decades. We have steadily had programs to develop more 
teachers, to develop more people who are able to deal with these 
problems. This legislation all of a sudden, we not only cut out the 
development programs and the requirement for personnel development but 
the Republican majority has put in a waiver of the requirements, the 
qualifications can be waived for individuals. The waiver is an open 
door to a complete retreat from any quality standards for the 
personnel. Just as children who are in math and science classes should 
be taught by teachers who majored in math and science in college, we 
think that children who have special problems with respect to 
disabilities ought to be taught and handled by teachers and personnel 
who have had training in that area. The waiver says that you do not 
have to do it anymore. Yes, the waiver says that it is for a 3-year 
period, that unqualified individuals can teach children who have 
disabilities for 3 years only. For 3 years you can destroy a lot of 
lives. And the waiver is

[[Page H5812]]

such that large numbers of people will get these 3-year waivers.
  The problem is money. School boards and local education agencies will 
see themselves saving large amounts of money by accepting unqualified 
people, giving the waivers, saving the money. In the meantime the 
children are the victims of unqualified personnel who do not know what 
they are doing.
  Mr. Speaker, I again made a statement which I would like to read in 
its entirety:
  This amendment concerns a provision which is at the core of the 
Federal Government's commitment to a free and appropriate education for 
children with disabilities. Without properly trained personnel, the 
best that children with disabilities can expect is to be warehoused. 
The worst that will happen under the tutelage of the untrained and 
inexperienced will be psychological and emotional damage, as well as a 
substandard education.
  In a letter from the Center for Law and Education which I am 
attaching to this statement, a co-director concludes that we should 
just abandon this effort and leave the bill alone.
  I would like to strongly echo these sentiments. IDEA, Individuals 
with Disabilities Education Act, was not broken. The current law did 
not need to be overhauled. The current law did not need to be replaced. 
This bill is not a reauthorization. The bill that passed out of 
committee last Thursday is an attack to establish a beachhead. From 
this beachhead the Republican majority, which has already drastically 
indicated its contempt for all public education, will attempt a total 
annihilation of Federal support for special education.

  Like a sledgehammer pounding away at a thumb tack, massive power is 
being brought to bear on programs for the education of children with 
disabilities, a very tiny component of public education in America. A 
slander campaign waged against special education has generated 
distorted perceptions which scapegoat a very productive and beneficial 
program. Despite these distorted perceptions, special education is in 
no way a threat to mainstream education. This tiny minority deserves 
fairer treatment at the hands of the education majority. This minimal 
program for the most needy students also deserves continued support 
from both Democrats and the Republican majority.
  I congratulate the community of people with disabilities and their 
consensus group which launched a monumental effort to maintain workable 
legislation consistent with the original intent of the law and bowing 
to no partisan dogmas. The language before us is in many ways improved 
beyond the original doctrinaire attack as a result of the efforts of 
these negotiators. But the revisions do not go far enough in several 
fundamental areas. Personnel standards is one of these areas.
  This bill, with premeditated stealth, wrecks the carefully developed 
protections which have been thoughtfully crafted over many years with 
the input of both recipients and providers of service to children with 
disabilities. Obliteration of these requirements is a contemptuous and 
hostile act against children with disabilities. No member of this 
committee would ever support the wholesale waiver of standards for 
science and math teachers in the schools located in his or her 
district. Waiving personnel standards only serves one ignoble purpose: 
Compliance can be achieved cheaply. For less money, the quality of 
teaching and other services will most likely be adulterated.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to submit the statement in its entirety for the 
Record.

