[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 33 (Monday, March 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2401-S2402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          EDUCATION SAVINGS ACT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS

  Mr. COVERDELL. Madam President, earlier this afternoon, the Senator 
from Massachusetts and the Senator from Connecticut were debating their 
opposition to the education savings account that we have been 
struggling with since last July. The essence of their argument is that 
it does not amount to much, that there would only be $37 of interest 
saved on a family that had a child in private school and only $7 if the 
family had a child in public school.
  You cannot have it both ways. If it is so insignificant, why have we 
spent the better part of a year filibustering it? Why would the 
President say, ``I will veto the entire tax relief package if that 
provision is in there''? Something about that argument does not fit.
  The other thing I will say about those arguments is that they talk 
about the tax--that figure is a tax that wouldn't have been paid by 
that family--but they forget to mention the amount of principal that is 
in the account earning interest which is forgiven. In the case of $37, 
that means that family has saved over $1,000 in order to earn the $37 
tax relief. What it says to me is how little incentive it takes to make 
Americans go out and save.
  Madam President, $1,000 is 50 percent greater than the average 
savings of American families. The average American family today saves 
$1,900. That is their savings. And by this modest forgiveness, we take 
it up to $3,000. So we are using a very modest amount of tax relief to 
cause Americans to save billions of dollars. This tax relief proposal 
would generate in the first 5 years $5 billion worth of savings and 
over a 10-year period over $10 billion worth of savings to aid and 
support students in public and private education.

[[Page S2402]]

  The third point I will make is this: The other side and the White 
House celebrated extensively the passage of a $500 education savings 
account, one-fourth the size of this savings account, and that was, as 
I said, celebrated on the White House lawn: ``This is a great idea.'' 
Well, if $500 worth of the ability to save is such a great idea, how 
come if we expand it up to $2,000 it is suddenly an insignificant 
idea? That becomes a little hard to follow, too.

  You know, again, I go back, Madam President. The President of the 
United States said, ``I will veto the entire tax relief to every 
American citizen in the United States if that savings account for 
American families stays in the tax relief bill.'' So we had to take it 
out. We are not going to have every American family denied tax relief 
over this idea. We think it is a good idea, but we were not going to do 
that. So we brought it back as freestanding legislation and, as we have 
said here this afternoon, have been filibustered every step of the way.
  The other point I would like to make to my colleague from 
Massachusetts and my colleague from Connecticut, who has left the 
floor, is that this proposal is now a much larger proposal. And the 
proposal represents the input of Senator Breaux of Louisiana, Senator 
Graham of Florida, and Senator Moynihan of New York. In other words, we 
have made this a very broad-based, broad policy, with representatives 
from both sides of the aisle. This is no longer a Republican proposal; 
this is a Senate proposal. The chief cosponsor of this legislation is 
Senator Torricelli of New Jersey. He sits over there--principal 
cosponsor.
  By listening to this thrashing back and forth this afternoon, you 
would think this were a gold-gilded Republican, highly partisan 
proposition. The proposal on the floor--if we can ever get to it--the 
amount of tax relief we represented, 80 percent of it comes from the 
Democrats' ideas. They are good ideas. State prepaid tuition plans; 
they are not going to tax students when they get the money to go to 
college; or expanding employer-provided educational assistance.
  I yield for just a moment. I say to the Senator from Alaska, if he 
wants to call back his time, I will be glad to facilitate his needs.

  Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, the Senator from Georgia is very kind. 
But I prefer to let him continue until the time comes to lay down the 
next amendment. It should be before his time expires, I assure him.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Senator from Alaska.
  Expanded employer-provided educational assistance. That is a tax 
relief to employers who help their employees expand their education. 
And the Joint Tax Committee says 1 million American workers will 
benefit from that.
  Senator Graham from Florida has a school construction provision which 
makes financing to build public schools expanded and will lead to 500 
new schools across the Nation.
  The Senator from Arizona has arrived. The chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee needs to proceed with his business. I thank 
him for his cordial assistance here, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS. I am sure the Senator still has some time coming on his 
26 minutes, and we certainly will account for that before this bill is 
over.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Very good.
  Mr. STEVENS. I yield the floor to the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). The Senator from Arizona 
is recognized.

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