[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10659-H10664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DIFFERENCES BETWEEN REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT PROPOSALS ON APPROPRIATIONS 
                                 BILLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here tonight, as Congress 
winds up its responsibilities and completing its 13 appropriations 
measures, most of which have been agreed upon. And I think it is very 
important that tonight I address why Congress is still here and what 
some of the differences are that remain.
  Most of the eight or nine easy appropriations bills have been agreed 
upon, and we are now down to the last few measures which Members of the 
House and the other body and the administration must agree to.

                              {time}  2200

  Tonight I want to discuss some of the major differences between what 
separates the Democrats and the Republicans at this juncture. The major 
difference really on most of the issues boils down to just a couple of 
items. One is keeping control in Washington, and then also the other 
part is whether we spend significant amounts of taxpayer dollars on 
bureaucracy, on waste, on administration and control in Washington, and 
not really addressing the real problems that our country is facing.
  Tonight I would like to focus on the differences, what I consider 
real differences, between Republican proposals and the Democrat 
proposals. I think that one of the problems that we have is some of the 
proposals that our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, 
particularly those with a liberal bent, are proposing at this stage are 
ideas and concept whose time have really passed. I think they have old 
ideas. They have been used to spending more and getting less.
  I think we have a different approach. We want to look at new ideas 
and how, with taxpayer dollars, we can get a better return, spending 
either the same amount of money or increasing it within the terms of 
the budget agreement for a balanced budget that we agreed upon.
  Tonight I would like to talk a little bit about education, which we 
have heard bandied about the House Floor the last few days. I would 
like to talk about the subject of drug abuse and that problem facing 
our Nation.
  If I get the opportunity, I would like to talk a bit about health 
care reform, which I think health care is a very important issue and 
particularly a reform that is necessary.
  Let me review for a few minutes, if I may, what has taken place while 
the

[[Page H10660]]

