[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 31 (Thursday, March 19, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2265-S2268]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EDUCATION SAVINGS ACT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, there is a clear, strong majority in the
Senate who want to pass the Coverdell-Torricelli education savings
account bill. It is bipartisan; I want to emphasize that. I believe
every Republican is
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going to be for ending the debate. They are not dragging this out and
having a full-fledged filibuster. I think there are several Democrats
who agree we should get to the substance, too, and I hope we are going
to have a broad--and I believe we will--a majority will vote for this
legislation when we get to final passage. And there is a reason for
that.
The legislation would benefit some 14 million families who could use
the education savings accounts. I have said it before and I emphasize
it again, I think one of the problems with elementary and secondary
education in America today is there is no opportunity for financial
assistance, no way to save your own money to help your children a
little bit. It does not have to be $2,000 a year; it could be $200 a
year or less. But that money then could be accumulated and get the tax
benefits and then used to buy uniforms or books or computers or to
choose another school.
So I think this is a major step in the right direction in dealing
with the problems of elementary and secondary education in America.
This bill would help 1 million students with tax relief on their
State prepaid-tuition plans. This is a good idea. We ought to allow
people to be able to pay in advance for the impact of tuition when they
go to college. This is something that is being advocated very
aggressively by a number of Democrats as well as Republicans.
This bill would benefit a million workers, including 250 graduate
students, whose employers would be better able to provide education
assistance for them. Shouldn't we encourage that? Shouldn't we
encourage employers to help their good workers who want to better
themselves to advance their education? Of course we should, and this
would do that in the best possible way.
Now, Mr. President, this day is day 6 of the delay and obstruction
against getting this education reform. Is it all we need to do? No. Is
it a major step in the right direction? You betcha. We ought to do
this. And we should not keep delaying it and dragging it out.
For 6 days some Members of this body have taken turns standing in the
schoolhouse door barring the way to a quality education for children
who, quite often, need it the most.
I want to thank all the Senators who have been involved on both sides
of the aisle who have been willing to put aside partisan considerations
and do what is right for American families.
It would also benefit hard-pressed localities that could build new
public schools with the bill's $3 billion in tax-exempt private
activity bonds. This is in there because of the continued efforts of
Senator Graham of Florida, Senator Feinstein who worked on it, and
Senator Coverdell who was for this. Some of us have some reservations
about this. I am one of them. But if you think about it, if Disney
World would like to help build another school in the Orlando area and
this would help that happen, because in the public schools it might not
happen, should we allow that opportunity through the taxing of bond
activity? Maybe so. That is in this bill.
In short, this is one of the most important pieces of consumer rights
legislation that the Senate has considered since the establishment of
the Food and Drug Administration, I believe. And it is being blocked
systematically and cynically by those who do not want, apparently,
middle-income or low-income families to have the same choice in
education that is available to all wealthy families.
My family did not have that option, couldn't afford it. I went to
public schools all the way--proud of it. I think they did a good job.
But I don't believe my kids got as good a public education as I did,
and they went to public schools all the way, too. But I still think we
should have other choices.
I think it is ironic--no; maybe it is tragic that in the midst of
this filibuster, of this delay, the administration is today boasting of
its record on school violence, that we have safer schools. I do not
know where they have been. The schools are the most dangerous in
America today than they have ever been in history, probably.
I mean, I used to worry about chewing gum in school. Now kids bring
guns to school and shoot their classmates. You have to go through a
metal detector to get into schools. Where are these programs that have
been helping with that? I don't see them. But it is a curious gesture,
to me, to wring your hands about the violence in classrooms while you
block the exits so that children cannot escape from unsafe drug-ridden
schools. That is what this would help do.
I think it is just pretense, really, to deplore violence on the
playground and in the school corridors while you force those endangered
boys and girls to stay right where they are. And that is the fact of
the opposition that we see to the Coverdell-Torricelli bill, because we
are trying to give them some options. We are telling our children, oh,
yeah, we want more classrooms and whatnot, but they have to stay in the
back of the education bus and they have to stay in these dangerous
schools.
So if the classrooms are smaller, smaller classes, but still
dangerous and infected with drugs, you are not getting a good quality
education, and because the teacher can't pass a test himself. I do not
think we have done what we need to do.
Do we trust the parents or not? That is one of the questions here. I
do not trust a Federal bureaucrat in Washington to make the right
decision for the children in my hometown schools. I trust the parents
and the teachers and the administrators at the local level to make the
right decision for their children.
So I think that this is something that we should bring to a
conclusion. We need to find a way to get this bill considered,
amendments to be offered. So I say here today--and we have just sent
notification to the Democratic leader--that we wish to make a full
effort once again to find a way to bring it to a conclusion so we can
consider education and education needs and education amendments.
