[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 31 (Thursday, March 19, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2245-S2247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       SPECIAL EDUCATION FUNDING

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I noted today that the President, speaking 
before his labor union leadership in Las Vegas, attacked the Republican 
budget and Members of the Republican Senate who voted for that budget, 
I being one, for underfunding his initiatives in education.
  I believe that deserves a response because it is a duplicitous 
statement, to be kind. Let's talk about what has actually happened 
here. The President sent us a budget. It was a budget which was 
supposed to follow the agreements which we had reached last year under 
the 5-year budget agreement which reaches a balanced budget. But 
because new funds have been identified, according to the President, as 
a result of the tobacco settlement, he decided to change that.
  Prior to sending us a budget, the President for days went out on the 
trail and proposed new program after new program after new program--140 
I think is the number, $140 billion worth of new programs. Some of that 
was money on top of old programs, but the majority of it was on new 
programs, and all of it was outside the original budget agreement, and 
so he has sent us his budget which proposes all this new programming.
  Now, what did the members of the Republican Budget Committee do, and 
what did the Republican membership of this Senate do in passing the 
budget out of committee last night? We did two things. One, we said we 
reached an agreement last year so let's stick with that agreement. 
Let's continue to work towards balancing this budget. That happens to 
be a priority.
  In that context, we funded child care initiatives, new child care 
initiatives to the tune of $5 billion, bringing the total child care 
initiatives in this Congress being funded to somewhere in the vicinity 
of $74 billion. At the same time, we funded an expansion in NIH 
research activities, over $15 billion over the next 5 years, a huge 
expansion, a 40 percent increase in NIH funding.
  We also said that if there is a tobacco settlement, the proper place 
to put that money is in the Medicare accounts. Why? Because as we have 
learned, Medicare is the most threatened major Government program that 
we have today. We know that Medicare

[[Page S2246]]

goes broke in the year 2005, 2007, somewhere in that range. It is 
essential that we fund that program so that senior citizens will have 
insurance.
  What is one of the main drivers of the cost of Medicare? Tobacco 
smoking. In fact, a recent study--I think it was done at Harvard--
concluded that it cost $24 billion a year in Medicare costs in order to 
address the issue of tobacco. And so it is appropriate that any tobacco 
settlement money should go to the Medicare accounts. And that is what 
we decided to do.
  We also did something else, and this is on what I wanted to focus. We 
decided that the Congress should live up to its obligations in 
education to the special-needs children. Back in 1975, the Congress 
passed a law called the IDEA, 94-142, which said that children with 
special needs should have adequate education, and should be able to do 
it in the least restrictive environment. It was a good bill. It was an 
excellent law. As a result of that law, many children who had been 
shuttled off out of the local school systems, who had been put, 
unfortunately, in back rooms with teachers who had no experience and no 
skills to work with them, many children who simply because of their 
physical disability or their emotional problems were basically treated 
as pariahs within their school systems, were brought into the light and 
were given good educations.
  It has been an extremely successful undertaking. But at the time that 
we passed that law we said to local school districts, listen, we know 
this is going to be very expensive. We as a Congress know we are asking 
you to do something that is very expensive, so we as a Congress will 
pay 40 percent of the cost of the education of that special-needs 
child.
  Congress, acting as Congress unfortunately does so often, and the 
Presidency, acting also in concert, have not fulfilled their obligation 
to pay 40 percent. No. In fact, as of 2 years ago, the Federal share 
that was being paid was down to 6 percent of the cost of the education 
of the special-needs child.