other side of the aisle controlled this body for the last 40 years. In 
40 years, I believe, the other side was very well intentioned and well 
meaning, but unfortunately run and directed by liberals, again with old 
ideas, who during that tenure built a very costly and unresponsive 
bureaucracy, particularly in the area of education, which I would like 
to address first and then I will talk about several others.
  I believe, never in the history of mankind, has there been created a 
bureaucracy in education that the liberals have come up with for this 
Nation. In 40 years, they have taken American public education from the 
greatest system to one of the weakest education systems in the world. 
In the process, they have taken teaching from a profession and turned 
it into a weakened, common labor and also into an endurance contest for 
those teachers who are dedicated and willing to remain in the 
classroom.
  In 40 years, they have also managed to take any reverence or 
acknowledgment of a supreme being out of the classroom.
  In 40 years, again, these well intentioned but, I think, misguided 
Congressmen and women and liberal jurists have taken discipline out of 
our classrooms and replaced teaching with teacher endurance and teacher 
abuse.
  In 40 years, they bogged down State and local authorities in an 
incredible morass of red tape, paperwork and endless regulations.
  Let me say also at this point that I consider myself a very strong 
advocate of public education. My studies and my degree at the 
University of Florida were from the School of Education. I am pleased 
to be married for the past 27 years to an individual who spent many, 
many years as an elementary school teacher, and very devoted to public 
teaching and taught in public schools.
  I believe that we have no more important responsibility in our 
society than to provide for good, sound and useful educational 
opportunity for every American.
  Somehow we have really strayed away from the right path in public 
education, and we have destroyed that great system of public education 
that I received and so many Americans had access to. All one has to do 
is ask any parent, ask any teacher, any principal, or anyone who takes 
time to really observe education today, and they will hear the same 
response.
  Let us take just a brief look at what, again, this liberal and 
misguided Federal education policy has produced, and I might add it has 
produced some of the problems we have at tremendous expense to the 
taxpayer who is paying the bill for what they have created.
  In 40 years, Democrats have created 788 Federal education programs. 
We have so many programs, it is almost impossible for Congress to 
oversee or even count or keep track of all of the programs.
  All of these programs have one thing in common. They keep control in 
Washington.
  They actually have another thing in common that really costs the 
taxpayers a great deal and does not contribute much to education, and 
that is they, in fact, have created huge bureaucracies.
  Mr. Speaker, the bureaucracies start right here in Washington with 
the Federal Department of Education. The Federal Department of 
Education has a total of 4,900 full-time employees in the department. 
There are 3,600 Federal Department of Education employees in buildings 
here in Washington, D.C.; 3,600.
  Just imagine if we reduced that number, if we reduced the number of 
programs, and that is what we have recommended, we have recommended 
consolidating some of the Federal education programs, the duplicate 
programs. We have recommended that the money should not go to 
bureaucrats in the Department of Education. We can have a Department of 
Education, but do we need 4,900 in the Department of Education?
  Some might say this number is a little bit lower than it has been in 
the past. What the Department of Education has very cleverly done at 
the Federal level is if they have reduced the full-time number of 
employees but have an army of nearly 10,000 consultants on contract 
with the Department of Education. So we are paying somewhere in the 
neighborhood of 15,000 Federal bureaucrats and administrators. Of 
course, each one of these 788 programs need a small host of 
administrators.
  I will never forget in an oversight hearing, when we had from Detroit 
a teacher who came and talked about Federal education programs and the 
constraints, the bureaucracy, the rules and regulations that had been 
created. This teacher was asked the question, what is it like trying to 
deal with these different programs and trying to make your program 
work?
  I will never forget what that educator said: Well, it is a little bit 
like giving birth to a porcupine. That is how complicated this morass 
of Federal regulations is.
  Now, these people in Washington must have something to do, and they 
have created this incredible maze of Federal education bureaucracy. So 
in order for any of our local officials or our state officials, our 
local school boards, to get an answer on any education program and the 
morass and reams and pages and pages of Federal regulations which they 
now justify their positions by producing, they must go to this maze in 
Washington, D.C.
  This maze, one might wonder where the rest of these folks are, these 
4,900. There are 3,600, as I said, in Washington, D.C. The rest are in 
regional offices. There is not one in classrooms. I venture that if one 
looks at the salaries, and I chair the Subcommittee on Civil Service, 
one would see most of these individuals are earning between $50,000 and 
$100,000. Imagine the results if that money was sent to each of our 
hundreds of school districts across the Nation.
  Again, I think there is a place for a Federal Department of 
Education, but do we need the mass of bureaucracy that we have created? 
Again, their number one responsibility is administering these 788 
programs and producing the rules, the paperwork and all of the other 
requirements that are cast on our local school boards and our 
principals and finally on our classrooms. So that is a part of what we 
are facing as a Nation and as a Congress.
  The easy part was done a little over a year ago, when we came up with 
a balanced budget plan. We know that we have to limit the amount of 
increases. We are increasing, and Republicans have increased education 
funds almost in every single area, more money in scholarships, more 
money in almost every single education program.
  It may not be as much as the President would want or as some of the 
liberals would want, but we are doing it in the context of a balanced 
budget to limit the increases, not taking in and then spending more 
than we have taken in.
  Let me say something else about what has happened under this well 
meaning but somewhat gone askew policy that has been established by the 
other side. School funding has more than quadrupled in the past 40 
years, but teacher salaries have only increased 43 percent. That is a 
four-fold increase in the money that we put into schools, but less than 
a 50 percent increase for teacher salaries.
  Where has the money gone? This article was in Investor Business 
Daily, who did a study in February of this year. The money has gone to 
the administrative bureaucracies. Consequently, teachers now barely 
account for half of the personnel in public schools.
  Listen to that. Where has the money gone for education? It has not 
gone to the classroom, and it certainly has not gone to the teachers. 
Let me repeat this again: The money has gone to administrative 
bureaucracies. Consequently, teachers now barely account for half of 
the personnel in our public schools. So we are not spending money in 
the classroom.
  One of the great debates that we have had here in Congress was a 
Republican proposal that said that money, Federal money, which only 
accounts for about 6 percent of all of the money in education, that our 
Federal money, 95 percent of it should go to the classroom and to the 
teacher and to the student and to basic education programs, and now 
that does not happen. That is why we have teachers leaving the 
profession. That is why teachers are not adequately compensated, 
because of the huge bureaucracy that we have built

