[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 4, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H248-H249]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    EDUCATION IN THE 105TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, tonight when President Clinton gives his 
State of the Union Address he is going to discuss his plan to prepare 
our country and our children for the 21st century, and the heart of 
this plan addresses an issue that I think is very much on the minds of 
most Americans and that is education.
  The President's plan to strengthen our education system contains some 
of the very ideas that congressional Democrats developed last year as 
part of our families first agenda. As many Americans learned last year, 
the family first agenda is a comprehensive plan designed to improve the 
lives of the average American family, the mother and father who 
basically go out and work every day to provide for and improve the 
lives of their children.
  At the center of the President's and also last year's congressional 
Democrats' education plan are two targeted tax breaks, a $1,500 HOPE 
scholarship and a $10,000 tax deduction for tuition and training. Now 
the HOPE scholarship program will provide all students with a $1,500 
refundable tax credit in their first year of college and another $1,500 
in the second year if they work hard, stay off drugs and maintain a B 
average. While the $1,500 was designed to meet the costs of the average 
community college, it can be put toward the costs of any tuition bill, 
not just the community college. And the goal we had in mind when we 
first developed this plan was not only to help pay for the costs of 
college, but to work toward making 2 years of postsecondary education 
as common as a high school education.
  To complement the HOPE scholarship the President and congressional 
Democrats will be working to make a $10,000 deduction for tuition for 
college, graduate school, community college, and certified training and 
technical programs. The deduction would be available on a per family 
basis--this is a little different than the per student basis in the 
past--and will be accessible for any year any family has education or 
training expenses. These targeted tax breaks, in my opinion, will 
surely direct us toward our goal of making education less expensive and 
more affordable for all Americans.
  There are, however, other elements of the President's education plan 
that I would like to mention briefly, Mr. Speaker. One concerns the 
Pell grants. This year the President will propose, and I can assure you 
that congressional Democrats will support, the largest increase in Pell 
grants in 20 years.
  Now the Pell grants of course are the foundation for student aid for 
low and middle-income families. The grant would, as proposed, the 
changes proposed, actually increase by 25 percent, raising the maximum 
award by $300 to $3,000. The President's proposal would extend 
eligibility for 218,000 new students over age 24 and raise the total 
number of Pell grant recipients to over $4 million, and this is a 
significant achievement in my opinion.
  With regard to the Stafford loan, which is the traditional national 
direct student loan program, the President will also propose cutting 
student loan fees from 4 to 2 percent on a need basis and some other 
changes in the Stafford grants that will basically make them more 
affordable.
  There are other elements of the President's plan to make higher 
education more acceptable, more accessible I should say, and affordable 
for all Americans, including a tax free education savings program that 
would allow families earning less than $100,000 to set up IRAs, 
individual retirement accounts, from which they can make penalty-free 
withdrawals for education.
  All these things are basically working together to try to make it 
possible for more and more students to go to college.
  I personally should say that I took advantage of the work-study 
program when I was in college, and the current work-study program is 
also expanded under the President's proposal, boosting the number of 
students who earn

[[Page H249]]

education dollars from the program to 1 million by the year 2000.

                              {time}  1245

  As you can see, Mr. Speaker, the President and congressional 
Democrats have an ambitious agenda to make college accessible and 
affordable to everyone, not just the wealthy, and I hope that in a 
bipartisan spirit we will see the Republicans join us in our efforts to 
improve the Nation's higher education system.
  I just want to talk about one more thing that I think is important 
that the President will be talking about tonight, and that is the need 
for funding for construction. Right now about 60 percent of the 
Nation's schools are in need of major repair or outright replacement. 
The President's school construction, paid for within the context of a 
balanced budget, would jump start the process of improving the physical 
structures in which our children are taught. Under this plan, school 
construction would increase by 25 percent over the next 4 years.
  A number of these Federal initiatives are needed, I believe, very 
strongly, and again, we are not talking about huge new programs that 
are going to bust the budget, but we are talking about very small 
initiatives that can really make a difference in the average person's 
life, and that is what our Democratic family first agenda is all about. 
The President will be talking about the education components and other 
components of it tonight, and I hope that we can see swift action in 
the 105th Congress on these initiatives.

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