[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6069-S6072]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 1997--CONFERENCE 
                                 REPORT

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I know there are others who want to 
address the Senate. I want to speak to the Senate on two issues, 
briefly: the first being where we are on the budget proposal for 
education.
  There have been a number of representations about where we are going 
with current funding, how we are going along with the continued 
baseline expenditures, that we are going to see a continuing commitment 
in the area of education.
  I want to review for the Senate very briefly, because I see other 
colleagues on the floor who wish to address the Senate, where we are in 
the area of education funding and why this budget proposal continues to 
run contrary to what I believe is the fundamental commitment of this 
Nation, which should be in the area of education.
  We can start off with the fact that just spending resources and money 
does not solve all of our Nation's problems, but it is a pretty clear 
indication what a nation's priorities are all about. I believe in 
education and I believe that it is important that we continue to make a 
strong investment in the area of education and the young people of this 
country. If the programs are faulty, we should correct them; if 
programs are successful, we ought to expand them. We ought to be in a 
period of constant review of many of these programs.
  We did have the opportunity in the previous Congress to review a 
number of the programs--whether it was in the Head Start Program, title 
I, or Goals 2000--to provide reforms and funding to the local school 
level--90 percent of the funding went to the local school level that 
could be used by parents, teachers, the business community to expand 
education and academic achievement--the School-to-Work Program which 
was as a result of America's Choice, an excellent report reviewing many 
of the programs that were taking place in other parts of the world. 
Three-fourths

[[Page S6070]]

of the children who go to high school do not continue on to college. 
That is an extremely important area for this Nation if we want to both 
provide the opportunities for the young children of this country and 
also to ensure that our country is going to be strong in the next 
century.
  And then the Direct Loan Program, the simplification of the efforts 
for young people. I see my friend and colleague, Senator Simon, who was 
such a leader of that program over a period of years.
  So we have here, Mr. President, the 1997 education funding in the 
Republican budget compared to a true freeze. This represents a 
compilation of all the discretionary education programs, those programs 
K through 12, and those programs that go on to higher education.

  If we go back to 1995, we will see the figure on this chart of about 
$39.5 billion. We heard a great deal as we went on into 1996, ``Let's 
get back to 1995,'' and there is this freeze of current funding. Let us 
look at what has actually happened over this period of time. The total 
amount of budget authority in 1995 is $39.5 billion.
  Then under the omnibus appropriations, that figure was reduced to 
$38.8. Of course, even $38.8 billion, $700 million below fiscal year 
1995, was only reached after a long fight to preserve education 
funding.
  It took a lot of shifting of funds to get close to fiscal year 1995 
in fiscal year 1996. A good deal of funds that were uncommitted, or not 
spent, were spent in fiscal year 1996 to make up for the draconian cuts 
proposed to education--to get as close to the funding level of 1995 as 
possible. In April, education was finally funded just about $700 
million below fiscal year 1995.
  Then we had the budget resolution that was passed based on the so-
called freeze at $36.3 billion. Actually, this freeze does not take 
into account the addbacks made for fiscal year 1996 alone, and leaves 
education funding $3.2 billion below fiscal year 1995.
  The Senate budget resolution, with the Domenici amendment, added $5 
billion to discretionary funding--of which $1.7 billion was earmarked 
for education--came right back up to $38 billion, still $1.5 billion 
below the 1995 level. Then the bill went to conference and $500 million 
more were lost--$500 million were lost in the conference. They added 
$1.2 billion to the original budget resolution, but cut $500 million 
from the Senate resolution.
  Every time we close the doors of negotiations on education funding, 
the commitment to young Americans go down. It is only when we are out 
here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, when we are battling in front of 
the public, whether it has been on the various votes Members remember--
the Snowe-Simon amendments or the Specter-Harkin amendment--that we 
restore some of the funds. But once you close the office doors and 
begin to conference funding bills, education is one of the first to get 
cut.
  This is where we are in this resolution, right on our way back down 
again. The Domenici amendment increases education funding--though 
leaves it well below current funding--and then $500 million were cut in 
conference.
  We have to ask ourselves what is happening to the total number of 
students at this time. The number of students was about 46 million in 
1990 and will increase to 54.6 million by the year 2002. The student 
population is gradually increasing by 7 percent. Even with a freeze at 
the current funding level, you are falling behind, because you are not 
dealing with the expansion of the student population and inflation.
  Last year alone, it would have meant 100,000 additional teachers just 
to hold even, 50,000 for the makeup of those numbers of teachers that 
were being lost, and 50,000 more to take into consideration the 
expansion of the school population.