[[Page H10661]]

and that we require with this massive administration.
  That is what part of this debate is about, and I am going to talk 
about some specific programs in just a few minutes.
  The President wants 100,000 teachers. Mr. Speaker, I would propose 
that we turn that around and we do away with 100,000 administrators. We 
could start in Washington, D.C., with the army of 15,000. We take over 
10,000 on contract and another 4,900, then the mass of bureaucracy and 
administrators that must support us to the point where over half of 
school funding now goes for nonteaching activities.
  So if we want to do something beneficial, why not do away with 
100,000 bureaucrats.

                              {time}  2215

  What is interesting, too, if one studies this, one will find how much 
these administrators make and this bureaucracy makes as opposed to the 
teacher in the classroom. The teacher, whose ultimate responsibility it 
is to produce the students, and we have another problem with the 
quality of teachers in our classroom, not to mention the compensation, 
and I will talk about that in a minute.
  I come from the State of Florida, and I served in Tallahassee. The 
only building that I think is bigger in Tallahassee, Florida, than the 
capital, and Tallahassee is our State capital, the only building that 
is bigger I believe than the State capital building or as tall as the 
State capital building is the Department of Education. So we have 
required the building of a bureaucracy in Washington, in regional 
offices, and a good number of these folks that are not in Washington in 
the Department of Education are in regional offices and then in State 
capitals throughout the Nation.
  So this is a part of the problem, and this is part of the battle. The 
easy part was when we balanced the budget, and we were called all kinds 
of names, and it was going to be the end of civilization as we knew it. 
But all we said is we are not going to take in and then spend more than 
we take in. It was a simple plan, and it worked, and it did balance the 
budget in record time. Now the tough part is improving these programs 
and getting quality, putting in dollars and getting a better return.
  Now I ask any member of this body to sit down and talk with teachers, 
principals and school officials and see what some of the basic problems 
are with education today. And those individuals will all tell us the 
same thing. First, they will tell us that there is a need for fewer 
regulations and paperwork. I met with our school superintendent, one of 
them, last week, and they will tell us that the regulations, the 
edicts, the mandates from Washington, D.C., that go to the State 
capitals and on to our local school board are financially bankrupting 
our local school system.
  And the money is not going into the classroom, but this mass of 
regulations is paperwork, is requiring that everyone do something other 
than educate our children and on a quality basis. So everyone will tell 
us the same thing. That is part of what this battle, why we are here a 
couple days late, but that is part of what we are talking about, is how 
those taxpayer dollars are spent and how effective these programs are 
for our children.
  Mr. Speaker, ask any teacher, again, ask any principal or school 
official, and they will tell us that another problem is rewarding good 
teachers, that we adequately compensate, we reward, we hold them in 
respect, and that we also have a way of eliminating poor performers. We 
must do that.
  I chair the Subcommittee on Civil Service. In our Federal workforce 
we have many people who go to work every day and they do a great job, 
but there are a few folks, just like in Congress, except in Congress 
people get to vote them and they vote out the poor performers, unless 
they subvert the process, but eventually they are kicked out. The same 
thing we need to do in the classroom. We need to reward good teachers 
so that the money that we are spending here in Washington that less 
than 6 percent finds its way to the teacher and to the classroom, and 
we reward good teachers, and they have a mechanism to deal with poor 
performers.
  But we have built up such a shield in all of these regulations that 
it is almost impossible now and also with turning a profession into a 
labor position to deal with the poor performers, and we have the same 
problem in our Federal workforce.
  It is unfortunate, and we heard these statistics on the floor, that 
in some States teachers who have been tested cannot pass basic tests, 
and this must be addressed, the question of quality teachers in the 
classroom. So these are some of the items that need to be addressed.
  This third item I want to address, and, again, this is one of the 
problems I hear recurring everywhere I go. Every teacher mentions it, 
every principal mentions it, everyone who deals with education today. 
The problem of discipline in our classrooms. Here, again, these 
regulators have passed an incredible maze of regulations. That is their 
job. They have passed all of these regulations, and we have liberal 
Members of Congress who side with liberal jurors, and there is no 
longer discipline, there is no longer respect, there is no longer 
order. How can a teacher teach without discipline in the classroom?
  One of my district staff member's teacher is a teacher in central 
Florida. She has been attacked twice, and I am not talking about a 
school that is in Detroit or an urban setting or New York or Los 
Angeles. I am talking about a suburban setting. She was physically 
attacked, twice.
  I brought into central Florida, because of my interest in trying to 
curtail the problem of drug abuse and the heroin deaths and cocaine 
deaths we have had with our young people in central Florida, I brought 
an oversight subcommittee in for a hearing in Lake Mary, Florida, a 
beautiful area, one of the loveliest places in central Florida to 
reside. And we had, in the drug hearing that I conducted, we had school 
security officers, we had school principals, we had law enforcement, 
local officials, teachers, parents and students all testify and talk 
about the problems of the classroom.
  I was stunned and the members of our panel were stunned that the 
principal told us that they have lost control of discipline, that the 
school security officer told us that they can do nothing about students 
who violate the law in their classroom, because, again, of these 
liberal regulations, rules and judicial decisions. They are really 
captive to a classroom that has no discipline. And when that happens, a 
teacher cannot teach.
  So this is another problem, again, well-intended, but it is something 
we are trying to address as a new approach, and it may be tough love 
like balancing the budget, but until we get control of our classrooms 
and return discipline to the classroom, allow a teacher to teach, we 
will continue to have these problems.

