Congressional Record, Volume 144 Issue 30 (Wednesday, March 18, 1998)

[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2168-S2171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EDUCATION SAVINGS ACT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2646, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (H.R. 2646) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to allow tax-free expenditures from education individual
retirement accounts for elementary and secondary school
expenses, and for other purposes.

The Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. ROTH addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

Amendment No. 2019

(Purpose: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow tax-free
expenditures from education individual retirement accounts for
elementary and secondary school expenses, to increase the maximum
annual amount of contributions to such accounts, and for other
purposes)

Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for
its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth] proposes an amendment
numbered 2019.

Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under
``Amendments Submitted.'')
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment
be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and it
be considered original text for the purpose of further amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment (No. 2019) was agreed to.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I congratulate the chairman of the Finance
Committee, as well as Senator Coverdell, for crafting such a bipartisan
amendment. As always, while it may not always have the vote of the
ranking member, he is always cooperative and considerate in how he
deals with legislation coming out of the Finance Committee. So I really
appreciate the work done by Senator Roth, Senator Moynihan, Senator
Coverdell, and Senator Torricelli, in getting this bipartisan
initiative to this point.
The amendment includes three major Democratic initiatives that are
also supported by a majority on this side of the aisle --those being
the school construction section that has been aggressively pursued by
Senator Graham of Florida, Senator Feinstein of California, and others.
A lot of work went into that by Senator Coverdell and Senator Roth,
once again. It also includes the State prepaid tuition initiative in
which I believe Senator Breaux, Senator Graham, and others have been
interested. I also have been supportive of that initiative in the past.
I believe Senator Moynihan also has had an interest in that. Finally,
it also includes the employer-paid higher education provision. This is
something I believe is referred to as section 127, which Senator
Moynihan talked about.
I think that anything we can do to make it possible for parents,
grandparents, and supporters of scholarships in education to be able to
be more involved and to save for their children's education, not only
higher education, but K through 12, elementary and secondary, to be
able to take advantage of a prepaid tuition initiative so that that can
be done to help children get into college and deal with what quite
often is a pretty high tuition cost when they first go in, or deal with
the costs of their graduate education and those expenses should be
done. These are all good things because we need to do everything we can
in America to make it possible for our children to get an education,
whether that's elementary and secondary, higher education, or trade
school training, vocational education, whatever it is. So we need to
look at all of those across the board.

I continue to be concerned about the poor test scores of our children
at the elementary and secondary levels. I continue to look at the fact
that our higher education is the best in the world and wonder why that
is true when our elementary and secondary education levels are quite
often very low. In fact, I saw one statistic recently that we are 19th
in the world. Why? Why can't our children write in the fourth grade and
read and understand basic science when they are in the eighth grade? I
think

[[Page S2169]]

this Coverdell A+ program will help with getting tutoring, or getting
computers for children in the fourth grade or eighth grade, or make it
a choice to go to a different school, and being able to save a little
bit for that option.
So I think all of these programs are good. I think it will be good
for us to spend some time talking about education in America, thinking
together about how we can improve it. I think one of the problems with
education in America at the K through 12 level is that we have been
thinking it has to fit in this box, it has to be done this way, without
choice, without financial assistance, and without teacher testing, and
without really dealing with the drug problems. We need to begin to ask
ourselves, can we do it differently? Can we offer other options? Can we
provide financial assistance for parents with children in the eighth
grade who have special needs? I think this legislation will begin to
take us in that direction.

So I am proud that we are reaching the point, hopefully, where we can
get into debating the substance of the legislation. I understand there
are some colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle who are
interested in offering amendments. That is fine. I hope they will offer
amendments when we get to the substance of the bill that relates to
education. I understand that some of these amendments would be
nongermane, which would be in extraneous areas not related to this. We
will have other opportunities--in the budget resolution and in
appropriations bills--to have amendments on Social Security, and there
are a lot of good thoughts going into the Social Security area now. The
Senator from New York made a presentation this past week that is very
interesting and thoughtful. We ought to get into that. But we should
not do it on this education bill. Let's have some talk about education
and how we can improve education in America.
Now, I had offered, last week, the idea that the Democratic leader
would perhaps want to develop a substitute, an alternative to this
package, in the education area. I think he gave some thought to that.
But he concluded that maybe it could not be done last week. So I called
him again last night and said, ``Would you like to do a substitute and
have that considered on Wednesday or Thursday, and then we would go to
the substance of the bill on Friday?'' The indication was that he did
not want to do the substitute. I even talked about, ``Could we do some
process where we would have a limited number of amendments that relate
to education?'' Again, he indicated that he didn't think he could do
that.
So before I file cloture today, I want to offer, once again, to do it
that way, have a substitute. I have discussed that with several
Democrats who are supportive of the Coverdell bill. They thought that
would be a fair way to proceed, to have an alternative package, debate
that and vote on it, and then go to the Coverdell A+ education savings
account proposals with these additions. But I understand that can't be
agreed to. I wanted to make the offer not once or twice, but three
times, to have a substitute or even have some limited amendments
relating to education.