  So what had happened in the school systems? In local school systems 
across this country, special-needs children and their parents were 
being pitted against the parents and children who did not have need for 
the resources of those special-needs children.
  What you had, I know very well, in school systems in New Hampshire 
was that over 20 percent of the local school dollars were going to 
support the special-needs child, and they still are. It was not unusual 
to cost $10,000 a year just for transportation of a special-needs 
child. Sometimes it would cost $30,000-$40,000 a year for the education 
of the child. And this was a situation where the special-needs child 
was not asking for something outrageous. They were asking for their 
rights under the law.
  Unfortunately, in asking for those rights, they were finding 
themselves pitted against the parents of the other children in the 
school system and the local taxpayers.
  Why was that? Well, because the Federal Government was not paying its 
fair share of the cost of that education. And the practical effect of 
that was that when the Federal Government failed to pay the 40 percent 
it was supposed to pay and was only paying 6 percent, the difference 
was having to be picked up at the local school district level. That 
meant that the money which the local school district may have wanted to 
spend on some other activity of education was being allocated to pay 
for the special-needs child.
  Now, what happened here was that the special-needs child was being 
unfairly and inappropriately put in a position of conflict with other 
children in the school system. The special-needs parents at school 
meetings across the country were finding themselves confronted by other 
parents who were upset that they did not have adequate resources 
because resources were going to assist the special-needs child. Why? 
Because the Federal Government was not paying its share of the burden 
of the special-needs child's education. Instead of paying the 40 
percent which we said we would pay, we were down to 6 percent.
  So the Republican Senate, as the first act of taking control of this 
body, made the first bill which we put on the agenda a statement that 
we were going to try to put an end to this unfunded mandate activity, 
that we were going to try to right the situation, so that special-needs 
children would not be put in this intolerable position and their 
parents would not be put in this intolerable position, and so we would 
give relief to the local taxpayer, and so the Federal Government would 
live up to its obligations under the IDEA bill. That was S. 1. That was 
how high a priority we put on it here in the Senate as Republicans. We 
not only said it in the Senate and said it in the S. 1 bill--we did it.
  In the first year we controlled the legislative process in this body 
under the leadership of Senator Lott, with my support and the support 
of a lot of other people, we increased funding in the special-needs 
accounts, in the special-ed accounts, by $780 million. In the second 
year that we controlled the appropriating process, we increased funding 
in the special-ed accounts by $690 million. These were dramatic 
increases in those accounts, but nowhere near the increases that are 
necessary to reach the 40 percent. As a result of those initiatives, we 
now have funding for special education up to about 9.5 percent of the 
cost. It is a long way from 40 percent but a significant increase over 
the 6 percent where we started.
  That is a long explanation that gets to the point of what the 
President has said yesterday and why what he said is so disingenuous. 
How much money do you think this administration put into the special-
education accounts in its budget that it sent up here? Remember, they 
put $12 billion into new education programs, new school construction, 
after-school programs, and more teachers for smaller classroom size. 
How much money of that $140 billion of new program and new initiative 
did they put into the special-needs program? the special-ed program? 
Mr. President, $35 million--not billion, $35 million. Essentially zero, 
when you look at it in the context of the overall budget requirements. 
They essentially said that, as a matter of policy, this administration 
does not care what happens in the special-needs account. It does not 
care what happens to the special-needs child. Rather, they would like 
to start new programs that will create new political sound bites, that 
will pay off new, different political constituencies that happen to 
support them. But as far as special-needs kids are concerned--zippo, 
for them.
  The practical effect of this is what is really insidious, because the 
$12 billion that they use to create new programs, new education 
programs, which basically pay off the teachers unions, gives them some 
sort of new initiative to talk about. Class size and building schools 
are two initiatives which the federal government actually has no role 
in, which have always been a local school responsibility. What more a 
local school responsibility and local school decision and discretion 
than what buildings a school has and how big their classes are? The 
administration took the two initiatives where there is no Federal role 
and they fund it with $12 billion. But in an area where there is a 
Federal role, where the Federal Government has said it has a 40 percent 
obligation, they put absolutely no money.
  How are they able to do this expansion of these education initiatives 
in the area of classroom size and in the area of building buildings? 
The way they were able to do it--and this is, as I mentioned, what is 
truly inappropriate about their proposal--the way they were able to do 
it was they essentially robbed the money from special-needs kids. If 
they had taken the $12 billion of new initiatives--which are political 
in nature, in my opinion--and put it into the special-needs program for 
the kids who need it, they would have come very close to reaching the 
40 percent which would be the funding levels that the Federal 
Government had committed to relative to special needs.
  So they are essentially saying not only that they are not going to 
help special-education kids, but that they are going to take from 
special-education kids for the purpose of funding their initiatives 
instead of funding the special-education obligations which are already 
on the books. And the effect of doing this is as follows. Essentially, 
what they are saying is that we are going to create new categorical 
programs which require States and local