I have another proposal. Keep in mind, last week I proposed that the
Democrats should have a substitute bill, or could have, if they want to
do it, and put anything they want to in it, debate it as long as they
want to, and have a vote; and then we would go to the Coverdell-
Torricelli bill. Well, for good reasons, I presume, we could not get an
agreement on a substitute.
So then we said, well, what about if we have a couple of amendments
on each side that are education related, and we have time to debate the
amendments offered by Democrats, time to offer the two amendments
offered by Republicans? That did not work and, once again, partially
because there were more than two on each side; there were a number of
them.
Well, I have a new proposal. I have a way to bring us to a conclusion
that I believe everybody would feel is fair and we could get a good
debate on education. I understand that there are some 14 amendments
that have been filed that relate to education--education. Five of them
are Republican; nine of them are Democrat.
Now, there are some others that have been filed that do not relate to
education--clearly do not relate to education. So I propose here this
afternoon that we say, OK, we are going to have agreement that those 14
education amendments that have been filed can be offered, debated for
an hour each, and voted on--five Republican, nine Democrat--but they
have to be the education amendments; and then we go on to final passage
based on whatever the condition of the package is at that point.
Now, if we have to go to cloture--and when we get cloture --we still
could have 30 hours of debate after that, and amendments would be
offered or could be offered. We probably would take at least 14 or 15
hours or more post-cloture. So I would like to--I am not asking for an
answer now, but I am suggesting it to our colleagues on both sides of
the aisle, and for the children of America, that maybe this is a way to
make sure that Senators are able to offer amendments to education in
addition to what is in this bill, and also to be able to offer ones
that might not be germane post-cloture.
This is a way to get it done. And we could set up a process of when
we would begin on those amendments. We would have the 14 hours of
debate, the votes would occur, and we could bring this to a conclusion,
and I believe that instead of having a talkathon, we would have an A+
bill, a bill with input from Members on both sides of the aisle, a bill
that would help education
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in America. And I think the American people would say we have not just
been talking about what we are going to do, but they would then see the
truth, that we really do want to be a positive force in improving
education in America and we found a way to do it.
And it would add this additional benefit. It would allow us to bring
it to a conclusion within a foreseeable period of time. It would allow
us then to focus on having debates only on NATO enlargement, and get
that to a focused debate and a focused conclusion, and then to go
perhaps--even next week, if we could get all this lined up--to a vote
on one or both of the supplemental appropriations bills.
Now, that would be a week and a half of production that would stagger
the minds of men, particularly when it comes to education. But we would
have done education, we would have done NATO enlargement, and we would
have done supplemental bills that will affect the defense of our
country because of the funds for Bosnia and the Persian Gulf, for IMF,
and for disasters. We could do all that in 1 week. I think it would be
a monumental accomplishment. And I invite the Democratic leader to
respond and to think about this offer, because I think it is a fair one
that a lot of Senators would feel good about.
With that, I would be glad to yield since I see Senator Daschle is
here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished Democratic leader is
recognized.
Mr. DASCHLE. I thank the President for his recognition.
And I thank the majority leader for his innovative new offer. This
comes as news. We have not had the opportunity to consider his new
offer because this is the first time I have heard it. But, clearly, he
is beginning to address the concern that Democrats have raised about
the way in which this bill is going to be debated.
None of us has proposed that somehow we want to keep from getting to
final passage on this legislation. That isn't our objective. We have
already noted the President is going to veto this bill, so we do not
have to stop it from passing through the Senate. So that isn't our
intent.
Our intent all along has been simply to have a good debate, to offer
our version of what we ought to be doing in education, to offer our
version to suggest how we might spend one and a half billion dollars as
we look at the array of challenges that we face.
Now, the majority leader has proposed a plan that I have not yet had
a chance to consider, but two questions arise immediately, and one is
whether or not this proposal would allow us to deal with pre-
educational years; that is, the childhood development questions that we
are facing as some of our amendments deal directly with early childhood
development.
We have not indicated to any of our colleagues that they had to file
their amendments. Would we be then precluding some of our Democratic
Senators who had no idea that somehow, if you had not filed, you would
not be protected?
And then of course there is the question of just an hour. Some
amendments are going to take a little longer than an hour; some will
not.
So there are a lot of questions here that obviously we can work
through, but to throw the gauntlet down, to say we are going to file a
cloture motion to deny anybody the opportunity to offer amendments even
though they are certainly related to education, has been our objection
all along.
So I certainly would like to work with the majority leader. The best
way to do it is to vitiate the cloture vote so we can talk through
this, rather than to insist on cloture and then negotiate, claiming to
have some real interest in finding some resolution here. But I
certainly applaud the majority leader for his approach, his
constructive way in which he wants to find a way to deal with the
schedule.