If I could ask the ranking member, on behalf of the leader, who is
unavoidably detained at this time, is it not possible for us to get an
agreement that would allow us to go to the substitute arrangement or
some limited number of amendments related only to education at this
time?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I cannot speak with the authority of the
minority leader, who is necessarily detained. It won't be that long
before he can be here. I will have to offer my impression, regretfully,
that that would not be possible.
Mr. LOTT. I thank the Senator from New York. I regret that we can't
agree on what I think would be a fair and orderly way to move into the
bill that is very important for the discussion of education in America.

Cloture Motion

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, in order to keep the focus on the education
measure, I now send a cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 2646, the
A+ Education Act:

Cloture Motion

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I send a second cloture motion to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Cloture Motion

We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provision of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 2646, the
A+ Education Act:

Trent Lott, Paul Coverdell, Jeff Sessions, Connie Mack,
Bill Roth, Judd Gregg, Christopher Bond, Tim
Hutchinson, Larry E. Craig, Robert F. Bennett, Mike
DeWine, Jim Inhofe, Bill Frist, Bob Smith, Wayne
Allard, Pat Roberts.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, the action just taken will result in a
cloture vote occurring on Friday, March 20, or Thursday, if a consent
agreement can be reached for an earlier vote. I know some Senators are
hopeful that we can have this vote Thursday afternoon, late, instead of
Friday morning. We would be willing to work to see if we can get an
agreement with the minority leader on getting that vote on Thursday
afternoon. If the first cloture vote is not successful, then a second
cloture vote would occur on Friday, or on Thursday, if we can get that
arranged.
I will, of course, notify all Members as to exactly when these
cloture votes would occur. However, in the meantime, I ask that the
mandatory quorum under rule XXII be waived for both cloture votes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?
Mr. LOTT. I would be glad to yield to Senator Kennedy.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I am interested in a brief review of what
is in the proposal of the majority leader. I am interested in whether
the proposal that is included in the submission that we have now here
is the proposal that would provide the funding for projects of private
companies for the building and the construction of private schools. The
limitation on any State would be approximately $5 million. That is my
understanding of at least what would be included in the Republican
proposal, which is a pale shadow of what I think most of us understand
would be the Moseley-Braun proposal, which would provide much more
dramatic health assistance to public schools. I am just interested in
that. Is my understanding correct?
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if the Senator will allow me to reclaim my
time to respond, I believe that this provision applies to public
schools. There is a package that was very carefully drafted at the
urging of Senator Graham of Florida. But to make sure that I have an
accurate understanding of this content, would the Senator from Georgia,
Senator Coverdell, like to comment further on that provision?
Mr. KENNEDY. Privately owned public schools is my question. Is the
relevant provisions that are related to school construction and
modernization limited to privately owned public schools?

Mr. LOTT. I yield to the Senator from Georgia.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, if I might respond, at the appropriate
time we will have Senator Graham of Florida, who has been integral to
the negotiations, respond to the Senator's questions. But currently,
public schools can use tax-exempt bonds for construction.
I believe that I can conceptually characterize Senator Graham's
interest in that he wanted to add to the category or the function that
allows funding for airports where you could have a private company do
the construction for the public system for the public good and lease
the facility to the public school district after a certain period of
time, which would follow into ownership. Senator Graham's objective was
to create an extended ability for public school systems to have
financing for the construction of their schools.
So he is basically expanding the capacity for public school districts
to

[[Page S2170]]

fund construction of the new schools. The construct of the amendment
caps that facility because of the sums of money that are available, and
it also has the facility to aid and abet large growth districts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Am I also correct that there is a limitation of some $5
million per State?
Mr. COVERDELL. No. It is $10 per resident, but at a minimum of $5
million, if the $5 million is greater.
Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate the leader responding. I just wanted to
mention that it is a proposal in support of the Senator from New York,
because there are different approaches on the question of the
modernization and the reconstruction of the public schools. Senator
Graham has a proposal. It has been included in the proposal. Senator
Moseley-Braun has a very interesting proposal. But, as I understand it,
they will be precluded. Would they be precluded from having that be
considered under the cloture motion?

