[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4619-H4626]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PROTECT THE E-RATE FOR AMERICA'S CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, there is an emergency in America right now, 
and it affects the students in school. It affects the students who go 
to use our libraries.
  I would like to announce that it is only 7:10 Eastern Standard Time, 
and I hope that there are kids in America listening, because this is 
their fight and they ought to rally to defend their own interests, the 
E-Rate. The E-Rate belongs to the kids of America.
  What is the E-Rate? The E-Rate is a discount that is given through a 
universal service fund to schools and libraries in order to enable 
those schools and libraries to wire their computers to the Internet, to 
hook up to the Internet.
  Then the E-Rate also continues to provide a discount on the ongoing 
telecommunication services utilized by the schools. The E-Rate is the 
greatest thing that has happened to schools in a long, long time.
  The E-Rate is the result of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The 
Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave the big corporations in 
broadcasting and telecommunications almost everything they asked for. 
The one concession they made is that they would provide discounted 
rates for schools and libraries.
  By the way, this is all schools, parochial schools, private schools, 
all schools are eligible for the utilization of this E-Rate, the 
discount from the universal fund. Libraries, all libraries, all public 
libraries are eligible for it.
  So we have started that. There was $2.25 billion made available or 
projected as the first year's expenditure. And 30,000 schools and 
libraries have applied already. They have met the qualifications. They 
have gone through the application process, and they are waiting for 
their funding from the E-Rate.
  We have a great reduction in the E-Rate. So kids of America, they 
have some monsters out here. They have some monsters out here who have 
stolen or who are attempting to steal the E-Rate away from the children 
of America.
  MCI wants the E-Rate to die. AT&T. And there are a lot of misguided 
Members of Congress who want the E-Rate to die. These big corporations 
and big powerful people elect are like the Grinch that stole Christmas. 
Only this time the Grinch is going to steal E-Rate.
  They are like the Giant that chased little Jack. They are powerful, 
overwhelming, abusive. They have all the power. But Jack outwitted the 
Giant. That means that the children of America can fight back. This is 
a democracy and their parents vote. I hope they are listening and they 
tell their parents to listen, that the E-Rate deserves to live.
  We are dealing with something like the Big Bad Wolf that was in 
Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's bed. Little Red Riding Hood 
outwitted the Wolf. The Wolf in the end was destroyed, not Little Red 
Riding Hood.
  We are dealing with something like Yertle the Turtle. There are 
people that are very powerful. There are corporations that are very 
greedy.
  AT&T has been around a long time. They have made billions of dollars. 
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 would enable AT&T to make more 
money. MCI can make more money. Tremendous amounts of additional profit 
will accrue to these corporations as a result of the Telecommunications 
Act of 1996. But they want more. They want more. They are like Yertle 
the Turtle.
  I think I remember Yertle the Turtle correctly. I read it to my kids 
a long time. I have a grandson, and I have got to get ready with all of 
these stories and get familiar with them. Green Eggs and Ham is my 
favorite, but Yertle the Turtle also was a favorite Dr. Seuss story.
  If you recall, Yertle is not the hero. Yertle the Turtle is not the 
hero. Yertle is the villain. Yertle is the turtle who wanted to be the 
tallest turtle in the world. He wanted to be higher than everybody 
else. He kept forcing other turtles to get under him so he could get 
higher and higher and higher. Yertle was not the hero.
  There was a little turtle on the bottom of him named Mac.

                              {time}  1915

  And Mack said, I'm tired of bearing all the weight of all these 
turtles on top of me. So Mack decided to squeeze out of the line, and 
the whole pile of turtles came tumbling down.
  Kids of America do not have to take this bullying by AT&T or MCI or 
the chairmen of the powerful congressional committees. Kids of America 
can rebel. They can fight back. Kids of America should stay awake, 
listen, they should talk to their parents. They need to know more about 
the E-Rate. They need to know more about the attempt of the Grinch to 
steel the E-Rate from the kids of America.

[[Page H4620]]

  Let me give everyone the background on what the E-Rate is all about. 
Last week I talked about leadership, and our leadership can determine 
the fate of a country and the fate of a nation, whether it is a small 
nation or a superpower. Last week I talked about Israel and how great 
the leadership of Israel has been to date; how Israel's leadership has 
brought it to the point in 50 years where it has achieved more than 
many countries have achieved in 200 or 300 years. Leadership.
  I also gave an example of leadership in the Soviet Union; how 
leadership in the Soviet Union was able to produce a space station, 
rockets, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it was a superpower. 
But the leadership was so ingrained and so enclosed that they did not 
listen to the outside world with respect to democracy. They did not 
listen to new thought coming in, so they focused in on themselves and 
destroyed the economy of the country. They destroyed the spirit of the 
country. So a superpower went out of existence in our time. A giant 
superpower collapsed and failed.
  It is possible the giant superpower called the United States of 
America also is vulnerable if we do not have the right policies. If we 
bully little children, if we bully students in school. And that is what 
we have. We have the giant corporations teaming up with some powerful 
people in Congress and they are bullying the FCC and forcing the FCC to 
take away a benefit that is very much needed, an opportunity that is 
very much needed by most of the children in America. Certainly the low-
income children of America have no chance, ever, of being in schools 
with computers hooked up to the internet that can pay the price of 
ongoing telecommunication services if we do not have this universal 
service fund, called the E-Rate for short.
  Let me give everyone the background. There is an article that 
appeared in the Congressional Quarterly June 13th, and it summarizes it 
very well. And, Mr. Speaker, I will place the entire article, entitled 
``The FCC Votes to Shrink Internet Subsidies Program; Two Bills Would 
Shift Cost'' in the June 13th issue of the Congressional Quarterly, in 
its entirety, in the Record. So it will be, in its entirety, in the 
Record. Everyone can pull it off the internet, by the way, but I am 
going to read it in part to let everyone clearly understand what this 
is all about. This is a terrible injustice to the children of America, 
and I think once everyone hears the story, they will agree with me. The 
article is as follows:

             [From Congressional Quarterly, June 13, 1998]

 FCC Votes To Shrink Internet Subsidies Program; Two Bills Would Shift 
                                 Costs

                         (By Juliana Gruenwald)

