[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
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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
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$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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