[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   A SOLUTION TO THE BUDGET GRIDLOCK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs.  Linda Smith) 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. LINDA SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a 
solution to the gridlock between this body and the President, one that 
our President says he is willing to shut down the government over. I 
ask the President to stay in town at least one day, to cancel his trip 
to New York to the fund-raiser for an important friend of his, and 
consider this: There is a simple solution available that will satisfy 
both the President and Congress and avert the potential crisis that 
this Nation faces if he does not start paying attention. In fact, the 
problem could be resolved today.
  First of all, both the President and Congress have promised to save 
Social Security. Now, in order to really put action behind that 
promise, neither side can spend the phantom surplus Social Security 
dollars, not through new spending, not through tax cuts.
  Second, our focus is on education, a value that we all wholeheartedly 
say must be a priority. Now, let us keep these two goals in mind and 
consider the President's words.
  One week ago, two weeks ago, about once a week for some time, the 
President has proclaimed that his top goal is to save Social Security. 
Now his goal has changed this week, but that is what he has been 
saying.
  This week he says he is going to shut down the government, not for 
the goal of saving Social Security, but he is going to shut down the 
government if we do not agree to dig deeply into the Social Security 
trust fund and spend billions of dollars, new dollars, on education 
programs.
  Now what we have is the President pitting the needs of elderly 
Americans against the needs of children and asking us, the American 
people, to choose. He says we have to choose between protecting Social 
Security for our elderly or shoring up education for the future of our 
children.
  I stand here today to say this is a false choice that Congress and 
Americans do not have to make. There is another way.

                              {time}  1245

  The solution is simple. Common sense, something that came directly 
from the people, not this body, and it is to return money directly to 
local school districts and bypass the bureaucratic cost and the red 
tape of Washington, D.C., the most asked-for educational change from 
all the teachers throughout America.
  The House of Representatives has passed a model piece of legislation, 
the Dollars to the Classroom Act, that provides enough money for 
schools and school districts to hire 110,000 teachers. It just simply 
does this by taking a portion of the education bureaucracy and block-
granting 95 percent of these 31 Federal education programs directly to 
our local classrooms.
  The beauty of this bill is that it allows local people the 
flexibility to hire more teachers and reduce class sizes; or, if their 
district needs it more and their class sizes are already low, buy new 
computers, books or supplies. Basically, they can use the money to buy 
whatever the children need most, not what is directed by bureaucrats 
2,500 miles away.
  The President threatens that if we were to do this, he would veto it, 
because he still believes, as many on the Hill here in Washington D.C. 
believe, that bureaucrats know better than parents. I think they are 
wrong.
  This budget battle should remind Americans of how difficult it will 
be for politicians to leave Social Security trust funds alone, so that 
it is to protect our elderly neighbors that we should be standing here. 
It is what we should be about. But here we are, just a week away from a 
promise to save Social Security. Last week, the week after, the week 
before, and the President came back to town to posture long enough 
after he read the polls. He knows we care about children. He knows I 
think daily about my six grandchildren, but he has decided that for the 
sake of campaigns, that this is the right thing to do.
  We need to bypass the bureaucracy. We need to get out of the 
political rhetoric, and we need to get into the hearts and the 
neighborhoods and the school districts. We need not to separate 
generations.
  I stand here today to plead with America to call the President back 
to town to negotiate a fair budget.

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