       The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted June 12 
     to scale back a controversial program that provides discounts 
     for Internet hookups to schools, libraries and rural health 
     care centers.
       The FCC, in a 3-2 vote, agreed to provide $700 million for 
     the second half of the year, bringing the total for the year 
     to $1.375 billion, a cut of nearly 50 percent from the FCC's 
     original plan.
       The action comes in the wake of pressure from Capitol Hill 
     over how the FCC is running the program. Critics are angry 
     that consumers are being forced to shoulder the cost of the 
     Internet service.
       Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Commerce, 
     Science and Transportation Committee, said the FCC's changes 
     were ``an exercise in futility'' and said legislation must be 
     enacted to stabilize the program.
       House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said June 8 he would 
     try to move legislation to block the FCC program in the next 
     few weeks.
       Rep. W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, R-La., and Sen. Conrad Burns, 
     R-Mont., have said that, to pay for the Internet subsidies, 
     they plan to introduce bills to shift revenue from the 
     current 3 percent excise tax on telephone service.
       The program was created by Congress in the 1996 
     telecommunications law (PL 104-104) when it expanded 
     universal service, a system in place for years to provide 
     subsidies for phone service to low income residents and high-
     cost areas. (1996 Almanac, p. 3-43)
       Universal service is paid for by telecommunications 
     companies, which pass the charges along to consumers. About 
     $675 million has been collected for the Internet program, 
     which has yet to dispense any subsidies.
       Some lawmakers say the FCC made the program so big it has 
     led to an increase in long-distance rates.
       The program appeared in jeopardy after the top leaders of 
     the House and Senate Commerce committees called on the FCC on 
     June 4 to stop collecting funding for the program and revamp 
     the universal service rules. (CQ Weekly, p. 1539)
       The move followed an announcement by some long-distance 
     companies that they would impose a new surcharge on 
     residential customers' bills to pay for their universal 
     service costs.
       The issue came to a head June 10 when all five 
     commissioners appeared at the Senate hearing.
       Several senators said they feared the Internet program 
     could put support for traditional universal service at risk.
       Some GOP members also complained that the program was only 
     intended to provide discounts for Internet services, not to 
     help pay for inside wiring. About $1.3 billion of the $2.02 
     billion requested in the 30,000 applications from schools in 
     libraries was to pay for inside wiring.
       But the program's defenders said the program had been 
     unfairly maligned by those who are out to kill it and urged 
     the commissioners to do what was necessary to keep it intact.
       ``Don't allow this covert operation to derail this 
     initiative,'' said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, one of the 
     initiative's sponsors.
       Carol Henderson, executive director for the American 
     Library Association's Washington Office, said it has 
     partially become a ``partisan political issue, and that's 
     unfortunate . . . particularly if those who suffer for that 
     are libraries and schools.''
       Some Republicans call the program the ``Gore tax'' because 
     Vice President Al Gore supports the program expanding 
     Internet access to children.
       Regardless of the controversy, Linda Smith, director of 
     technology for San Bernardino city schools in California, 
     said she hopes policy-makers will keep their commitment to 
     help needy school districts.
       Most of the 46,000 students in her district--77 percent of 
     whom get free or reduced school lunches--do not ``have 
     computers at home or access to the Net,'' she said.

  Mr. Speaker, I am quoting from the article as it appeared on June 13 
in the Congressional Quarterly.

       The Federal Communications Commission, FCC, voted June 12th 
     to scale back a controversial program that provides discounts 
     for internet hookups to schools, libraries and rural health 
     care centers. The FCC, in a 3-to-2 vote, agreed to provide 
     $700 million for the second half of the year, bringing the 
     total for the year to $1.375 billion, a cut of nearly 50 
     percent from the FCC's original plan.

  They promised the children of America one figure and they are cutting 
the amount in half. Why? There is no good reason. They are saying it is 
too expensive. Why is it too expensive for the children of America to 
receive a tiny portion of the huge revenues that are pulled in by the 
communications companies? They say, no, and the FCC has made these 
cuts.
  I want to make it clear at this point that I am not criticizing the 
FCC. The FCC has been bullied and pushed and forced into a position by 
overwhelming forces that have converged on the FCC. Since the E-Rate 
was established and the procedures were set up by the FCC, there has 
been a bullying by corporations. Some corporations have chosen to go to 
court and sue the FCC in an attempt to take away the E-Rate from the 
children of America.
  Some corporations have been doing that, so that puts pressure on the 
FCC. And then we have the heads of some of the committees in Congress 
writing to the chairman of the FCC committee, in a very vicious and 
unusual way. Unprecedented. The chairmen of committees, who, by the 
way, do not have the authority to give orders directly to the various 
agencies of the Federal Government. They do not have that authority. 
But they were so brutal in their attack that they frightened the FCC 
commissioners. And they are attempting to try to compromise in order to 
save some part of the E-Rate for the children of America.
  So the FCC is our hero at this point. The chairman of the FCC and the 
people who voted to at least keep half, they really are heroes for 
arriving at a point where, for the time being, they have offered a 
compromise.
  I am here tonight to call upon the children of America, the kids of 
America, to not accept the compromise. We do not want half. We need the 
full $2.25 billion that was budgeted in the first place.
  Let me continued with the article.

       The action comes in the wake of pressure from Capitol Hill 
     over how the FCC is running the program. Critics are angry 
     that consumers are being forced to shoulder the cost of the 
     internet service. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, 
     chairman of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation 
     Committee, said the FCC's changes were ``an exercise in 
     futility'' and said legislation must be enacted to stabilize 
     the program.

  I do not know what he means by exercise in futility. What he is 
saying is,

[[Page H4621]]

if we cut it in half, we have taken away half of the funds from the 
children of America. That is not enough. That is an exercise in 
futility. We are going to destroy the whole program.
  It strikes me as very strange that this program for children, through 
schools and libraries, is arousing such intense reaction from powerful 
people. Corporations first, AT&T, MCI, and now certain powerful people 
in Congress want to destroy the program.

       House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican from Georgia, said 
     June 8th he would try to move legislation to block the FCC 
     program in the next few weeks.

  To block the FCC program. That is destruction. To smother it; to 
strangle it. Now, what have the kids of America done to deserve a 
program like this being strangled? Why is the big bad wolf and the 
Grinch and the giant and Yertle, all of them, gathering together to 
destroy a program that will provide opportunity for the children of 
America?

       Representative W. J. Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, 
     and Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, have said 
     that to pay for the internet subsidies, they plan to 
     introduce bills to shift revenue from the current 3 percent 
     excise tax on telephone service.