  Again, I point to my suggestion, rather than 100,000 bureaucrats 
starting in Washington, Atlanta, Tallahassee and the others that are 
required, even requiring our school board to have the massive 
administrators to carry out the mandates from Washington, that we 
reverse that and that we concentrate on paying our teachers that are in 
the classroom, giving them the resources for the classrooms, making 
that 95 percent of Federal money, only 6 percent of all the money going 
into education effective.
  What is interesting is we at the Federal Government in this Congress 
only supply 6 percent of education money but we provide 90 percent of 
the rules and regulations and mandates. That is why we have had this 
loud cry across the land for charter schools. Enough is enough. Let us 
run our schools.
  The problem again we have is people in Washington think they know it 
all. That folks at the local level are too dumb, too ignorant, 
incapable. They cannot run their own schools. They cannot educate. The 
decisions have to be made here. The power must stay here. And that is 
basically what this whole battle is about, is who controls the purse 
strings and the power. That is why we are here late into the evening, 
that is why the appropriators are still meeting, because it is a 
question of power and control and changing all of that from up here in 
Washington to the local school boards.
  Finally, I think it is important that we look at the results that 40 
years have brought us. Again, I am a strong advocate of public 
education. I attended public schools, my children attended public 
schools, and we have to

[[Page H10662]]

look at the incredible amount of money we are putting into the system, 
and then what the results are that we are getting.
  Here are some of the results after 40 years:
  Reading test scores. Reading is fundamental, absolutely basic. Mr. 
Speaker, 60 percent of 12th graders cannot read at a proficient level. 
That is absolutely astounding.
  Mathematics test scores. The average score for eighth grade United 
States students on the math portion of the third international math and 
science study was 500, 13 points below the international average of 
513. At least 20 countries scored higher than the United States.
  Science test scores. How important for the future. The average score 
for eighth grade U.S. students on the science portion of the third 
international mathematics and science study was 534. Some countries, 
such as Singapore, Japan, and Korea achieved scores of over 600.
  History test scores. Only 17 percent of fourth graders, 14 percent of 
eighth graders, and 11 percent of twelfth graders, that is graduation 
level, are proficient in history.
  Scholastic Assessment Test scores, commonly known as SATs. In the 
1994-1995 school year, 41 percent of the graduates took the SAT test. 
Of those, the average combined score was 910. This has dropped from 
937, the average score in 1972.
  Let me tell my colleagues another appalling statistic in my State, in 
my locale. Across the Nation, those entering our community colleges, of 
those entering freshman, over 50 percent require remedial education. 
One of my community colleges, the president of the community college 
told me it is 70 percent of his entering freshmen. And this failure of 
education costs us money.
  Here is an article recently from central Florida, Orlando, Too Many 
Students, the headline is, Not Learning Basics. The State is spending 
$52 million on remedial education, just to bring community college 
students up to speed.
  Now, it would be easy to come and just criticize what has been done 
in the past, but I think it is important that we look at what our side, 
the Republican majority, has proposed in the field of education. First 
of all, again, this mass of hundreds and hundreds of highly 
bureaucratic, expensive-to-administrate 788 programs. Our Dollars to 
the Classroom Act consolidates 31 Federal education programs into a 
single flexible grant program for States and communities. The 
legislation will provide $2.74 billion funding for local schools. 
Instead of, again, increasing money for bureaucrats in Washington, our 
Republican majority's plan eliminates a tangled web of red tape, which 
ensures that tax dollars will really reach our individual students, our 
classrooms and our teachers.

                              {time}  2230

  While the Republican majority tries to always speak out for parents, 
students, and teachers, the other side remains mired in the politics 
and the policies and the approach of the past. They end up defending 
groups and organizations who are intent on keeping the status quo in 
education.