Statement of Hon. Major R. Owens ``Restoration of Personnel Standards'' 
                              May 30, 1996

       This amendment concerns a provision which is at the core of 
     the federal government's commitment to a Free and Appropriate 
     Education for children with disabilities. Without properly 
     trained personnel the best that children with disabilities 
     can expect is to be warehoused; the worst that will often 
     happen under the tutelage of the untrained and inexperienced 
     will be psychological and emotional damage, as well as a 
     substandard education.
       In a letter from the Center For Law and Education which I 
     am attaching to this statement the Co-Director of the Center, 
     Kathleen Boundy, concludes as follows:
       ``Despite the earnest efforts of many who have attempted to 
     improve this bill and existing law, it is our view that such 
     efforts have ultimately been unsuccessful in both the Senate 
     and the House and that Part B of IDEA, regardless of its 
     shortcomings, should be left alone in 1996.''
       I would like to strongly echo these sentiments. IDEA was 
     not broken. The current law did not need to be overhauled. 
     The Current law did not need to be replaced. This bill is not 
     a reauthorization. This bill is an attack to establish a 
     beachhead. From this beachhead the Republican Majority, which 
     has already dramatically indicated its contempt for all 
     public education, will attempt a total annihilation of 
     federal support for Special Education.
       Like a sledge hammer pounding away at a thumb tack, massive 
     power is being brought to bear on programs for the education 
     of children with disabilities, a very tiny component of 
     public education in America. A slander campaign waged against 
     Special Education has generated distorted perceptions which 
     scapegoat a very productive and beneficial program. Despite 
     these distorted perceptions, Special Education is in no way a 
     threat to mainstream education. This tiny minority deserves 
     fairer treatment at the hands of the education majority. This 
     minimal program for the most needy students, also deserves 
     continued support from both Democrats and the Republican 
     majority.
       I congratulate the community of people with disabilities 
     and their consensus group which launched a monumental effort 
     to maintain workable legislation consistent with the original 
     intent of the law and bowing to no partisan dogmas. The 
     language before is in many ways improved beyond the original 
     doctrinaire attack as a result of the efforts of these 
     negotiators. But the revisions do not go far enough in 
     several fundamental areas. Personnel standards is one of 
     these areas.
       This bill, with premeditated stealth, wrecks the carefully 
     developed protections which have been thoughtfully crafted 
     over many years with the input of both recipients and 
     providers of service to children with disabilities. 
     Obliteration of these requirements is a contemptuous and 
     hostile act against children with disabilities. No member of 
     this Committee would ever support the wholesale waiver of 
     standards for science and math teachers in the schools 
     located in his or her district. Waiving personnel 
     standards only serves one ignoble purpose: Compliance can 
     be achieved cheaply. For less money the quality of 
     teaching and other services will most likely be 
     adulterated. Children will most certainly be shortchanged. 
     But on the surface, the letter of the law will be met.
       In this bill funding for staff recruitment and development 
     has been gutted. Efforts to overcome the critical shortage of 
     minority staff have been abandoned. The problem of qualified 
     staff shortages will be solved superficially and dishonestly 
     by simply ignoring the need to employ persons who are 
     qualified. We are civilized leaders agreeing to a savage 
     solution. We would never take the same route to resolve a 
     problem of a shortage of airline pilots or a shortage of 
     open-heart surgeons.
       At this point it should be noted that the current law 
     contains a component which would have offset the negative 
     consequences of the waiver of personnel standards, but this 
     has also been greatly reduced. Provisions which facilitated 
     the recruitment, training and certification of personnel have 
     been adulterated. During the negotiations with the Consensus 
     group it was generally assumed that these provisions would 
     remain substantially as they are in current law. The 
     Republican Majority, unfortunately, violated the good faith 
     effort of the negotiators and destroyed and most relevant 
     parts of this component.
       In summary, I urge the adoption of this amendment as the 
     first giant step away from this bill's oppressive posture 
     against children with disabilities. This oppressive posture 
     of the Republican Majority generates an impact which is 
     destructive and deadly.
       Let us move forward in a bi-partisan spirit to ensure that 
     this body creates the proper federal legislation and 
     resources to provide quality programs and quality staff for 
     children with disabilities.

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that standing for children means 
that you stand for children with disabilities, and you stand for 
policies that are going to promote children across the board. We are 
fortunate in this Nation that we presently do stand for children. Never 
let us go to the other extreme and be in the position of Brazil and 
Colombia where they are killing children instead of standing for 
children. We stand for children and we should continue to stand for 
children.

                          ____________________