  Now, that sounds like, well, these guys are constructive and somebody 
is coming up with an alternative. When we start talking about taxes and 
shifting taxes, I assure everyone, children of America who are 
listening, after all, it is still early, I hope they are up, I assure 
everyone that any attempt to shift taxes or to play with taxes will not 
fair very well here on the floor. It will not get through.
  They are just going to use this as a smoke screen to pretend that 
they care about the kids of America; they care about their opportunity 
and their future to be able to really learn the kind of basic knowledge 
of computers and use of the internet that is going to be required when 
they get to the point where they are graduating from high school or 
they are going out there to get one of these jobs, the big jobs of the 
future, the important jobs, the jobs that are going to be available, 
that we know for certain are jobs relating to information technology. 
Information technology jobs are the ones that will be available. If 
kids do not get prepared in school, they will be able to qualify for 
those jobs.
  Low-income students in the big cities of America, students in rural 
areas are already way behind. Most of our suburban schools, a lot of 
schools in affluent communities, they are already wired to the 
internet. They already have computer labs and computer programs which 
are fully educating their children on the benefits of how to use 
computers and learning how to use computers in the applications for the 
future.
  To go back to the article, I quote again,

       The program was created by Congress in the 1996 
     telecommunications law, Public Law 104-104, when it expanded 
     universal service, a system in place for years to provide 
     subsidies for phone service to low-income residents and high 
     cost areas.

  Let me just quote that again. I am quoting from an article from the 
Congressional Quarterly. They said the program that we are talking 
about now, the E-Rate, the universal fund expansion to include 
discounts to libraries and schools was added to another fund in 1996, 
in the 1996 telecommunications law, when it expanded universal service. 
Universal service existed already. They are making it appear they never 
had anything like this, but there is a universal service that existed 
already, and that service provides service to low-income residents and 
high cost areas.
  Universal service is paid for by telecommunications companies and 
they pass the charges along to consumers. Is it a large charge? We have 
been receiving an extra charge for years. For years we have never known 
it even existed. Most people did not know there was a universal service 
and that a slight amount of money was taxed on to the phone bill to pay 
for that service that already existed.
  But now that it is there for children, it is there to provide wiring 
to the internet and ongoing telecommunications services on the 
internet, it has suddenly become a big issue and corporations want to 
go to war against the children of America.
  About $675 million has been collected for the internet program to 
date, which has yet to dispense any subsidies. They have not spent a 
penny yet. We have been getting ready since last fall. Applications 
originally were supposed to be submitted last fall. They moved it back 
to January. We started submitting applications in January. Remember, 
those who were part of those 30,000 schools that have submitted? It was 
done mostly over the internet. Most of the submissions were done over 
the internet. They could do it some other way, in print, but they 
encouraged everybody to do it over the internet. And those applications 
were complicated. The process was complicated.

  And now that they have it all in, and not a penny has been spent yet, 
before the program can even start, the bullies, the giants, the 
grinches, the big bad wolves, the Yertles, the turtles, they have come 
along and stolen half of it and they want the rest. Kids of America 
better rise up and fight this.

       Some lawmakers say the FCC made the program so big it has 
     lead to an increase in long-distance rates. The program 
     appeared in jeopardy after the top leaders of the House and 
     Senate commerce committees called on the FCC on June 4 to 
     stop collecting funding for the program and revamp the 
     universal service rules. The move followed an announcement by 
     some long-distance companies,

the move followed an announcement by some long-distance companies,
       that they would impose a new surcharge on residential 
     customers' bills to pay for their universal service cost.

  Here is where was set in motion the process which has now led to an 
attempt to steal the E-Rate from the kids of America.

       The move followed an announcement by some long distance 
     companies that they would impose a new surcharge on 
     residential customers' bills to pay for their universal 
     service cost. The issue came to a head June 10th, when all 
     five commissioners appeared at the Senate hearing. Several 
     Senators said they feared the internet program could put 
     support for traditional universal service at risk. Some GOP 
     members also complained that the program was only intended to 
     provide discounts for internet services, not to help pay for 
     inside waring. About $1.3 billion of the $2.2 billion 
     requested in the 30,000 applications from schools and 
     libraries was to pay for inside wiring.

                              {time}  1930

  I am reading from Congressional Quarterly's summary of the attempt to 
steal the Internet from the kids of America. They are making an issue 
out of the fact that some of the money goes to help wire the school to 
provide basic wiring to hook computers up to the net. They do not use 
the money to buy computers. They do not use the money to pay for 
teachers or technical assistants. They do not use the means to pay 
personnel to wire the schools necessarily, but the wiring costs and 
some basic costs that enables the schools that are poorest to get into 
the game.
  The biggest amount of the money and the money that will be spent on 
an ongoing basis will be for the actual telecommunications services on 
an ongoing basis month after month after month. Some schools will get a 
discount as high as 90 percent. In the poorest schools in my district, 
it means that for every dollar that the schools spend on a monthly 
basis for telecommunications services, they would only have to pay 10 
cents. They can get as high as that. The poorest districts of America 
could get a 90 percent discount.
  What are the poorest districts? They measure them by the districts 
that have the largest amount of children who are eligible for the free 
school lunch program. The school lunch program, in order to be a part 
of it, they have to submit from their parents and their home, they have 
to submit proof of their income status.
  There are some schools in my district where 95 percent of the 
children are eligible for the school lunch program, which means that 
that school certainly is eligible for the biggest discount. So at one 
end they may have some suburban schools, affluent neighborhoods, they 
get a 15 percent discount.
  Some people complain about they should not get anything. I think the 
program should be for every school district, for every school, for 
every library. I do not think it should be cut off for some and only 
available to the poorest. I think there should be some funds available 
for every school.
  I do not think $2.2 billion that has been requested by the 30,000 
schools and libraries is too much when we consider the billions of 
dollars being

