[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1178-H1184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            LESSONS IN EDUCATION, THE IMPACT OF NEW SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra] is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, before I begin with my comments, which are 
a series and talk about where we are going in education, I want to 
yield a few minutes to my colleague from California to talk about a 
project that I have some interest in and I may learn something tonight 
about, a patent bill that he has proposed and a number of my 
constituents have called me about.
  So I want to yield some time to my colleague from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. There will be a 
vote on the floor of the House of Representatives next month, probably 
the middle of next month, that will mean a great deal not only to every 
Member of the House of Representatives but to every citizen of the 
United States of America.
  As we just listened to our colleagues from the other side of the 
aisle talking about some of their observations of what has happened 
with the treaty with Mexico and some of the other economic dealings 
that we have seen in recent years, it is clear that there is an elite 
in the U.S. Government and in the United States and in our financial 
institutions who are not loyal to the interests of the people of the 
United States.

  This lack of loyalty perhaps is due to the fact that they have a 
vision for a better world. They are trying to create a global economy 
and, thus, they are willing to sacrifice the interests of the American 
people. They are willing to sacrifice the standard of living, the 
freedom and the prosperity, and actually the national security of our 
country in order to build this more perfect world and a global economy.
  I think that this has manifested itself in NAFTA and some of these 
other things, the GATT. But we will have a vote in one month on H.R. 
400, which I call the Steal American Technologies Act. My legislation, 
H.R. 811 and 812, will be there as a substitute for this horrible piece 
of legislation that is the

[[Page H1179]]

latest example of this elite class who are trying to create a global 
trading system at the expense of the standard of living of the American 
people and the rights of the American people.
  H.R. 400, the Steal American Technologies Act which is coming to this 
floor for a vote, is being pushed through the system by an army of 
lobbyists who have been hired by multinational corporations and huge 
American corporate interests, who have struck deals with those foreign 
corporations in order to change, fundamentally change the technological 
laws, the laws that govern technology in America.
  The fact is we have had the strongest patent protection of any 
country of the world, and that is what has ensured the American people 
for these last 200 years the ability to have a higher standard of 
living than other countries of the world, because we were able to out-
compete them. We had the technological edge. It was our inventors, the 
Thomas Edisons, the Cyrus McCormicks, the Wright brothers, all of these 
people who were protected by the strongest patent system in the world, 
who stepped forward to give the American people the standard of living 
and this great chance for opportunity to uplift their way of life and 
improve the standard of living of their children. But that law is 
changing.
  Our country's national security was based upon our technological 
superiority, but the laws that governed us, that gave us the creativity 
and the technology to defeat our adversaries, economically as well as 
militarily, are trying to be changed and they are doing it in a sneaky 
way: H.R. 400, which I call the Steal American Technologies Act, which 
will be voted on in about 3 or 4 weeks.
  What it will do is, number one, eliminate once and for all the 
guaranteed patent term, which has been the right of the American people 
for 200 years. It will, and hold on to your horses on this if you have 
not heard about this bill, it will mandate that every American inventor 
who files for a patent, whether or not that patent has been issued, 
that his patent application will be published after 18 months for the 
entire world to see.
  This means every economic adversary, every enemy of the United 
States, everyone who would destroy our country and our way of life 
almost, have every one of our secrets in order to use our technology 
against us.
  And, finally, H.R. 400, the Steal American Technologies Act, will 
actually abolish the Patent Office, which again has been part of our 
country since the founding of our Constitution, and resurrect it as 
what? As some corporate entity. A corporate entity, I might add, which 
will be able to accept gifts; gifts from foreign countries, from 
different people. We do not know what effect that will have on patent 
examiners, which have been the people who have made the decisions to 
protect us and to protect our rights as Americans to own what we 
create.
  This will be one of the most important decisions this Congress will 
make. Two generations from now Americans will suffer, our security will 
falter, our way of life and our prosperity will go down and the 
American people will not know what hit them. It will be a Pearl Harbor 
in slow motion if this passes.
  The only thing that will stop it, the only thing that will stop it is 
if the American people call their Member of Congress to offset these 
lobbyists that are hired by the multinational corporations and tell 
their Member of Congress to oppose H.R. 400, the Steal American 
Technologies Act, and to support H.R. 811 and 812, which are pieces of 
legislation that I have authored, Congressman Rohrabacher, which will 
strengthen the patent system.
  I want to thank my colleague for granting me this time from his time 
tonight. This is such an important issue for people to understand, that 
democracy will not work and America will not be strong unless our 
people get involved.
  This whole effort, and I will close with this thought, it is a 
shocking thought, why are people trying to push something which is so 
evil and detrimental to the United States? Yes, they believe in a 
global economy, but part of their motive in reaching this global 
economy is they are trying to harmonize our law with Japan.
  The elements that I just talked about in the law, which is changing 
in H.R. 400, are nothing more than an agreement that has been reached 
with Japan, a hushed-up agreement to change our strong patent law into 
their weak patent law. The harmonization of our law with Japan. It is 
absolutely an outrage. It is frightening to think it is happening and 
there are lobbyists all over this city from powerful corporations 
trying to push it through.
  I appreciate the gentleman's giving me this time to warn the people 
out there who are listening and reading this in the Congressional 
Record. We can beat this but we have to act.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing with us 
and look forward to learning more about this issue over the coming 
weeks. It is a critical issue.
  I have had a number of my constituents calling me and saying get with 
the Congressman from California, sounds like he has a good thing going 
and it is something we have to watch out for. So I thank the gentleman 
for taking that time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to continue a series now that I have been doing 
for my colleagues that outlines a project which we call lessons in 
education. This is the fifth in a series. This is the fifth lesson, and 
it is about new spending and what the impact of new spending is.
  The impact is that new spending equals a new tax burden. It is 
something that sometimes is lost on us here in Washington. It is lost 
on my colleagues, that as we come up with an idea for more new 
programs, more good programs, solving more problems from Washington, 
that the increased spending, the impact of that is that someone has to 
pay for it. So lesson 5 is, let us not forget that new spending equals 
a new tax burden on America's families.
  These lessons in education, they are coming out of a process which we 
call Education at a Crossroads.