  That is something we have to understand. The school population for 
kids in grades K through 12 is gradually increasing by 7 percent, and 
for college-age youth it is increasing 12 percent. Do you think there 
is any effort in the budget resolution conference report to take into 
consideration the expansion of college students or expansion of student 
population in grades K through 12? Absolutely none, absolutely none. 
The President has talked about a 33-percent increase in the Pell 
grants. This proposal would be a $6.7 billion reduction over the period 
of time in the Pell grants targeted to the neediest students over 
there. The list goes on and on.
  Mr. President, I speak for those who are committed, as I know many in 
this body are committed, toward education. It is only fair to point out 
what this budget does to our commitment to the young people in this 
country, for the Head Start programs, the title I programs, the math 
and science programs, the new technology programs to try to provide the 
best kind of new technology to our students in schools that train our 
teachers, to the school to work program that tries to bring young 
people into the private sector to make sure they will get decent jobs, 
and then actually is phased out over a period of time once those links 
and once those paths are created.
  (Ms. SNOWE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. KENNEDY. In the conference report, education is cut by 20 percent 
in real terms from where we were in 1995. I find that is highly 
unacceptable. When we had the chance to let the Senate, Republicans and 
Democrats, vote on these matters, we restored education funding.
  I see in the chair the distinguished Senator from Maine, who has been 
a strong advocate for education and for meeting this Nation's 
commitment when we have the expansion of college and K-12 populations.
  Madam President, I find this is a dangerous trend. It is complicated 
by the fact that in this legislation we have set aside the billions of 
dollars for tax cuts for wealthy individuals. That is what makes it 
completely unacceptable: we are cutting crucial education programs in 
order to pay for the tax breaks for the wealthy. That is intolerable. 
That is wrong. That is unacceptable.
  I see others on the floor who want to address this. I intended to 
speak about the Medicare proposals, as well. I will yield now and hope 
perhaps maybe I will get a few minutes tomorrow at the convenience of 
the floor managers to address the Senate briefly on that. That is an 
issue of enormous importance as well and should be addressed. The 
Senator from Nebraska has been very kind in allocating time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. EXON. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for 
his excellent statement. There will be time tomorrow if he wishes to 
get into the Medicare matter. We discussed that to some extent already, 
and I think we should be discussing it further. There will be some time 
tomorrow, and I would be delighted to yield whatever time the Senator 
from Massachusetts wishes.
  I will shortly yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Illinois who has 
been waiting patiently. However, I want to elaborate a little bit on 
what the Senator from Massachusetts has been saying about projected 
growth costs featuring education. The same thing is true with Medicare, 
and the same thing is true with Medicaid.
  We have been bamboozled around here, I say to my friend from 
Massachusetts and my friend from Illinois. We have been bamboozled by 
the statements that an increase is a decrease only in the Nation's 
Capital. What we are talking about here are not increases in education 
funding, net, or increases in Medicare funding, net. What we are 
talking about is trying to disguise the honest dollar amount that keeps 
the level of the programs where they are today. Yet there has been a 
hue and cry across the Nation that the Republican budget does not cut 
Medicare, it provides more money for Medicare. It does provide more 
money for Medicare. The facts are it does not provide enough money to 
meet the real needs of the increased population, the longevity of 
senior citizens and more and more people who will rely on Medicare. You 
can see it is not a cut in real dollars, but it is a cut in real needs 
and what the real costs will be for people who are depending on it. 
Therefore, it is a cut. We get all tied up with semantics around here.

  Let me point this out. I had made reference earlier, Madam President, 
to the fact that Medicare costs were going to outstrip what the 
Republican budget provides for Medicare. An example: The projected rate 
of growth in private-sector health care costs over the period that we 
are talking about would be 7.1

[[Page S6071]]

percent per person. Yet the Republican budget on a per-person basis 
allows Medicare spending to grow only by 4.7 percent. Now, the 
difference between the projected costs and the Republican budget is 34 
percent. Yet the Republicans are saying their increase is reasonable 
and provides more money.
  Plainly, Medicare spending will not be keeping up with inflation in 
the Republican budget when you consider what the inflation is going to 
be in the private sector and how many more people are going to have to 
come into this program. We are being bamboozled here, and the American 
public know that, even if the U.S. Senate majority does not want to 
address it.
  I say also that the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee 
attributes the steep reductions in planned Medicare spending in his 
budget to an effort to save Medicare. He neglects to note that the 
Republicans sought to reduce Medicare spending by $270 billion even 
before last year's Medicare trustees' report came out. He also neglects 
to mention that the President's budget guarantees the solvency of the 
Medicare trust fund through the year 2005, without making the deep 
reductions planned in Medicare spending.
  To back that up, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record a letter of May 9, 1996, addressed to myself, the 
ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    U.S. Congress,