I yield to my colleague from Delaware, who also has taken a great
interest in this issue, for any comment that he might have.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, if I may, I will be brief.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. BIDEN. I, too, applaud the majority leader for this new offer. I
am one who supports the Coverdell amendment. I am one of those folks
who voted against vouchers, although I am entertaining whether or not I
vote for a test project, as I view it, in the District. I have not made
up my mind on that yet. But I clearly support the approach of my friend
from Georgia.
As a matter of fact, we had a little bit of a disagreement in our
caucus over that issue on the substance. But there is one thing there
is not any disagreement in our caucus about, and that is whether or
not--and I suspect there would not be if the roles were reversed for
the majority leader--whether or not we would sign on to--even those who
support the Coverdell legislation--whether or not we would sign on to a
position that would effectively require us to give up our rights to
offer amendments, because although I am for this bill, it may be there
would be a crime bill on the floor or there would be a foreign policy
initiative on the floor that, once I agreed to give up that right
procedurally, I would have put myself in the permanent minority and not
being able to exercise the rights I have under the rules of the Senate.
And I am absolutely confident the Senator from Mississippi would take
the same position were he on the opposite side of the numbers at this
time, the numbers being in the minority.
But I, for one, believe that we should try to work out an overall
arrangement relative to making sure we deal with education-related
issues. I would--and far be it from me; I am not capable of being the
leader of either one of the parties on this floor. But I would suggest
that while the minority leader, the Democratic leader, is considering
this, that the majority leader, the Republican leader, consider whether
or not there is any benefit in trying to put a time limit on this now.
Suggesting time limits on amendments is like waving red flags. I can
name 10 Senators on your side, if I said that we are going to give
their State an additional $70 billion but there will be a time limit on
debate, they would automatically disagree. So I think there are sort of
red flags.
And far be it from me to get in the middle of this negotiation, but I
compliment the Republican leader on what seems to be at least a slight
change of approach in terms of what I think is an equitable way in
which to deal on this floor. But people like me, who strongly support
the Coverdell bill, absent something worked out like this--I must say
to my friend from Georgia, I am with you, but I ain't with you when I
have to give up my rights on everything else that comes down the pike--
as strongly as I support this.
So I compliment, again, the Republican leader. I hope he and the
Democratic leader can work this out, because I would like very much to
get to this debate and get to voting on it. And, to be very selfish
about it, I would also like to clear it out of the way so we can focus
on NATO in a coherent way.
I see the Presiding Officer shaking his head. He has a great interest
in the NATO issue as well, I know. There are a number of Members who
do. It would be nice to have a coherent, consistent debate on that
issue, because it is of such consequence.
I thank both leaders for allowing me to get into what is not usually
something I speak to, and I appreciate their efforts.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could respond to a couple things that
the Senator from Delaware just said.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The distinguished majority leader is
recognized.
Mr. LOTT. The timeframe is--you know, we do not have to lock into
that. I just thought, since you are talking about 14 amendments here,
that an hour probably would be enough. If we needed more on some of
them, less on some others, we could work through that. But part of the
reason why I was having hopes that we could, after about 20 hours or
so, finish this up and then get to a focused-on debate on only NATO
enlargement and get to a vote on that--that was part of the thinking.
But the time could be flexible. Generally speaking, I think some of
these amendments probably could be debated for less than an hour maybe.
So you understand I will not ask this now, just so you can think
about it, between now and when we get to the cloture vote I could ask
consent notwithstanding rule XXII, regardless of the
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outcome of the 5:15 votes, the following amendments be in order
postcloture. One of the reasons that is also important, because some
amendments might still be in order postcloture that would not be on
this list, and that we would work on how much time we have on each
amendment, and that there would be nine education-related amendments
offered by the minority side, filed amendments 2020, 2026 through 2028,
2031 through 2033, 2040 and 2041; and five education-related amendments
offered by the majority side, 2021, 2022, 2024 through 2025, and 2035.
That is a suggestion of a UC we could ask for, or if we could work
out some other unanimous consent agreement on education-related
amendments. I know the Senator was talking about maybe having a crime
bill. I know when he is having a crime bill he would rather not have to
deal with a fisheries' amendment. I understand the minority wants to
make sure they are not precluded from offering amendments important to
them. I think he also understands the majority has some rights and
desires not to have to vote on amendments across the board, from one
end of the spectrum to the other, when we are trying to get an
education bill completed that is very important to education in America
and children in America, so we could then get to a very important
national policy issue, NATO enlargement, that I had the President call
about just last night.
I am looking for a way to be fair so we can consider education
amendments and identify a way to bring it to an end.
Mr. BIDEN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. LOTT. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
Mr. BIDEN. I understand his desire but I don't understand his right.