                              {time}  2045

  Me and my colleagues, especially Buck McKeon and Frank Riggs, who 
share subcommittees with me on the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce, are currently working on this project, Education at a 
Crossroads, what works and what is wasted. The purpose of our efforts 
is to do a survey around the country of education, what the results 
are. There is enough education out there today or there are enough 
issues out there today that we can say that at least in parts of our 
country today education is in a crisis.
  You go to Washington, DC, right outside of this building, we are 
spending $9,000 per student. We get some of the lowest test scores in 
the country. We have had hearings in California where key people from 
universities come in and they say, you know what we need to do and what 
you need to do in Washington is you need to make sure that you continue 
funding our remedial education programs, and you kind of lean forward 
and say, these are kids entering higher education in California, what 
kind of remedial education do they need? And the answer is, well, they 
cannot read or write at an eighth grade level, so give us more money, 
and the answer is no, you do not need more money. As experts in 
education, you have got to get into the high schools, the middle 
schools and the grade schools and figure out why kids are not learning.
  You go around the country and you compare our scores with 
international scores and we are not getting the kind of results we 
would like to get. So we know that there are some problems and some 
opportunities in education. We also then want to take a look at whether 
Federal programs are helping drive the creativity, the energy, the 
innovation that we need in education today, or whether Federal programs 
are a stifling wet blanket of rules and regulations on State and local 
efforts to move education into the 21st century.
  Today I want to just make this additional report. The first lessons 
that we had is parents care the most about their children's education. 
That was lesson one. The exciting thing about going to New York, going 
to California, going to Phoenix, going to Chicago, going to Milwaukee, 
going around my district, going to Detroit, some of the toughest 
neighborhoods in the country, and talking about education is that there 
are lots of places where education is working. And the amazing

[[Page H1180]]