Mr. COVERDELL. If the Senator will yield, I believe the majority
leader has properly characterized what the discussions have been
between both leaders. The majority leader has said the other side can
offer its package, which could include Senator Moseley-Braun's, or not,
or we could agree on a set number of amendments for each side, so long
as they are germane to education, which, of course, should embrace the
Senator's idea as well.
So there are at least two separate suggestions being discussed
between leaders that would facilitate the opportunity of the Senator
from Illinois to bring her proposal into the debate.
Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate that. Effectively we are being told if we
do not accept the way it is being packaged they won't have an
opportunity to have a debate on these very important measures in terms
of achieving what the majority leader has pointed out. I am wondering,
the amendment of our friend, Senator Boxer, on after-school programs,
is related to education, as I understand it. Under cloture, that would
be precluded as well. Would that amendment be excluded? It has been
published. It deals with after-school proposals for children. I am
wondering if that would be permitted under the cloture motion.
Mr. LOTT. I want to reiterate again, first of all, Mr. President,
under the proposal that I have suggested of a substitute amendment, any
or all of these proposals could have been offered. We even thought
about the possibility of having some agreed-to limited number of
amendments that were educationally related. But Senator Daschle
indicated, I believe, that he didn't think that was the way that he
would like to proceed.

With regard to postcloture, assuming cloture is invoked, it depends
on, I guess, how the amendment is offered. There certainly would be a
debate on the contents of this package. That does include the school
construction bond issue for public schools. And it is conceivable that
germane amendments could be offered to that to strike it. But, if you
tried to strike it and add a new program under the rules, I presume
that would not be possible under the cloture arrangement.
Again, with regard to other issues, including the Boxer amendment
that the Senator described, in postcloture that probably would not be
eligible. But I emphasize again. We could have worked, or could work,
out an agreement where a limited number of amendments, or a substitute,
could be considered.
With regard to the California issue, I want to emphasize that Senator
Feinstein was very interested in getting the language included--that
could be helpful in any State, but particularly in States like Florida
and California--and in providing additional new public school
construction. She had quite an interest in a provision that was
eventually added to the bill. I might add it was a close vote in the
Finance Committee. I think I cast the deciding vote to provide for
that.
So I think it is important that we find a way to get to the substance
of this bill without it being indefinitely delayed so we can have a
full debate about education but not have it get off into all kinds of
other unrelated issues that would tend to dilute, I think, the debate
on a discussion on education and the very important provisions that we
have put together in this package in a bipartisan way.
Senator Daschle has come to the floor. We have been having a
discussion about how to proceed. Senator Moynihan on his behalf has
indicated that he didn't think the minority would be prepared to agree
to my offer to have a substitute amendment, or some limited number of
education amendments. And we were responding to questions from Senator
Kennedy. I have filed a cloture motion and indicated that we would talk
about whether or not we would have those cloture votes on Friday
morning, or even Thursday afternoon, at the request of some Senators on
both sides of the aisle. I want to talk to the minority leader about
that. We were, quite frankly, hopeful that the Senator would be able to
arrive and respond to the present situation.
I would be glad to respond to questions or comments from Senator
Daschle.
Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished minority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the President.
Mr. President, I was in my office occupied on a satellite
communication. I apologize for not being able to come to the floor
until this moment. But I thank the distinguished ranking member of the
Finance Committee for his efforts and for articulating the position of
the Democratic caucus in this regard.
Mr. President, education is probably the most important issue we will
address this year, particularly with regard to the array of budgetary
questions that we face and we are anxious to get to the bill to begin
this debate. We don't expect that we are going to address every aspect
of the education agenda with regard to this bill. But certainly when
you have a tax vehicle and an education bill married, as this
legislation represents, it affords us a real opportunity to talk about
the array of challenges we face in this country, both from a tax as
well as from an educational point of view.
What we are simply asking for is a fair and open debate, giving the
minority the opportunity to talk and to offer amendments that are not
only germane but relevant. Unfortunately, our rules here in the Senate
constrain us with regard to what has been offered. There is a big
difference between a germane amendment and a relevant amendment.
Democrats have an array of amendments dealing with education that are
relevant, but under the very narrow definition of germaneness they are
not germane to this bill.
I have talked about this matter with the distinguished majority
leader on a number of occasions. The offer that was given to us last
night was the offer of a couple of amendments, or one substitute; we
were to be satisfied with the ability to offer a couple of amendments.
Mr. President, we have a larger number than a couple of amendments that
we think ought to be warranted in this debate, that we think ought to
be debated and that we think ought to be resolved in some way. So I,
frankly, am not able to agree to a couple of amendments, or one
substitute.
We ought to have a good discussion. If we can spend 5 days on the
Reagan Airport, and 4 days on a cloning resolution, my heavens, we
ought to be able to spend 4 or 5 days on an issue of great importance
to tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans today.
So this is really our opportunity to do so. I am very disappointed
that we would begin a debate with a cloture motion, begin the debate by
saying, ``Nope. We are going to stick to germaneness here,'' and try to
eliminate the opportunity to offer good amendments relevant to
education simply because we have to get on to other things. I want to
finish the NATO debate as well. I want to be able to get all of this
work done, and I pledge my cooperation with the leader, but I hope that
the cooperation would go both ways. Cooperation certainly involves
giving Senators an opportunity to have a good debate. In some cases we
might even be willing to agree to a time limit on these amendments. We
don't need all day to talk about some of them. But we certainly need
the opportunity.