I understand the desire not to deal with all those amendments but I
never thought that was a right--although it would be nice if it were a
right--and while he is doing this, if he succeeds, if he could also
clear the Helms-Biden foreign relations material of abortion amendments
and declare them out of order as well. That is somehow stopped up.
Mr. LOTT. I thought he agreed we would have that issue on the United
Nations arrears, State Department reauthorization, instead of having it
on the emergency bill or the IMF; wasn't that the discussion?
Mr. BIDEN. The Senator is of the view it shouldn't be on anything, so
I hope when he settles this he can settle that too so we can fund the
United Nations and have the IMF moneys, too.
Mr. LOTT. I am sure we will work on that together.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The distinguished
Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. DASCHLE. I commend the Senator from Delaware for making a very
important point. This is the U.S. Senate. I daresay there is not a
Senator in this body who hasn't chosen to use a legislative vehicle for
purposes of offering amendments that may not be germane. We all
understand the germaneness rule.
We all understand, many of us, why we left the House of
Representatives to come to the U.S. Senate. We came to the U.S. Senate
because we recognize the glory of the wisdom associated with the right
of every Senator, and that is understood each and every time we come to
the floor.
The distinguished majority leader has made quite a point of citing
the Coverdell bill as a bill related to education. It is also related
to taxes. This is a tax bill, as well. This is a piece of legislation
changing the Tax Code.
Just so everybody understands what the majority leader is suggesting
here, he is saying we don't want you to consider this a tax bill. The
majority refuses to allow the minority to consider this a tax bill on
the Senate floor. We want you to insist and promise that you will never
offer a tax amendment on a tax bill that comes to the Senate floor. It
is an education bill, so go ahead and offer an education amendment, but
don't you dare offer a tax amendment to a tax bill. We are not going to
allow that.
Mr. President, I think that points out the fallacy of this whole
matter and the reason why my distinguished colleague from Delaware made
the point he did about the rights of the minority. How many tax bills
will come to the Senate floor? How many opportunities will the minority
have to offer legitimate, relevant, tax amendments?
I am very concerned again about precluding the right of the minority.
I was elected to represent 44 Democrats and their rights every time we
come to the floor, regardless of the circumstance. I think all of our
colleagues recognize the importance of protecting those rights. Whether
it is tax, whether it is education, whether it is a matter related to
something of great import to our colleagues, we have to protect that
right. It doesn't matter the issue. What matters is the right. The
right must be protected. That is really what these questions are all
about.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, first, I know the minority leader will
appreciate concerns on our side in the midst of the fourth filibuster
over this. We already had to fight and break filibuster just to get to
this point. The entire exercise on this legislation has related to one
filibuster after the other, so obviously it has raised concerns that
the amendment process will be used as another extension of the
filibuster. I think that is a fair concern on our side.
I have to say to the minority leader that even on your side I have
heard numerous expressions that there should be a discipline about the
education proposal and the debate should be about education, not broad
tax policy. I have a tax relief bill that pushes millions of people
into the 15 percent tax bracket. I have not introduced it here and
won't. I don't think it should be. I think it should be an education
debate.
Now, the 9 Democrat amendments that have been offered that the leader
is referring to, of the 14, 3 are tax, 6 are nontax, but they are all
education related, which I think is appropriate. I do think there has
to be some order. I think I even heard in some nature that context
referred to by the Senator from Delaware, Minnesota and others on your
side. There ought to be some discipline.
I also say that while it is technically a tax bill, it is a
minimalist tax bill. It is a large vehicle, a large vehicle.
I think that there has been an extended effort to try to come to a
meaningful balance between your side and our side on this measure. I
pointed out yesterday that the legislation in our package was 80
percent designed by your side of the aisle--Senator Graham of Florida,
Senator Breaux of Louisiana, Senator Moynihan of New York and others.
In the process of framing this, we tried to take the admonishment you
gave last year, which was we wanted to go through the process, the
Finance Committee. We have done that, heard from both sides. There is
heavy influence from both sides. We are simply trying to find a way to
get out of the filibuster, to get out of the fourth filibuster, and get
down to a discussion about our different views on education.
I hope this last offer or suggestion that has been outlined, that you
are hearing for the first time, might be the genesis of coming to an
agreement of how we can move on, in both of our mutual interests, on
making the Federal Government a good partner in facing the calamity
that we have all talked about over the last couple of years in
kindergarten and through high school and the costs of higher education.
I did want to make those points.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I see several Members on the floor
desiring to continue what I regard as a very good debate on NATO. The
Senator from Michigan is present and I am perfectly willing to yield
the floor should he desire to seek recognition. It would be my hope,
Mr. President, that following the Senator from Michigan, the Senator
from Virginia be recognized, and I make this unanimous consent request
for the purpose of giving remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________