thing is where education is working is where parents and teachers and 
local administrators have gone in and taken their school back, and they 
have taken their school back at the expense of district administrators, 
State bureaucrats or Washington bureaucrats.
  They have said, this is our school, these are our kids, we know their 
names, you do not, we are going to run this school the way that we want 
to run it, the way it needs to be run, because we know what our kids 
need, we know what our communities like, and we know how to bring the 
community, parents and teachers, together to service our kids, and we 
do not want to be locked in by State or Federal bureaucrats.
  It is amazing the amount of innovation that takes place when parents 
and teachers and local administrators are given the freedom to move 
forward. So that was lesson one, recognizing the fact that people at 
the local level, parents and teachers, care more about our children and 
their future than what bureaucrats in Washington do.
  Lesson No. 2. Good intentions do not equal good policy. Washington is 
full of good intentions. We have tried to do so many good things for 
our children that we have lost focus, that we are here to serve the 
kids and not smother them.
  Over 20 to 25 years, we have developed 760 programs going through 39 
different agencies and spending about $120 billion per year. Lots of 
intentions, lots of good intentions, poor execution, and actually now, 
when you take a look at it, poor results at the local level.
  Lesson No. 3. More does not always equal better. It is kind of like 
when you have got a system and the system is not working. Only in 
Washington do you say, to fix the system, what we need to do is add a 
few more programs just like the ones that we have had and to fix the 
system, just put a little bit more money in it. When you put a little 
bit more money and a few more programs, you know, we think that is 
going to fix it.
  No, what it is time to do is to step back, to take a look at this and 
to say, more does not always equal better, and more does not equal 
better when what we are doing today is not working.
  Lesson No. 4. Education is not about government or bureaucrats. It is 
about kids. It is not about tax credits, it is not about Federal 
mandates. Education is first, last and always; education is always 
about children. And we have lost sight of that with too many Federal 
programs. I will go through it a little bit later when we take a look 
at where education in America has gotten to, at least at the Federal 
level.
  This is done by a cottage industry, a cottage industry that grew up 
because it recognized that education in Washington had moved away from 
being for kids; it had moved into becoming a bureaucracy. And what are 
these binders? Cottage industry, an independent organization that said, 
hey, there is an opportunity out there, nobody knows how to get the 
Federal money, let us develop a guide to Federal funding for education 
telling where the dollars are, who to call, how to write your grants, 
not to write your grants about what is going on in your local school 
district or the problems that you have but how to write a grant so that 
the people who give the money out will give you money.
  This is a license to steal from the American taxpayer, a license to 
come to Washington, mining for grants. This is about bureaucracy. This 
is where Washington has come. Washington has moved to becoming 
bureaucracy and has moved away from what it really should be, and that 
is a focus on our kids.
  Today's lesson. Today we focus our attention that when we decide to 
increase spending, that when we increase spending, somebody has to pay 
for it, so that when we increase spending, we create additional family 
tax burdens.
  Remember that what the President is taking a look at doing over the 
next 5 years, again good intentions but, remember, good intentions do 
not necessarily equal good results. More does not equal better. He 
wants to spend $50 billion more on education and develop a whole new 
series of programs. And, remember, if we spend $50 billion over 5 
years, that is $10 billion a year for education. In the President's 
eyes, that is a positive move, but remember when the President adds new 
spending, the end result of adding $10 billion of new spending is that 
there are 5 million families that have to send an extra $2,000 to 
Washington each year for the next 5 years. What we are doing is we are 
moving families away from where we want to be, which is a government 
that can be supported by a one-wage-earner family and where a two-wage-
earner family is an option. We are moving with this kind of reckless 
spending to a situation where a two-wage-earner family is going to be a 
requirement because one person is going to work to support the family, 
the other person has to work to support government. That is wrong.

  The lesson is, new spending equals new family tax burden. Either we 
are going to pay for it because we are going to have to raise our 
taxes, but more likely we will do it the way Congress has done it for 
the last 29 years and the way this President is proposing that we do 
it, let us increase spending, let us not increase taxes, let us 
increase spending and let us pass along this new family tax burden on 
to our kids.
  It is the wrong thing to do.
  Take a look at this scenario in one of the programs the President is 
taking a look at. The President says, we need 1 million new tutors 
because, why? America's children cannot read.
  Well, if we are going to have 1 million tutors to help our children 
learn to read, take a look at what the cycle here is. Kids cannot read. 
We have not taken a look at why kids cannot read, but kids cannot read. 
The solution is, let us pair a student up with a volunteer. You could 
say why do we not pair a student up with a parent but, no, let us pair 
them up with a government-sponsored volunteer which through AmeriCorps 
may cost about $27,000, but let us pair them up with a volunteer.
  Well, if we are going to have 1 million new volunteers, we are going 
to have to have a way to manage this. Well, how do you manage 1 million 
people? Well, what we need is we need a bureaucracy to administer a 
program to finance and manage our new tutors. So we have got the kids, 
we have got the tutors, we need the bureaucracy to manage the tutors, 
to find them, but now you say, how are we going to pay for these 
tutors, how are we going to pay for the bureaucracy that manages the 
tutors? Well, we are going to probably have to increase taxes either 
today or on future generations, on our kids, to pay for the Washington 
bureaucracy the President needs to administer the program to finance 
the new tutors.
  The tutors, the bureaucracy, the new tax burden. What then happens? 
We have got a new tax burden. What we are trying to do tonight is we 
are trying to inform America's families that, hey, you are being 
informed that you must pay more taxes to pay for the Washington 
bureaucracy the President needs to administer the program to finance 
the new tutors. So the family now needs and they are saying, wow, we 
have to pay more in taxes or we are going to be spending more money.
  So what does this now do to the families? They are saying, wow, a tax 
burden for our kids, or for us. We need more money. Families are forced 
to send a second wage earner into the work force to take a job, often a 
low-paying job, just to pay the taxes to pay for the Washington 
bureaucracy the President needs to administer the program to finance 
the new tutors.
  Now, what is the next step? You have more two-wage-earner families, 
because more families are forced to send a second wage earner into the 
work force to take a low-paying job just to pay the taxes to pay to the 
Washington bureaucracy the President needs to administer the program to 
finance the new tutors. More parents have less time to spend with their 
kids to teach them how to read.
  Well, we have almost come full circle. Because more families are 
forced to send more taxes to Washington by creating a second wage 
earner into the work force to take a low-paying job just to pay the 
taxes to pay for the Washington bureaucracy President Clinton needs to 
administer the program to finance the new tutors, more parents have 
less time to spend with their kids and to teach them how to read.
  As we have gone around the country and as experts will tell you, the 
most effective way to teach a child how to