[[Page S2247]]

school systems to do what we want them to do here in Washington. 
Essentially they are saying you, the local school district, in order to 
get the money which you are owed by the Federal Government, you are 
going to have to spend it the way we--somebody down at the Department 
of Education or somebody at the National Education Association labor 
union--want you to spend it. You are not going to be able to make that 
decision at the local level. You are going to have to do what we tell 
you that you have to do here in Washington. Had they, on the other 
hand, taken that money and put it into the special-needs program, put 
it towards the special-education student, then they would have freed up 
money at the local level. Then they would have given the local 
communities the flexibility to say how they wanted to spend their local 
dollars. But, by not giving the local communities those dollars for 
special education, by, rather, setting up these categorical programs, 
they ratchet down the Federal control of the local school systems.
  They are saying we are going to hit you with a double whammy, local 
school system. First, we are not going to fund your special-ed program 
so you have to take from your local tax base to do that, which doesn't 
allow you the flexibility to use your local taxes on the educational 
activities you want. If you want to build a building, you cannot do it 
under your own terms. If you want to add a science program, you cannot 
do it. If you want to add some sort of foreign language program, you 
cannot do it--because the dollars to do that are going to have to be 
spent to pay the Federal cost of special education. But if you want to 
get more money from the Federal Government, you have to do exactly what 
we want you to do in the area of class size and in the area of building 
buildings. It is, to say the least, a rather insidious approach to 
trying to take control over the local school systems. And it is a 
cynical approach, because the loser in this is the special-needs child, 
because the special-needs child is still left out there in the cold, to 
have to fight with the local school district in order to get the 
adequate funding to take care of his or her needs which should have 
been paid for by the Federal Government.
  I think I was just delivered a chart which maybe makes this point a 
little more precisely. Let me read it first.
  If you look at current funding for IDEA State grants, it is $3.8 
billion. The funding that would bring the Federal Government to its 
promised 40 percent is $16 billion. The President's proposed funding 
for 5 years for educational programs which are not IDEA related is 
$12.34 billion. So, you can see fairly clearly from this chart what I 
have just pointed out, which is that if the President and his people 
were willing to fund the obligations of the special-needs children that 
are on the books instead of trying to create new programs which take 
more control over the local school systems, limits the flexibility of 
the local school systems, underfunds the special-needs children--if 
they were willing to live up to the obligation which they had made as a 
commitment under Federal law, funding 40 percent, a lot of the pressure 
would be taken off the local school systems and they would have the 
monies necessary to pay for special-needs kids and they would also have 
the flexibility to do whatever they wanted with the additional money 
that would be freed up from the local tax base.
  So we come back to this budget and the fact that the President claims 
that his education initiatives were not properly addressed and the 
Republican budget doesn't adequately address education. The Republican 
budget does not take the President's approach. We put $2.5 billion of 
additional money into the IDEA program. No, we do not fund all the new 
initiatives that the President wants because we believe we should fund 
the initiatives that are on the books first. We believe we should take 
the special-needs child out from under the cloud of the Federal 
Government not fulfilling its obligations, free up the local taxpayer 
and the local school board so it has the money to make the decisions 
that are needed to be made at the local level rather than have the 
Federal Government not fund the special-needs programs but create new 
categorical programs which try to take control over the local school 
system.

  So, the President, as I mentioned earlier, is at the least, to be 
kind, being disingenuous, inconsistent, and in this instance 
specifically not fulfilling the obligation of the Federal Government to 
the special-needs child. So I am perfectly happy, as we move forward on 
the debate on this budget, to put the Republican budget on education up 
against the Democratic budget on education--up against the President's 
proposals on education.
  I come to this floor as someone who headed up a school for special-
needs children and who recognizes, on a personal level, how important 
it is that we give these kids full and adequate education. I come to 
this floor speaking on behalf of Republicans on the Budget Committee 
who say we will make our stand, we will be happy to make our stand on 
fulfilling our obligation to the special-needs child, and we will be 
happy to debate with any member of the minority party who wants to come 
forward with the President's proposal and claim that new initiatives--
which will take more control over the local school systems, which are 
basically sops to various political groups who support them, and which 
do absolutely nothing to fulfill our obligation to the special-needs 
child--take priority, take priority over the law as it has already 
passed that said we would pay 40 percent of the cost of those children 
but, more important, over the fact that we have, for too long, left 
these kids in the lurch and put them in the intolerable position of 
having to compete for resources to which they, under the law, have a 
right.
  I yield the floor.

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