[[Page H4622]]

earned by the big telecommunications companies.
  I am quoting again from the Congressional Quarterly article. ``But 
the program's defenders said the program had been unfairly maligned by 
those who are out to kill it and urge the commissioners to do what was 
necessary to keep it intact. Don't allow this covert operation to 
derail this initiative,'' said Senator Olympia J. Snow, Republican of 
Maine, one of the initiative's sponsors.
  Karen Henderson, the executive director for the American Libraries 
Association's Washington office, said, ``It has partially become a 
partisan political issue.'' And that is unfortunate, particularly if 
those who suffer for that are libraries and schools.
  Why are the Republicans making this a partisan issue? Do Republicans 
not care about education in America? Do they not want the children of 
America who are in school today to be prepared to meet the 
qualifications for the information technology jobs of tomorrow? Why are 
the Republicans against providing universal, across-the-board service 
which would allow all schools and libraries to become part of a process 
of utilizing information technology starting with computers?
  They are making it a big partisan issue. Remember the Republicans, 2 
years ago they tried to steal part of school lunches from children, 
they wanted to cut the school lunch program two years ago? At that time 
I called on the kids of America and their parents to wake up. Kids of 
America, there is a fiscal crunch. This great Nation now needs your 
lunch. I wrote a little appeal to the kids to understand what they are 
saying. The Republicans say there is a fiscal crunch. The Nation needs 
your lunch. I was absurd, ridiculous of course. $2 billion will be 
saved by cutting back on school lunches.
  The kids of America and their parents, everybody out there with 
common sense, rose up in horror. How can the Republicans take lunches 
from little kids? How can they take lunches from students at school? 
And the horror became evident in the public opinion polls and in the 
focus groups, so that the Republicans in 1996 retreated.
  They gave up not only their great cuts in school lunch program, they 
gave up many other education cuts, understanding that common sense in 
America says that education ought to be one of the first priorities in 
the Federal Government. Education should be one of the first 
priorities.
  They tried to politicize education. They called for the complete 
elimination of the Department of Education. They were going to cut 
Headstart. They were going to cut title I. The budget that they 
presented in 1995 in many ways resembles the budget that they presented 
in 1998. Again, they are calling for elimination of title I. They are 
going to convert title I to vouchers.
  Again, they refuse to deal with the overwhelming problem of school 
construction that we need help in constructing more classrooms. In 
order to bring down class size we need to do two things. We need to 
construct more classrooms as well as provide some money for more 
teachers.
  But the Republican budget that has just been released, they do not 
have anything in there for school construction, for reduction of class 
sizes. They want to cut title I and turn it into a voucher program.
  They want to politicize something as great as this universal service 
funds for schools and libraries. It now is going to become a political 
football. The next paragraph in that article describes part of that 
process.
  A quote from the Congressional Quarterly article. ``Some Republicans 
call the program the Gore tax because Vice President Al Gore supports 
the program expanding Internet access to children.'' ``Some Republicans 
call the program the Gore tax because Vice President Al Gore supports 
the program expanding Internet access to children.''
  What a pity that this becomes a political football. Vice President Al 
Gore should be lauded and applauded for the way they have provided 
leadership. This is leadership and vision that has been provided and 
leading the way for schools to get involved in their educational 
programs with the kind of process educating children for information 
technology jobs that exist tomorrow. That process will not happen 
automatically. Schools have lots of problems.
  Only the vision of Vice President Gore and of President Clinton has 
opened this whole process. We made a breakthrough. The President stood 
here 2 years ago and called for the wiring of all the schools of 
America through a volunteer process. The President himself, in 
California, helped initiate the first volunteer wiring of the schools. 
They go out on a Saturday and they get volunteers and they wire a 
school.
  They even set up a national process where there is a kit to wire a 
school we could purchase between $500 and $600. Because they purchased 
the equipment and wires, everything was purchased in large quantities, 
so they are able to supply the kit at the very lowest cost. Then they 
can get volunteers to do the hookup.

  We also need some people who are aware of how to do this. So they 
have to call upon people like the Bell Atlantic employees in my 
district who have been magnificent. Bell Atlantic employees and Bell 
Atlantic has supported the wiring of schools for Internet in my 
district.
  In other districts, they had other telecommunications companies and 
they had unions. I think my colleague the gentlewoman from Michigan 
(Ms. Stabenow) is a leader in this Congress; and she gave us a whole 
handbook and a whole list of ways in which they can get their school 
wired.
  So wiring of a school by volunteers has been initiated by the 
President and Vice President. Members of Congress and Democrats have 
picked up on it. And we have had a large number of schools that have 
been wired. They need the help on an ongoing basis to pay the cost of 
telecommunications services.
  Then there are other situations where a large number of schools have 
not been wired. In the inner cities of America, most of the schools 
still remain unwired.
  I have led in my district an effort to wire schools. Out of the 70 
schools that exist in my Congressional district, 70 schools, 
elementary, junior high school and high school, we only wired 22. With 
the great Herculean volunteer effort, we only wired 22.
  We are a pilot program. We have had the help of the Board of 
Education. We had the help of Bell Atlantic, one of the communications 
companies. We had the help of a group called New York Connects, which 
organizes other private-sector companies to give us help in wiring the 
schools. We had a lot of help from a group called the Husain Institute 
of technology. Mr. Husain is an engineer, a computer engineer, who 
volunteers his services, as well as he operates a free school for 
training students, adults, and children on the computer. So we have had 
all this with us, and still we have only wired 22.
  What this does, the E-rate, the universal fund does is allow this 
process to be speeded up and accelerated. We do not have to wait for 
all of this to be done by volunteers.
  The first barrier that most inner cities cannot cross is that measly 
$500 to $600. All they need for the kit to buy all the wire, all the 
tools, all the hookups, all the plastic stuff, all the copper, all that 
is supplied in a kit for $500 to $600.
  Most schools cannot raise the $500 to $600. They cannot get the 
volunteers outside to do it. We have been fortunate that Bell Atlantic 
and New York Connects and some other private-sector people have done 
that for us in order to make certain that nobody is left behind, that 
all of the schools, private, parochial, and public in America do 
receive this connection with the Internet.
  By the way, the wiring of the schools, when we use that term, we are 
talking about the library and five classrooms. Wiring of the schools is 
library and five classrooms. It is not the whole school. It is just a 
measly fundamental necessary beginning. And that is all we are asking. 
Let the universal fund go forward Let us keep the E-rate so that that 
is possible.
  Let me just conclude this article by reading the last two paragraphs. 
``Regardless of the controversy, Linda Smith, who is Director of 
Technology for San Bernardino City Schools in California, said she 
hopes policymakers will keep their commitments to help needy school 
districts.''