[[Page H1181]]

read is to reinforce the learning at school with a parent at home or 
person in the family at home reading to the child.
  It does not make any sense. We are going to go out and we are going 
to ask, in this case, to pay for the tutors. It is about $200 million a 
year. An average family if they have to pay more taxes, $2,000; that is 
either $2,000 that comes to Washington or it is $2,000 that stays with 
the family. One hundred thousand families are going to have to have a 
second wage earner paying $2,000 in taxes to fund the tutors.
  It does not make any sense to have this kind of scenario in place, to 
have families having more two-wage-earner families, not by choice but 
by a requirement because Washington wants to do more for your kids and 
the only way Washington can do more for our kids is by putting more 
parents to work so that they spend less time with their kids, which 
makes it harder for them to learn how to read. Does this make any 
sense?
  No, absolutely not. The time has come to tell the President no new 
spending. The American people must speak up and be heard on this. More 
new spending equals new family tax burden. It is time for the American 
people to stand up and to tell the President, no new spending. There 
are 760 programs through 39 different agencies spending $120 billion 
per year. If we need more education for different priorities, the money 
is there, and we need to tell the President that.
  No, actually we do not need to tell the President that. The President 
knows that. The President has said that. What we need to do is we need 
to remind the President of what he told the American people not all 
that long ago.