                                  Congressional Budget Office,

                                      Washington, DC, May 9, 1996.
     Hon. J. James Exon,
     Ranking Minority Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. 
         Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator: At your request, the Congressional Budget 
     Office (CBO) has examined the effects of the Administration's 
     budgetary proposals on the Hospital Insurance (HI) trust 
     fund. Under current law, the HI trust fund is projected to 
     become insolvent in 2001. CBO estimates that the 
     Administration's proposals would postpone this date to 2005.
           Sincerely,
                                                  June E. O'Neill,
                                                         Director.
  Mr. EXON. I drive home the point that the President is looking at 
this realistically and should not be put down for that effort.
  One more thing, and then I will yield to my friend from Illinois. The 
chairman of the committee complains about how steep the cuts in 
domestic discretionary programs are in the President's budget. Yes, it 
is true the President does achieve substantial savings from 
discretionary spending, but the President still maintains these 
domestic investments at a rate of $60 billion higher than the 
Republican budget in the year 2002. If the chairman believes that the 
President's cuts are steep, then the chairman would also have to agree 
that the cuts that he is endorsing in his particular budget are 
absolutely fatal.
  The difference between the two budgets is that the Republican budget 
also cuts taxes so much more. The $122 billion that the chairman 
mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg. The real iceberg is much 
larger than that. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, John 
Kasich, promises $180 billion in tax breaks.
  The chairman promised, ``We would have our own tax cut that we 
originally said we would have--that there will be a capital gains tax, 
that there will be a full child tax credit * * * and there will be a 
host of other tax relief measures.''
  Who is kidding whom? I simply say that to keep honest, we have to be 
reasonable. We have to recognize if you are going to provide massive 
tax cuts primarily to benefit the wealthiest among us, something in the 
budget is going to have to pay for it. That is essentially why, along 
with the other details, that we will continue to oppose this Republican 
budget.
  I yield 15 minutes to my friend and colleague from Illinois.
  Mr. SIMON. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Nebraska. I see 
my colleague from Iowa here, and I will try not to use the whole 15 
minutes.
  I am going to join Senator Exon in opposing this budget resolution 
for several reasons. First, we have tax cuts in here. Now, I recognize 
that leadership of both parties is saying we ought to go ahead with a 
tax cut. I do not think it makes any sense whatsoever when we have a 
deficit. It is like when we say we are going to have a 7-year glidepath 
to a balanced budget, but we are going to start off with a tax cut. 
That is like having a New Year's resolution that you are going to diet 
and then you start off with a great big dessert. It is not a very 
propitious way of doing it. And both parties are saving the tough 
things, the tough decisions, to the end of the 7 years. That is why we 
need the constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, in order to 
really move in that direction.
  Second, in the area of defense, the conference is $11.3 billion over 
what the Pentagon requested. No other agency gets more than they 
request, but the Defense Department does. I think it is unrealistic. 
Let us compare it to the next function, function 150, international 
affairs. The United States, in terms of our budget, is behind every 
country in Western Europe and Japan in terms of the percentage of our 
budget that we now use to help in foreign economic assistance--behind 
every one. But we are ahead of every one in the percentage of our 
budget that we put in defense.
  Frankly, what other countries question about us in the area of the 
military and in the area of foreign affairs is not our weapons systems, 
but our backbone. A few people are killed in Somalia and we get out. In 
Bosnia, we make speeches for a long time before we do anything.
  The budget, I think, is unrealistic in terms of international need 
and how we get stability in other nations. But, primarily, I want to 
talk about an area where Senator Olympia Snowe has provided leadership, 
and I am grateful to her for that, and that is in the area of 
education. We are now $4.4 billion from where the President requested. 
We are down $2.5 billion from where it was when it passed the Senate. 
Now, every study done of this country, every study for the State of 
Nebraska, or the State of Iowa, or the State of Maine, or the State of 
Illinois, done by conservatives, liberals, you name it, every economist 
says we are going to have to do better in education. In higher 
education, we are ahead of other countries, but the gap is narrowing. 
In elementary and secondary and preschool education, we are behind most 
of the other developed nations.
  Among the 18 top industrial nations of the world, in terms of 
expenditures for elementary and secondary, we are 14th. There are some 
basic things we ought to do. For example, I was able to get, in the 
last Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a paltry $90 million--
paltry in terms of its need--to encourage schools, to give a little bit 
of a carrot to schools to go longer than 180 days. If you go to school 
in Japan, you go 243 days a year. In Germany, they go 240 days a year. 
When you go to school in the United States, you go 180 days a year. Can 
we learn as much in 180 days as our friends in Germany, Japan, and in 
other countries do with longer school years? Of course, we cannot. Why 
do we go 180 days? In theory, it is so our children can go out and 
harvest the crops. Well, I say to the Presiding Officer and my 
colleagues, I live at Route 1, Makanda, IL, population 402. Even in 
Makanda, IL, the young people do not go out and harvest the crops 
anymore. That was a different era. We have to adjust. If we just moved 
from 180 days to 210, by the time you finish 12th grade, that would be 
the equivalent of 2 additional years of school, and we would still be, 
in a major way, behind other countries.