[[Page H4623]]

  I hope that policy makers will keep their commitments. I fear that 
the bullies here will not let us do that. We are the policy makers. The 
Congress of the United States wrote into the legislation that the FCC 
should provide a way to make certain that all schools and libraries get 
service, connection with the Internet. It is in the law. It is a very 
simple statement, very general.
  It was left up to the FCC to determine how to do that. The former 
commissioner of the FCC, Reid Hunt, did a magnificent job of guiding us 
to a point where they established this program, with all of its 
complications.
  The present commissioner, William Kanard, is attempting to carry out 
what was decided upon by commissioners previously. It is most 
unfortunate that the bullies have all ganged up on the FCC and have 
forced them to back down. We lost half of the Internet as a result of 
their actions.
  The last paragraph of this article from the Congressional Quarterly 
on July 13th, ``Most of the 46,000 students in Linda Smith's district, 
77 percent of whom get free or reduced school lunches, do not have 
computers at home or access to the Net,'' she said.
  That is the case in my district. That is the case of thousands of 
school districts across the country. They do not have access to the 
Internet, and they will not have it if we let them take the universal 
fund away.
  Kids of America, AT&T, MCI, they are bullies. They are grinches who 
want to steal the E-rate. They are giants who want to chase little 
Jack. They are the big bad wolves. They are Yertle the Turtle. In the 
comic books, there is the council of doom. In modern space comic books, 
where we deal with the whole universe and in certain planets, sets of 
planets, they have a council of doom, the evil monsters attempting to 
gain control of the universe; and they raid against the counsel of 
justice, the good guys who are attempting to go fight off evil and make 
certain that democracy prevails in the universe and that everybody has 
an opportunity to survive in the universe in peace and harmony.
  Now we have got a council of doom going after the E-rate. The council 
of doom has won the first battle. The council of doom was able to force 
the FCC to back down and cut the E-rate in half. Kids of America, do 
not take it lying down.

     ``Kids of America, wake up. Arise, March all together. Before 
           the E-rate dies.
     Kids of America, arise. AT&T is telling your parents 
           misleading lies.
     Kids of America, it is time to fight. Take out your light. 
           Let it shine for truth. Boycott the AT&T booth.
     AT&T lies have clouded our blue skies. Don't make any calls. 
           Then the monster falls.
     Kids arise. Fight AT&T lies. Altogether students attack. Take 
           opportunity and the Internet back.
     Kids of America, arise.''

  You do not have to take this lying down. Tell your parents you will 
not allow them to take it lying down. You have a telephone. Call AT&T 
now. Call your Congressman. We will not take this lying down. The 
grinch will not steal the E-rate from the kids of America.
  This giant will not destroy little Jack. The big bad wolf got 
outwitted by Little Red Ridinghood. And we will outwit the big bad wolf 
again. Yertle the turtle got knocked off his pedestal my Mack. The 
council of doom has won the first battle. But we will not let the 
council of doom prevail. The council of justice will take over.

                              {time}  1945

  This is not the first time I have appealed to the kids of America to 
come forward and fight. We won last time. When they tried to take the 
school lunches away, or cut the school lunch program, I called on the 
kids of America to rally, and they did. They got to their parents, they 
got to the voters, the message got through to the Republicans that we 
will not stand for a cut in the school lunch program.
  Mr. Speaker, I am going to read my colleagues a section of the 
Congressional Record from Tuesday, April 4, 1995. That was shortly 
after we started the battle with the Republican majority to get back 
the school lunch program. They had voted to cut the school lunch 
program. I want Members to just see how relevant this battle is to the 
present one. They could not cut the school lunch program, but now they 
are going after something that is fundamental to the minds, the future 
training opportunity for our young people.
  On April 4, I entered the following statement into the Congressional 
Record:

       Mr. Speaker, the final word has not yet been said about the 
     Republican swindle of the children who receive free lunches 
     in schools across our Nation. But the final, most 
     authoritative figures have been established by the 
     Congressional Budget Office. The very conservative but 
     thorough Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the 
     Republicans will capture slightly more than $2 billion from 
     their block-granted school lunch program. They were going to 
     take $2 billion out of the school lunch program for the kids 
     of America. This will be $2 billion more to go into the tax 
     cut for the rich. This is a scenario filled with horror. It 
     conjures up the image of the poster where Uncle Sam is 
     pointing the finger and saying to potential military 
     recruits, ``I need you!'' While the Republicans advocate a 
     $50 billion increase in the Defense budget and turn their 
     backs on welfare for corporations and rich farmers, they are 
     saying to the children of America, ``This Nation needs your 
     lunch.''

     Kids of America, there is a fiscal crunch.
     This great Nation now needs your lunch.
     To set the budget right, go hungry for one night.
     Don't eat what we could save.
     Be brave.
     Patriots stand out above the bunch.
     Proudly surrender lunch.
     Kids of America, nutrition is not for you.
     Sacrifice for the rich few.
     When tummies hurt, go to bed.
     Be a soldier and play dead.
     The F-22 then might rescue you.
     The Sea Wolf sub might bring hot grub.
     Now hear this, there is a fiscal crunch.
     This Nation needs your lunch.
     Pledge allegiance to the flag.
     Mobilize your own brown bag.
     The enemy deficit must be defeated.
     Nutrition suicide squads are desperately needed.
     Kids of America, there is a fiscal crunch.
     This great Nation now needs your lunch.

  They demanded your lunch before and you said ``no.'' Your parents 
said ``no.'' The voters said ``no.'' The Republican majority retreated. 
Now they are demanding your opportunity to learn what you need to know 
in order to go into the 21st century.

     Kids of America arise.
     Don't accept the AT&T lies.
     MCI wants the E-rate to die.

  A lot of other telecommunications corporations are suing the Federal 
Communications Commission. Some misguided chairmen are bullying the 
FCC. There are people coming to our defense. There are a lot of efforts 
to try to turn back this terrible action. I want to commend the 
chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Mr. Kennard. I want 
to commend the Secretary of Education, Mr. Riley. They are fighting 
back and we are going to fight back. Children will not be alone. There 
are many others who will join us in this fight to make certain that the 
E-rate is not stolen.
  Jesse Jackson has attacked the telecommunications industry in an 
article which appeared in the Amsterdam News on June 11. I quote from 
the article:

       A $2.25 billion program designed to provide discount rates 
     to wire poor urban school districts and libraries for the 
     Internet was unveiled Monday at the Chicago headquarters of 
     the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. At a press conference attended by 
     several Members of Congress and the Chicago Public School 
     System, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the head of the 
     coalition, called the project another example of the growing 
     class gap in America. Companies that are perennially poised 
     to feed at the public trough, Jackson charged, have once 
     again turned their backs on the consumer by passing on the 
     cost of wiring poor urban and rural school districts to their 
     consumers. Although some 30,000 applications for the discount 
     rate have been submitted from school districts and libraries 
     across the country, Jackson noted that the telecommunications 
     industry is lobbying Congress to call a halt to the plan. 
     ``This action will essentially resegregate our schools along 
     class lines,'' Jackson declared. On the other hand, he said 
     that there are schools that are wired for the Internet and 
     its attendant technology. Jackson said that the poor urban 
     and rural children will be shut out of the technology. He 
     said further that the big telecommunications moguls should 
     not be allowed to leave some children behind. ``They would 
     rather lock them up than train them in school facilities that 
     are adequately wired for increasing technology,'' Jackson 
     said.