  The most important thing we can do, I believe, is again, getting 
funds to the classroom. We have a very specific proposal to do that, as 
I said, through this proposed consolidation. We also have another 
proposal for increased parental control. Funds from this legislation 
can be used for a wide variety of activities, including new technology, 
instructional materials, education reform, and professional 
development. Individual school districts will be able to work with 
parents to select what activities are best suited to their communities 
and to their needs.
  This is a unique approach. Rather than Washington telling them what 
they must do, they will be partners in deciding what is done. In fact, 
if local communities are happy with their current programs, this 
legislation does not require that they make any changes at all. So 
these are some of the proposals that we have made, again, trying to 
improve the quality and get dollars to the classroom.
  Mr. Speaker, let me go over a couple of the other proposals that we 
have made. I want to repeat them, although Members have heard the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), who has done an incredible 
job leading the committee of jurisdiction, and other Members talk about 
them. But let me reiterate some of the things that the Republican 
Congress is doing to improve educational opportunities for all 
Americans.
  First, we have improved our public schools by sending more money to 
the classroom for teachers, for computers, for safer buildings, and for 
teacher testing. Again, we have sent the money there.
  We had a great proposal in the tax bill which the President 
threatened to veto which was also to allow for local school bonds to be 
issued and some tax credits for additional school construction. As we 
know, there are needs for additional classrooms, but we want to work as 
a partner and allow the schools to take advantage of Federal 
assistance, rather than dictate what is done in each of these school 
jurisdictions.
  We made college more available and affordable to all students through 
tuition tax credits. We have created also through our policies the 
lowest student loan interest rate in 17 years. We have lived up to our 
commitment to special education by taking money away from Washington 
bureaucrats and sending it to our children's classrooms across the 
Nation to improve the quality of their instruction and their learning 
opportunity for all children.
  We tried to give opportunities and choice, and make them available to 
students who were stuck in school systems that just do not work, or do 
not fit into this maze of regulations and this square box that the 
bureaucrats in Washington have created.
  I think that we have done an excellent job in framing the issues here 
in Washington. What we have not done, I think, is gotten our word out 
to the American people about what we intend to do in these different 
programs. That is sometimes because of the shrill rhetoric of the other 
side.
  I want to also talk tonight in the field of education about one of 
the areas I have tried to improve in the committee. Again, under the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the Committee on Education 
and the Workforce has done an incredible job in improving education, 
and part of that, again, is the battle that is being waged here about 
what gets put in the final product.
  I want to talk about Head Start. I consider myself one of the 
strongest advocates of Head Start, and any program, education program, 
that will take the neediest children in our society and give them an 
opportunity to have an advantage, particularly those who are needy, 
those who are disadvantaged, and to give them every opportunity to 
succeed in our educational system.
  Long before they created Head Start, I was involved in a Head Start 
program in a local community where I went to college. And again, I was 
in the School of Education at the University of Florida. If we look at 
disadvantaged students, if we look at students that are needy, that do 
not have educational opportunities, we must realize as a society that 
we are creating our future problems in society if we do not address 
their needs. We must correct them at the earliest possible age and 
stage, because that is when they learn the basics and fundamentals: 
reading, writing, mathematics, all of these foundation skills that are 
so important.
  So I became involved early on. I support Head Start. The concept is 
great. But unfortunately, what has happened is what has happened with 
the bureaucracy I described here, and this chart could be used to 
describe the bureaucracy we have created in Head Start. The same thing 
has happened.