                              {time}  2100

  A few months ago he was not talking about, the President was not 
talking about more spending for education. What did the President say 
on March 27, 1996? He did not say, give me $50 billion more; let's put 
5 million more American families with two wage earners to pay for new 
taxes or new spending, the new tax burden by this education. He said 
exactly what we are trying to do with education at a crossroads. So 
this is not going back and telling the President he does not know. This 
means going back to the President and saying:
  ``We agree with you. At least we agree with what you said on March 
27, 1996,'' where he said we cannot ask the American people to spend 
more on education until we do a better job with the money we have got 
now.
  This was a speech to the National Governors Association, their 
education summit back in March 1996.
  The President knows we have got plenty of money in education. The 
time is now to say, no more spending; we agree with you, Mr. President. 
We're not going to ask the American people to send more money to 
Washington on education until we take a very good look at what we're 
doing with the money that they are already sending here on education. 
Washington spending and taxes are linked. By asking for $50 billion and 
more spending, you are asking for $50 billion in more and new taxes, 
it's the wrong thing to do. There is plenty of money here in 
Washington. It's time to stop it, it's time to take a look and do an 
honest appraisal, an honest assessment of all of these Federal 
education programs. It's time to take a look at if we've got a 
bureaucracy like this or a bureaucracy that requires this kind of 
information to be published to go to the American people to tell them 
what's available in education funding, we've become too bureaucracy 
focused and not enough child focused.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to go on for a few more minutes. This is not 
about who cares about our kids. We all care about our kids. We all care 
about education. But there is a fundamental difference between 
President Clinton's approach of spending more money on more bureaucracy 
and increasing the tax burden on the American people to pay it in our 
approach. Education at a crossroads says we are going to reassess and 
clearly identify what is working and what is wasted in these 760 
programs, over 39 different agencies, and we are going to focus on 
getting the money into the classroom.
  The disappointing thing that we have today is we walk across the 
street when we come here to work. We walk across a street called 
Independence Avenue. In today's world and today's Washington spending, 
that is now Dependence Avenue. What is done in these buildings has a 
significant impact on American citizens around the country, whether it 
is Health and Human Services or whether it is Housing and Urban 
Development. These people in these buildings have way too much 
influence on what goes on in America.
  We talk about $50 billion of more money going into this city and into 
these buildings just for education. What does that mean? It means more 
decisions, more control in Washington, a bigger Dependence Avenue and 
less independence and freedom at the local level. Every dollar of taxes 
that goes to this city comes from an American family and increases the 
family tax burden.
  The first stop of these tax dollars; where is the first? The first 
stop is when you actually go to work and you earn it, but you do not 
keep it for very long. As a matter of fact, you do not keep--some of 
the money you never get. It was a wonderful invention called 
withholding.
  Mr. Speaker, I have got nephews and nieces that just began their 
first jobs, and they are excited. They have got a job for $5 - $5.50 an 
hour. They work for 20 hours that first week. Pay day is the following 
Tuesday or the following Wednesday, and they are excited because they 
worked for 20 hours at $5 an hour, and they are going to get a check 
for a hundred dollars.
  Twenty times five is one hundred. This is a good deal. It would be if 
they got $100. They get their first check, and they say:
  ``Well, where did this money go? You know, I've got $76, and it goes 
to all these strange acronyms that they have no understanding what they 
mean.'' But what we have got is we indoctrinate our children, when they 
get that first job, it is not really your money. You never see it, it 
never reaches your checkbook, it never reaches your wallet. It goes 
somewhere else.
  And then what happens?
  That check leaves their pocket and goes to this wonderful institution 
in Washington which is called the IRS, and what happens when it gets to 
the IRS? The tale of two visions. What happens in Washington when we 
get your money? One of the best examples is IRS wastes $4 billion, 
unsure if it can fix a computer problem.
  Think about this, $4 billion. This is 2 million American families 
sending $2,000 to Washington for 1 year, 2 million American families 
sending $2,000 to Washington, and they are unsure if they can fix a 
computer problem. Well, I will tell you there are 2 million American 
families who could have spent a lot more time with their kids if they 
had not had to work and send $2,000 to Washington for this computer 
glitch.
  After investing $4 billion in taxpayer dollars to try and remedy its 
inefficient and unreachable computer systems, the IRS has come to one 
conclusion. It is, unsure, if it can fix the problem. The agency 
expressed doubt that it was capable of developing modern computer 
systems, saying it lacked the intellectual capital for the job. It may 
be lacking the intellectual capital for the job, but the American 
taxpayers, because the IRS did not realize it could not do the job, 2 
million American families had to send $2,000 to Washington. They had to 
provide the financial capital, and it all went down the drain.
  Mr. Speaker, think about what happens when the money comes here to 
Washington. Another program; again this one is out of the education 
programs. Only in Washington a report is completed. The report says 
drug programs do not work.
  OK. Thank you. Thank you for that analysis.
  Now, based on that analysis and recognizing that drug programs do not 
work, what are you going to do about it? What is the Education 
Department going to do with the billions of dollars that they get every 
year for drug programs? Only in Washington, when you have a program 
that does not work, do you say please give me some more money. Only in 
Washington.
  The program does not work, and what happens? We are going to spend 
more money on the failed programs.

[[Page H1182]]

Only in Washington does that make sense. Only in Washington does it 
make sense when something does not work to pour more money into it and 
ask more families to have a second wage earner to fund Washington 
government that does not work.
  One final example out of our tale of two visions document. This is a 
monthly newsletter that we published. The State Department charging 
people with passport questions. IRS cannot run a computer system; the 
Education Department cannot run a drug program; the State Department 
has taken an entrepreneurial approach. They are going to develop 
customer service.