  As my colleagues know, it costs more than $30,000 a year to keep a 
prisoner in a cell. Why can we not afford some discounts on 
telecommunications to make certain that our children get the very best 
possible education? Why is our leadership so blind? Why is there so 
little vision? At a time like this when

[[Page H4624]]

America is more prosperous than it has been in decades, why are we 
attempting to take away opportunity for children to learn what they 
need to know in order to qualify for the jobs, in order to be leaders 
in the 21st century?
  Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by reading a letter from William 
Kennard, and a letter from Richard Riley. I will not read the entire 
letter, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record  two letters which appeared in 
the Washington Post, one from William Kennard, Federal Communications 
Commission Chairman, and one from the Secretary Richard W. Riley, 
Secretary of Education, as follows:

                     A Computer in Every Classroom

                        (By William E. Kennard)

       James Glassman's June 2 op-ed column criticized Congress's 
     decision to make connecting libraries and classrooms to the 
     communications network part of our national concept of 
     universal service. Mr. Glassman said the initiative is not 
     needed. But an enormous disparity in access to communications 
     technology exists in this country, and the Federal 
     Communications Commission is implementing its congressional 
     mandate in a way that supports local control of education and 
     does so without creating large, inefficient bureaucracies.
       In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress expanded 
     universal service to include advanced telecommunications 
     services to all public libraries and grades K through 12 in 
     public and private schools. Schools in affluent communities 
     now have double the Internet access of schools in low income 
     or rural areas. Nationwide, only 27 percent of our 
     classrooms, and only 13 percent of classrooms in our neediest 
     areas, have access to an Internet connection. Few poor 
     children will have access to the Internet outside of school, 
     yet studies show that students in classes that use computers 
     not only outperform their peers on standardized tests but 
     show more enthusiasm for communicating and learning. This 
     increase in technology will improve the lives of American 
     schoolchildren.
       None of the changes means that local school boards will not 
     decide what technology to acquire and fund. On average, 
     universal service covers only 15 percent of the projected 
     cost of connecting, operating and using networks in 
     classrooms. Each school and library applying for a universal-
     service discount must pay as much as 80 percent of the total 
     cost of the discounted service.
       Universal service discounts can be applied only to the cost 
     of obtaining telecommunications services, establishing 
     network connections and receiving Internet access. School 
     districts also must certify that they have a plan for how to 
     use the discounted services and that the plan has been 
     approved by their state.
       Nor is universal service for schools and libraries an 
     entitlement administered by an oversized federal bureaucracy. 
     The private, nonprofit, nonpolitical entity established to 
     administer the program has a staff of 14 people.
       Mr. Glassman charged that I and other supporters of 
     universal service to rural America, low-income citizens and 
     classrooms and libraries have opposed efforts by 
     communications carriers to itemize contributions on 
     customer bills. On the contrary, I favor full disclosure 
     by all telephone companies. But companies that say they 
     will pass on ``new'' charges also should commit to passing 
     on reductions and to disclosing both. I support neither a 
     ``hidden tax'' nor a ``hidden rate increase.''
       Finally, let's be clear about the cost of universal service 
     for classrooms and libraries. Connecting classrooms and 
     libraries can be achieved for less than $1 per line per 
     month. The rest of the proposed universal service fees 
     continue our 60-year national commitment to affordable and 
     adequate telephone service for rural America and our poorest 
     citizens.
       The real issue is not a ``hidden tax'' but the hidden 
     agenda of Mr. Glassman and others who oppose our national 
     commitment to ensuring that all Americans have access to 
     communications technology as we enter the 21st century.
                                  ____


                         (By Richard W. Riley)

       James Glassman's misleading arguments against the 
     education-rate, or ``E-rate,'' do a disservice to our 
     children and to education.
       The E-rate is one of the most important advances in 
     education in our time. It gives schools and libraries 
     significant discounts on the costs of Internet access, 
     distance learning and other on-line learning opportunities. 
     All schools will qualify for some discounts, with schools in 
     our poorest communities receiving the most assistance. The E-
     rate is designed to help ensure that all children--regardless 
     of race, income or geography--will have the chance to learn 
     and succeed through the use of modern technology.
       Mr. Glassman says that 80 percent of schools already are 
     connected to the Internet, but he doesn't say that connection 
     too often goes to one or two rooms, not to every classroom. 
     We must give all children access to the Information 
     Superhighway.
       The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which provided for the 
     E-rate, led to reductions in access charges that long-
     distance companies such as AT&T and MCI pay to connect to 
     local telephone companies. As a result, in the past 11 
     months, long-distance companies have enjoyed a savings of 
     $2.4 billion, more than offsetting the estimated $2.02 
     billion cost of the E-rate discount for schools and 
     libraries.
       The E-rate has tremendous support among America's 
     educators, parents and business people. About 30,000 schools 
     and libraries have applied. It also has received strong 
     bipartisan support from the National Governors' Association 
     and Congress.
       America's economy is in good shape, and our competitive 
     edge in technology is one of the big reasons why. We would be 
     foolish to allow that competitive edge to slip away. The E-
     rate will help America create the most technically savvy work 
     force in the world and protect our nation's prosperity and 
     democratic values.

  Mr. Speaker, I will just quote some of the items from Mr. Kennard's 
letter:

       In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress expanded 
     universal service to include advanced telecommunications 
     services to all public libraries and grades K through 12 in 
     public and private schools. Schools in affluent communities 
     now have double the Internet access of schools in low-income 
     or rural areas. Nationwide, only 27 percent of our 
     classrooms, and only 13 percent of classrooms in our neediest 
     areas, have access to an Internet connection. Few poor 
     children will have access to the Internet outside of school, 
     yet studies show that students in classes that use computers 
     not only outperform their peers on standardized tests but 
     show more enthusiasm for communicating and learning. This 
     increase in technology will improve the lives of American 
     schoolchildren.
       None of the changes means that local school boards will not 
     decide what technology to acquire and fund. On average, 
     universal service covers only 15 percent of the projected 
     cost of connecting, operating and using networks in 
     classrooms. Each school and library applying for a universal-
     service discount must pay as much as 80 percent of the total 
     cost of the discounted service.
       Universal service discounts can be applied only to the cost 
     of obtaining telecommunications services, establishing 
     network connections and receiving Internet access. School 
     districts also must certify that they have a plan for how to 
     use the discounted services and that the plan has been 
     approved by their State.
       Nor is universal service for schools and libraries an 
     entitlement administered by an oversized Federal bureaucracy. 
     The private, nonprofit, nonpolitical entity established to 
     administer the program has a staff of 14 people.