So I hope we can work this out. Until that time, certainly Democrats
will not be in a position to support cloture. I look forward to talking
more about that with the leader at the end of this colloquy.
I yield the floor.

[[Page S2171]]

Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, again, I would like to indicate that this is
a bipartisan package. The Finance Committee reported it out by a
substantial vote. We have already included three major Democrat
proposals in this package. In fact, there are only four components to
it. Three of them were principally sponsored by Democrats. In fact, I
think probably the cause of the bill is probably well over two-thirds--
80 percent--based on the Democratic amendments. But it didn't make any
difference. They were Democrat, or Republican, if they made sense. If
they will help with education in the elementary, secondary, or higher
education level, they deserve serious consideration. And if they are
meritorious, the committee added them. We considered other issues, I
might add, in the Finance Committee. Point No. 1.
No. 2, with regard to not wanting to delay things, I should note that
the discussion on this package began with a filibuster on the motion to
proceed. I had to file a cloture on the motion to proceed--and not
getting to the substance of even proceeding to consider the bill. It
took us, I guess, 3 days to get that, although when we got to the vote,
to the credit of both sides, it passed overwhelmingly. Seventy-five
Senators said, Yes; we should cut off the filibuster on the motion to
proceed.
With regard to the other issues, I did not want to spend 5 days on
the Reagan Airport; 5 hours or 5 minutes would have been fine. But I
thought that it was something we ought to think about. Some Senators
had reservations, you know. It looked like we were having a filibuster
on that. It shouldn't have taken 5 days. It should not have taken 4
days on cloning. I think that is an issue that has consequences serious
enough that we ought to think about it carefully. It didn't have the
votes. We pulled it back. We will see what the committee comes up with.
But a doctor, Bill Frist, the Senator from Tennessee, is working with
others to come up with a package on this very important cloning issue.
I thought that deserved some thought and some concerns, especially when
you have a doctor saying we will start cloning human beings. I don't
know whether I am all that excited about that prospect.
But, at any rate, I understand Senator Daschle's position. He has to
be responsive to his Members, and I have to be responsive to mine. We
have to work together to try to find a way to get to a conclusion on
the education savings account bill, with the additions, and also to
begin to continue to have debate on the NATO enlargement.
A lot of Senators want to talk about that. We understand maybe a
Senator has a key amendment that he would be willing to offer this
afternoon. I am not sure that that is true, but I think maybe Senator
Warner would be willing to go ahead and offer his amendment, which is
one that is a critical amendment, on the NATO enlargement. So this time
will not be wasted. This is good time. And I invite Senators to come
forward to talk about and think about in a public forum with the
American people this very important question of enlarging NATO.
And by the way, with regard to double-tracking these issues, this is
something that is done all the time. I used to watch Senator Byrd do
it, Senator Mitchell do it, Senator Dole do it. So the idea is, while
we are letting the procedures go forward, we can take up another very
important subject.
So as a reminder to all Senators, under the provisions of rule XXII,
all first-degree amendments must be filed at the desk by 1 p.m. on
Thursday and all second-degree amendments must be filed 1 hour prior to
the cloture vote.

____________________