  Think about this. This is your Federal Government that you are paying 
taxes for. They are going to develop an approach, and they are going to 
become customer focused. You are paying for this agency with your tax 
dollars. They are going to become customer centered.
  Hallelujah.
  But wait a minute. What does it mean when we say the State Department 
is going to be customer focused? The State Department has created a 
customer service, not 800 number, to provide you easy access service, 
but a 900 number for all inquiries regarding passports. This 900 number 
will cost the public a dollar five per minute to answer questions such 
as: How many forms of ID do I need to bring? How long does it take to 
get a passport? The State Department, at least they are consistent. 
They are also saying we want congressional offices to use the 900 
number if they have questions for their constituents. I think that, you 
know, at least they are being entrepreneurial, but they are forgetting 
who paid for this in the first place.
  The ironic thing would be, can you imagine if this spreads to the 
IRS, the agency that cannot understand its own regulations and cannot 
develop a computer system? And when you call it three times and ask 
three different people the same question, you get three different 
answers, and you are liable for it. Just would it not be wonderful if 
they develop a 900 number so that, when you ask the same question three 
times and get three different answers, you can pay three different 
times $1.05 per minute to get the wrong answer.
  We also go through and not only highlight what we think is waste in 
government, but we also highlight real life tales of the opportunity 
vision, which is people in their communities going out and making a 
real difference.
  There is a school in New York, Our Lady Queen of the Angels, spends 
$1,585. Think about it, $1,585 a year, about one-fourth of what city, 
State, and Federal governments spend on educating the child. Even by 
spending a quarter they have shown dramatic improvements in test scores 
each year, and they are well superior to other schools in their area.
  This is not about money getting good results. It is putting in place 
the right kind of systems to drive the right kind of behavior that 
makes things successful.
  Mr. Speaker, we have talked a lot about government spending. This is 
what happens to your taxpayer dollars. This is a problem. Let us move 
on to what happens when those dollars move into the education system.
  There is a question about how many Federal programs there are. This 
exhibit is called the catalog of Federal domestic assistance. If you do 
not think we help and have a lot of programs in place, in very small 
type this lists all of the different Federal programs of assistance 
that we have, and it primarily lists just the names. And when we go to 
page FI-9 and go through FI-17, we find the section that is called 
education, 8 pages, and if you add all the programs up here just under 
this category you will find 660 different programs.
  We then went to another organization, Government organization, CRS, 
and we said, you know, what do you think of this list? Is this an 
accurate list of government's involvement in education? And they said 
it is accurate, but as we take a look at it, we identify at least 116 
other programs, and we know of no better source then the catalog of 
Federal assistance, so, you know, we are really not sure, but you are 
going to the right sources. You have asked us; we have identified at 
least 116 others, and this identifies 660, so yeah, you are somewhere 
in the neighborhood of 7 to 800 different education programs.
  We talked about earlier this is the cottage industry that has grown 
up, and what is in one of these binders?

                              {time}  2115

  What is in these binders are a description of the different programs, 
how to apply, program purposes, what is the flow of funds, who is 
eligible, who do you contact, what is the range of awards. The funding 
opportunity index, which is the sheet at the back of every binder, is 
this blue sheet. This is a blue sheet, it is kind of a crib sheet. It 
tells you as you are going through all of these different types of 
programs, and it gives you a rating system, it tells you how easy or 
how difficult it is to get money. It not only tells you how to get the 
money, but it tells you whether it is going to be an easy program. Like 
if it has one star, approximately one out of eight applications is 
funded, or fewer. Two stars, approximately one out of five to seven. 
One out of four, one out of three, one out of two.
  So this has become a bureaucratic exercise. remember, this is not one 
binder, this is two binders. We get the two binders because it is 39 
agencies, it is $120 billion of spending, and it is over 760 programs.
  This is a problem. This is $120 billion of spending where we are not 
sure we are getting the kind of results. One-half of all adult 
Americans are functionally illiterate. Fifty-six percent of all college 
freshman require remedial education. Sixty-four percent of our 12th 
graders do not read at a proficient level. You would think as we 
increase the amount of spending that SAT scores would have gone up over 
the last three decades, right? $123 billion of spending. Wrong. They 
have gone down 60 points in the last three decades.
  Last week we looked at two ways to approach education. There was the 
Washington-centered approach, which is this, when we have these kinds 
of binders sitting on your desk at the local level. What it means is 
that local administrators are sitting at their desks and they are 
gaming out how to get Federal money. The other thing that is happening, 
when they get these programs, you can imagine the binders and the rules 
and the regulations that come back and fill up the rest of the shelf.
  When you get money from Washington, you do not get the money without 
strings attached. That is why, as we have gone around the country, 
people have said the problem with Washington money, and they will take 
the money because there is still a cost-benefit, that the cost of 
getting the money and administrating the programs is less than what 
they receive back, but it is not that big of a deal. What they tell us 
is, all over the place they tell us, we get 10 percent of our money 
from Washington, we get 50 percent of our rules and regulations from 
Washington.
  We know that the system, a Washington dollar from a taxpaying family, 
through the IRS, through the Education Department, back to the local 
school district, we are estimating that somewhere in the neighborhood 
of 60 cents to 70 cents gets back to the child. That means somewhere in 
the neighborhood of 30 plus is taken up by bureaucrats. That means that 
the process here in Washington is bureaucratically focused, it is not 
focused on the children.
  This is why I agree with what the President said in 1996. The issue 
here is not about spending more money. This is what the President said. 
We cannot ask the American people to spend more on education until we 
do a better job with the money we have now.
  Think about it. Instead of increasing spending on education by 
increasing that dollar or that $120 billion to $130 or $135 billion per 
year, we can get that money if we just take a look at how we spend it 
today and we do a better job. Instead of only letting 70 cents get back 
to the classroom, let us set a real aggressive objective. Let us get 75 
cents back to the classroom. That would get us an extra $5 billion into 
the classroom, closer to the children.
  I do not think that is enough. One of my colleagues is going to be 
proposing legislation that says maybe we ought to move to 95 cents; 
that for every dollar that comes to Washington, the entire process of 
applying for it, administrating it, and getting it back to the