  But Senator Kennedy made the point a few minutes ago that when you 
look at these cuts, what you have to look at, also, is the growth in 
student population. And so it is doubly devastating. I remember 
visiting a Head Start Program, and almost all Head Start Programs have 
waiting lists, in Rock Island, IL. On Monday morning, one group of kids 
come in; on Tuesday morning, a second group comes in; on Wednesday 
morning, a third group comes in, and so on. I asked the woman in 
charge, ``What if you could have these children here 5 days a week?'' 
She smiled and said, ``You cannot believe the difference it would make 
in their lives.'' We are not doing it, and we save money with a budget 
like this? You save money like building a house and you do not put a 
roof on it. Very, very shortsighted.
  We make great speeches on prisons in this body. Oh, I have heard 
speeches about crime and how we put people in

[[Page S6072]]

prison and everything. Eighty-two percent of the people in our prisons 
and jails are high school dropouts. You should not have to be an 
Einstein to figure out that maybe if we invested a little more in 
education, we would not have to put so many people into prison, and 
maybe we would be a much better country if we did. That is the kind of 
thing we ought to do.
  This budget takes a step backward in the field of education, rather 
than a step forward. I am not going to be around here next year, and my 
good friend from Nebraska is not going to be around here next year. I 
hope that whoever sits in this body will listen to the Presiding 
Officer when she stands on this floor and says that we have to do 
better in the field of education, as she has done many times. And while 
it is true you are not going to solve problems by just throwing money 
at them, I do not hear that same argument used in the Defense 
Department. And while money alone is not going to solve the problem in 
the field of education, without additional resources, we are not going 
to solve the problem.
  That is the simple reality. We ought to be asking how do we build a 
better America as we put a budget together. When you ask that question, 
I think you will come to the conclusion that we ought to be doing more 
in the field of education.
  I yield the balance of my time back to the Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. EXON. Madam President, I am not sure we have any more speakers. 
We may have some more. I note that Senator Grassley is waiting. I have 
talked with him, and he is not going to talk on the budget per se. I 
simply inquire of the Republican side, are there any other speakers on 
the budget? Senator Grassley has another subject he would like to 
address as in morning business. Senator Smith is on the floor. Is he 
here to talk about the budget or another matter?
  Mr. SMITH. Madam President, I am here to talk about Senator Dole when 
the Senator is finished on the budget matter.
  Mr. EXON. All right. I will just pose a question to the leadership on 
that side of the aisle. Since there are other Senators wishing to 
proceed on other matters, maybe we could close down the debate on the 
budget and proceed as in morning business.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. If the Senator will yield, I had a discussion with 
Senator Domenici on that point. He asked me if I was going to be here. 
It was his understanding on our side of the aisle that there was no 
more reason to speak. He spoke of two or three people on your side of 
the aisle. When that was done, he figured that the debate on the budget 
was done for today.
  Mr. EXON. Well, I have just been handed a note that Senator 
Lautenberg is on the way over. I would like to close off debate on the 
budget, if I might. I do not want to cut people off. I guess the best 
thing for me to do to protect my colleagues is to say that why do we 
not temporarily go off of the budget to allow the Senator from Iowa and 
Senator Smith to proceed as they see fit. If, when they have finished, 
we do not have any more speakers, we can put the budget debate over 
until tomorrow.
  I ask unanimous consent that we temporarily go off the budget matter 
before us and allow the two Senators on the Republican side, who wish 
to address other matters, to be able to proceed as in morning business, 
if that is their request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Iowa is recognized.

                          ____________________