  Part of the reason that they have cited for attacking the program is 
that they say the FCC is creating a bureaucracy. That is only a smoke 
screen. They really want to get at the heart of the program which will 
be an ongoing amount of money that the huge telephone communications 
companies will have to pay to the fund. The greedy companies do not 
want to share the largess and the benefits that they have had conferred 
upon them from their Government. They do not want to share that with 
children.

       Finally, let's be clear about the cost of universal service 
     for classrooms and libraries. Connecting classrooms and 
     libraries can be achieved for less than $1 per line per 
     month. The rest of the proposed universal service fees 
     continue our 60-year national commitment to affordable and 
     adequate telephone service for rural America and our poorest 
     citizens.
       The real issue is not a hidden tax but the hidden agenda of 
     those who oppose our national commitment to ensuring that all 
     Americans have access to communications technology as we 
     enter the 21st century.

  That is by William Kennard, Chairman, Federal Communications 
Commission.
  Quoting from the letter by Richard Riley, the Secretary of Education:

       The E-rate is one of the most important advances in 
     education in our time. It gives schools and libraries 
     significant discounts on the costs of Internet access, 
     distance learning and other on-line learning opportunities. 
     All schools will qualify for some discounts, with schools in 
     our poorest communities receiving the most assistance. The E-
     rate is designed to help ensure that all children, regardless 
     of race, income or geography, will have the chance to learn 
     and succeed through the use of modern technology.

  I might add that I often encounter when I am talking to parents in my 
district and school board members and other leaders, they want to know 
why is education technology so important, why are computers so 
important?

       We have problems. Our schools are overcrowded. We do not 
     have enough equipment. We do not have enough supplies. We 
     have too many substitute teachers. Why do you want to bother 
     us with another problem of wiring schools for the Internet?

  My answer to that is a very simple one. If every city in America had 
waited until all the sidewalks and all the roads were fixed and 
repaired and in excellent condition before they decided to build an 
airport, we would still be

[[Page H4625]]

waiting for the first airport to be built. What would that mean for 
modern transportation in the United States? Education cannot stand 
still while the rest of the world goes forward.
  Quoting from Secretary Riley again:

       The E-rate has tremendous support among America's 
     educators, parents and business people. About 30,000 schools 
     and libraries have applied. It also has received strong 
     bipartisan support from the National Governors' Association 
     and Congress.
       America's economy is in good shape, and our competitive 
     edge in technology is one of the big reasons why. We would be 
     foolish to allow that competitive edge to slip away. The E-
     rate will help America create the most technically savvy 
     workforce in the world and protect our Nation's prosperity 
     and democratic values.

  Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley.
  Mr. Speaker, in a situation which is so self-evident, why do we have 
bullies who are attempting to wipe out this universal fund for schools 
and libraries? Why? I talked last week about leadership. Powerful 
leadership can determine the course of a Nation, the way they behave or 
the way they are allowed to behave. But leadership is not just the 
chairmen of committees. The chairmen of committees in America are 
beholden to the committee members. The committee members are beholden 
to the rest of the Congress.
  If we took a poll among all the Members of Congress, I want the kids 
of America to know that overwhelmingly the majority of the Members of 
Congress support the E-rate. Overwhelmingly they support the universal 
fund for libraries and schools, the Members of Congress. We have had an 
undemocratic set of positions taken. The committee chairmen have 
bullied the FCC. They have skirted the democratic process and used 
their power to force the FCC to steal half of the E-rate from the 
children of America.
  Those committee chairmen need to be challenged. Any leadership that 
will not accept the will of the Congress should be challenged. We will 
challenge it on this floor. We want you to join us. Anybody who says 
that this is not good for America, that we cannot afford it, we have 
unprecedented prosperity and the telecommunications companies are 
enjoying that prosperity. Also they are in a great position as a result 
of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Why are they so mean? Why do 
they want to steal from the children of America?
  We have coming to the floor, next week probably, something called the 
American Competitiveness Act. I have talked about that last week, too. 
The American Competitiveness Act, and this has already passed the other 
body, primarily this act calls for giving the jobs that our children 
and our retrained workers ought to be having to foreigners. This act 
wants to increase the quota for professionals who know computer 
programming and computer science to come into this country. They have a 
large number of vacancies. They want to fill the vacancies by bringing 
in outsiders, instead of revamping the education system of America so 
that we will always have all of the information technology workers that 
we need.
  This American Competitiveness Act has a counterpart in the Judiciary 
Committee of the House. They do not even go as far as this act goes. At 
least in this act some people were able to prevail on the committee to 
enlarge it into including a small portion for training. There is some 
money in here for scholarships and for retraining our unemployed 
workers. That was added at the insistence of the Democrats on the 
committee in the Senate.