[[Page H1183]]

child and reporting back to Washington, that that entire process can 
only take 5 cents of the dollar.
  We need to design a system where the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats 
only take 5 cents and the kids and the teachers and the parents and the 
local classroom get 95 cents. That is the difference between a child-
centered approach and a Washington-centered approach.
  A Washington-centered approach says, let us celebrate bureaucracy, 
let us give 30 cents to 40 cents of every dollar to the bureaucracy. A 
child-centered approach says the kid is the most important, let us get 
95 cents to the child, and let us make sure that the bureaucracy does 
not consume a lot of the money.
  As we go through this process, it is important to shrink down that 
bureaucracy, because we know bureaucrats will be paid and we know the 
bureaucracy will be funded. But we know, at least in the current 
system, and this is why the President is right, the current system is 
not working the way that it should. It is robbing from our kids each 
and every day. We need to be working with the President on examining 
and clarifying and improving the current system before we put an 
overlay of new programs that duplicate the system and do not improve on 
it.
  I do not believe that the President has gone through this process. 
The President has not proposed sweeping reforms of our education 
programs, sweeping reforms of how we bring these dollars to the local 
district. He has not done that yet. He has not completed this work. So 
before we give him more money on education spending, we have to 
complete this work, because if we complete this work, I think that 
there is a high probability that we will be able to fund many of the 
initiatives that the President believes are essential, that is if we 
agree in concept that we should be doing that, we will be able to fund 
many of those programs out of the existing base and not out of new 
spending, not out of new spending which increases our family tax 
burden.
  This process says, before we do new spending, we have to take a look 
at the 760 programs. Before we create the million new tutors that we 
talked about on Americorps, the President is right, we ought to take a 
look at why the current system is not working. Why do we need new 
spending on literacy when we already have 14 literacy programs? Why do 
we need to spend new money here on tutors and put it through an agency? 
Think about what we are doing here.
  We are putting money into an agency, a new agency called the 
Corporation for National Service, started in the 1993-94 time frame, 
which when we audited or we tried to audit the books in 1996, we found 
the books were not auditable. Now, think of what that means. We are 
putting new spending, we are increasing the spending of an organization 
that spends $600 million per year by 25 percent, and they cannot keep 
their own books. Think about this. $600 million of your money and they 
cannot tell us where the money is going.
  The reward in Washington is when we have an agency that does not know 
where its money is going, it does not know what kind of results it is 
getting at a local level, what happens? Good job. As a matter of fact, 
you are doing such a great job, we are going to give you another $200 
million per year. Only in Washington.

  We could make a joke about it and say, I am glad our tutors are going 
to be teaching our kids how to read, because they could not teach them 
how to do math because the agency back home obviously cannot, or back 
in Washington obviously cannot do math.
  Now, that would be a sad enough state in and of itself, but there are 
some reasons why the corporation says it cannot audit its books. Some 
of the organizations that became part of the corporation in 1993 were 
old agencies that did not have the right accounting records and they 
had to upgrade those systems, so it was not a corporation starting from 
scratch. Three or four years later you would think, boy, you would 
think they would have gotten those problems ironed out. But it gets 
worse.
  The Corporation for National Service in 1993 and 1994 was new 
spending, which means we had to go to the American families and 
increase their tax burdens. Remember in 1993 we had the biggest tax 
increase in American history. We put it into organizations that cannot 
keep their own books, and part of the Corporation for National Service 
is AmeriCorps. Part of AmeriCorps matches up kids who go out and do 
volunteer service, quote unquote volunteer service, we pay them about 
$27,000 on average, and part of that cost is a stipend that enables 
them to get a college tuition grant for about $4,000 or $5,000.
  Now, you would think that in a new organization that is requiring 
kids to do service and saying if you do the work, you get a stipend, 
you get the scholarship, that we would set up a system that would match 
the kids to the dollars for their college tuition. The auditors come 
in, and this system started from scratch, no history, it started from 
scratch, and the auditors come in and they say, guess what? Same old 
tune. These books are not auditable.
  So when we start paying out the scholarships, we will not be able to 
verify, or at least the auditors are telling us that the systems that 
the Corporation has in place, that should verify whether the individual 
has put in the required time, required hours to get the scholarship, we 
will not know whether that has actually occurred. The system does not 
have any integrity. When the system does not have integrity, it opens 
itself up for fraud and abuse.
  This is what happens. In 1993, the President asked for significant 
new spending, significantly increasing the family tax burden, and we 
put it into agencies that are wasting your money and are making more of 
America's families have two wage earners rather than one. We are moving 
toward a government that is making a two-wage-earner family a 
requirement rather than an option.
  That is, I think, why parents and families in America are frustrated. 
More and more of them are spending less time with their kids, and they 
are doing it because they need to send more money to Washington, and we 
come up with these convoluted schemes that say, yes, you are spending 
less time with your kids, so let us start a new program that gets 
tutors into your house or with your kids. But we are going to need $200 
million more for that, which means that we are going to have to have 
more of you work, and so there is going to be more of you that are 
going to need tutors.
  It is a vicious cycle. The problem is, it is a vicious cycle in the 
wrong direction, and if we went in the other direction and lowered 
taxes and lowered the tax burden and lowered spending, we could have 
more families where two wage earners was an option rather than a 
requirement.