                              {time}  2000

  But the House Judiciary bill does not have any training money in it. 
They are just going to increase the quota, increase the number of 
immigrants who come in who are professionals who have knowledge of 
computer science. Instead of giving the jobs to our people, they will 
be giving them to others.
  Most of these people come from English-speaking countries because 
even though they have knowledge of computer science in central Europe 
and Russia, the former Soviet Union, those people cannot come in as 
efficiently because they have to learn the English language. So the 
English speaking countries like India and Great Britain and many 
others, they will be the ones who send the computer professionals, and 
30,000 will be brought in this year, and after that 20,000 per year. 
And since they are not increasing the overall immigration quota, other 
immigrants who come in for other reasons are going to have their quota 
cut. They are going to cut the quota somewhere else in order to 
increase the professionals who come in.
  Large numbers will come in from India because India had a set of 
leaders who had vision. They started training their young people, their 
students, in computer science long time ago, and they have established 
the largest body of computer expertise in the world. We will be 
importing large numbers from India to take the positions that are 
vacant now in information technology.
  It is ironical that a lot of criticism has been made on this floor 
and by the President of India exploding a nuclear device, a nuclear 
bomb. The same company that has a great role in the India nuclear 
weapons program is a company that will be providing most of the workers 
from India to come into this country to take the jobs and information 
technology. They have provided them in the past, and they are going to 
provide them now in the future.
  In other words, many of the people came in in the past got know-how 
expertise that they took back and applied in this nuclear weapons 
program for India, and we are acting in a very hypocritical and 
contradictory way.
  The President cut off aid to India. We all made great statements 
about how India has violated the spirit of a nuclear weapons ban, as my 
colleagues know, but on the other hand we are aiding and abetting the 
nuclear arms industry in India by bringing in workers to take jobs that 
ought to go to workers here.
  We ought to have a training program. As you have heard before, I 
offered an amendment to the Higher Education Assistance Act which would 
have provided a very reasonable training program where colleges and 
universities would link up with community-based organizations and poor 
neighborhoods, and they would provide access to computers for the 
youngsters in low-income families that do not have access to computers. 
It is a very practical kind of program. The people are ready. They are 
ready to join 21st century.
  Last week, last Saturday, I had what I call a synergy, a town meeting 
and synergy conference, which brought together people from all parts of 
my district, and the primary focus of this conference was information 
technology. I wanted to have kind of a shock awareness of a shock 
awareness to bring my constituents into an understanding of what is 
needed if they want to share prosperity, the prosperity of now and the 
prosperity that is going to expand in the 21st century. The jobs of 
tomorrow will be jobs related to information technology.
  I wanted my constituents to understand that it was a terrible day, 
raining, you know thunderstorms, and when I saw the weather, I almost 
gave up and said, you know, we have gone through all this getting 
ready. We had experts from Bell Atlantic, Cable Vision. We had the 
Secretary of Commerce bringing us a greeting over video to show them 
how you can do that from video. We had the New York Technical Institute 
providing an example of how interactive a video can work. We had a 
magnificent program plan, and the rain came pouring down, and I was 
despairing and suddenly behold the auditorium which held 500 people 
filled up because the desire to know about what is going on in this 
modern telecommunications-dominated world is so great, and so people 
came out in the rain. Five hundred people came out to participate in 
the program which was designed to introduce a shock awareness of what 
is going on in the information technology world.
  You know, we had the assistance of large numbers of people who want 
to get involved and who are involved, and I have a group called ET-3 
made up of people who call on the national groups involved in 
information technology. We have booklets there from the Information 
Technology Association of America which showed, you know, in graphic 
detail what jobs are available. We had a group called American School 
Directory which shows schools how to get themselves a web site for 
nothing. American School Directory provides a web site for nothing, and 
the schools have a tool kit which enables the teachers and the students 
to put together their own web site.

[[Page H4626]]

  A lot of marvelous things happen, and the New York State Department 
of Education announced that day that $23 million is going to be 
provided to the School Board of Education of New York. It is not State 
or city money, it is money that we voted on here in Congress. The 
Telecommunications Literacy Act provided money to States, and New York 
State is just releasing the money to the local school districts and New 
York City Board of Education will get $23 million. Most of that will be 
devoted to training teachers and school personnel in how to utilize the 
information technology.
  A lot of good things took place, but the point I am making is that we 
have a hunger for people out there in the low-income community. Most of 
them came from the low-income area of my district to join the 21st 
century and be knowledgeable and be able to survive there and prosper 
there. We have a group called the Hussein Institute of Technology, as I 
mentioned before, and they helped me to wire these 23 schools, most of 
them with assistance of Hussein Institute of Technology and the Bell 
Atlantic group that provides telephone service to the Brooklyn area. We 
have wired using volunteers these 22 out of 70 schools in my district.
  Our goal is to get everyone in 70 schools wired by December 31 of 
this year. We are going to do it with volunteers, if we have to, but we 
like to have the process speeded up by having some funds from the 
universal fund rate, by having the knowledge out there among the 
schools that once you get hooked up to the Internet, you do not have a 
cost that is going to be burdensome. Many schools are reluctant to get 
wired because, if they are wired to the Internet, they have to pay an 
ongoing cost. What the E-rate does is pays a big percentage of that 
cost for schools in my district. None of them would get less than an 80 
percent discount because they have so many poor youngsters attending.
  You are talking about 80 percent discount to practically all the 
schools in my district for ongoing telecommunication services. That is 
what is at stake here. They will lose it, and if that is lost, the 
budgets of the school districts will not be able to bear this. They 
will back up and say, look, equipment needs are greatest, we need 
chalk, we need paper, we need so many other things. We are not going to 
make a commitment of $1, of ten cents. We would be willing to make a 
commitment of ten cents out of every dollar to telecommunication, but 
we are not going to pay the whole cost, we cannot afford it. And you 
have a complete choking of the process of bringing opportunity to the 
school districts.

  I said we need leadership. At a time like this we have a window of 
opportunity. We are not at war in America, we need leadership. The kids 
of America are to understand that our leadership is not preoccupied 
with defending the country militarily. We have unprecedented prosperity 
in the country. Why can we not open our eyes and understand that 
investments in education at a time like this is most important?
  The Roman empire, which was just a village compared with the American 
colossus, the American colossus is something beyond an empire, and 
Rome, as great as it was and as dominant as it was in this time was a 
small thing. But the Roman empire, they invented a lot of technological 
devices that we still have. The Romans invented concrete, and the 
Romans were great masters of technology. They built huge cities. They 
built the coliseum which still stands, the ruins still stand on solid 
foundation after thousands of years. The Romans had achieved prosperity 
in that time comparable to the kind of prosperity we have now.
  But the Roman leadership failed, and Rome declined because the 
leadership was not up to it consistently. At a time when the Roman 
leadership was at its height technologically and they built the great 
coliseum, what did they use the coliseum for? Their sport, their 
favorite sports, were blood sports. They like to see gladiators killing 
each other. You know, they were unevenly developed. They had great 
technological development. They were masters of warfare. Nobody could 
match them militarily. Nobody could match them technologically. But 
there was something wrong with their compassion and their vision, and 
they enjoyed watching people kill each other as a sport: Gladiators.
  When they were not watching gladiators, they enjoyed watching wild 
animals tear human beings apart. It is not a fable that the Romans 
threw the Christians to the lions. They did that. They did that to more 
than just the Christians. They enjoy watching people being devoured by 
beasts. The coliseum with all of its intricate engineering has places 
underneath they engineered for beasts to be put in cages and beasts to 
be guided out where the people, the technologically-advanced Romans, 
could enjoy watching the animals rip people apart.
  Let us not in America fall into that deep trench of having our 
technological development outpace our compassion. Let us not steal 
Internet from the children. Let us stop AT&T. Let us stop all of those 
who want to steal Internet from the kids in America.

                          ____________________