                              {time}  2130

  The bottom line on all of this is why do we want a one-wage-earner 
family rather than a two-wage-earner family? Because it recognizes the 
fundamental thing in American society: That the most effective way to 
make a difference in an education, the most effective way to train and 
educate our children, is to have it at the local level.
  This chart, where we equate new spending equals new tax burden, says 
Government programs with more new spending, more new spending in 
education, increases the family tax burden, so by having parents work 
longer, working harder, and sending more money to Washington, only in 
Washington do we believe that that will increase and improve education 
in America.
  I think the bottom line out of tonight's discussion on education, Mr. 
Speaker, we have to go back and we have to hold the President 
accountable for what he said in 1996. Mr. President, please, do not 
come to Washington, please, do not come to Congress and ask for more 
money to pump into a system that only gets 70 cents to the classroom. 
Do not come to Congress with spending that will require 5 million 
families to pay $2,000 more in taxes so that you can do your education 
programs.
  Let us work together, let us work together in a bipartisan way to 
take a look at what we are doing today. This is what you said: ``We 
cannot ask the American people to spend more.'' You were right, but 
then why did you ask us and why are you asking us to spend

[[Page H1184]]

$55 billion more? You said yourself, ``we cannot ask the American 
people to spend more on education.''
  You are absolutely right, Mr. President, until we do a better job 
with the money we have now. You hit the nail on the head, we are not 
very good custodians of the $120 billion we are already spending on 
education. We can do a much better job. We need to find out what is 
working in education. We need to find out what is wasted in education. 
We need to identify the models that are working. We need to get rid of 
what is wasted and build on what is working, and when we do that, it is 
not an issue of more spending, it is an issue of being more effective.
  When we do that, we will get to a surplus budget earlier, we will get 
to a point where we are not going to ask more American families to put 
another person to work, or for a person in an American family to work 
longer hours, to work overtime, so they can fund Washington 
bureaucracy. There is a better way to do this. You were right in March 
of 1996. If you would say this and repeat it in March 1997, you have a 
Congress that is willing and already working on this process, and 
willing to share the results with you.
  This can be done. Our vision for our budget, our vision is to have a 
one-wage-earner family being able to support and fund this Government. 
We do not want any more spending. We want to get to a surplus budget as 
soon as we can, and we want to continue having a surplus so we can 
continue paying down the $5 trillion debt that we have built up for our 
kids.
  It is simple: A one wage-earner family, a two- wage-earner family is 
an option. The budget for 1998 is a matter of choices. It is a choice 
between lessening the family tax burden or increasing Washington 
spending. It is about making those choices. It is about restraining 
spending. It is about saying no to new spending, and it is about doing 
a better job with the money we have now.
  This President is asking for over $265 billion in new spending 
authority for the next 5 years. I really think that when we take a look 
at the $8 trillion we are going to spend over the next 5 years, that 
the Congress and the President can find savings of that $265 billion to 
fund some of those new priorities, those that we agree with. We can 
find $265 billion. We have just highlighted plenty of examples of where 
there is waste and abuse.
  We do not need 760 programs. We do not need education coordinated 
through 39 different agencies. We do not need to be spending $130 
billion instead of $120 billion. We do not need to be creating 
entrepreneurial opportunities and cottage industries. I love 
entrepreneurs in America, but this is not productive work, telling them 
how to get more money out of Washington.

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