  I have testified before the Committee on Education and the Workforce 
in this Congress and in former Congresses to try to explain the need to 
assist communities such as my community, and one of the Head Start 
programs in my community, with the need for flexibility; the need to 
address, again, areas of our country which have needs but do not fit 
into that Washington bureaucratic mold.
  Let me say that the Republican majority has funded Head Start at its 
highest levels, and our FY 1999 appropriations bill will have more than 
$150 million. I am sure when the final figures are in it will have an 
increase, and

[[Page H10663]]

that is important. It is not just how much money we throw into these 
programs or put into these programs, it is what happens with the 
programs, what results do we get from the programs.
  I had a parent come to me several years ago who alerted me about one 
Head Start program in central Florida. I might say that there are many 
Head Start programs that work very well. We may or may not need to make 
changes in some of these programs.
  I have advocated a change as far as the quality of opportunity, the 
quality of the Head Start program. I am very pleased that the 
Republican majority, with some help from others on the other side of 
the aisle, we will incorporate some of my recommendations into 
improving Head Start. Let me give the Members a great example of how 
this program does not work the way it was intended everywhere.
  Again, I had a mother come to me and alerted me about a program. She 
was a single parent, a very smart lady, and wise to put her children, 
her two children, into this program. Her husband had departed and left 
her with the children. She wanted to give them every opportunity. She 
put them into a Head Start program, and then she was on the local 
advisory council. She started looking at what was going on with this 
Head Start program.
  Two of my counties, actually, one in my district and one in another 
congressional district, have so few students that they cannot make a 
total program that meets all the requirements of the Federal Head 
Start. Again, there are these regulations and mandates. So they came 
together, even though they are miles and miles apart, and it does not 
make much sense, but that is the way we have to do it in order to 
participate.
  This parent asked me to look into what was going on in the Head Start 
program. I got a copy of the budget. I visited all the Head Start 
programs in my district. I visited the private school programs. I got a 
copy of their budget. I have a copy of their budget.
  The budget for this Head Start program requires over 20 
administrative or bureaucratic positions, and some may be necessary. 
There are various education coordinators, family services coordinators, 
nutrition coordinators. Someone has to decide whether you have a lot of 
peanut butter or too much jelly, but they require all of these folks, 
and they may all be necessary positions, some of them, but we have 20-
some administrators. We have 18 teachers, so-called teachers in the 
program.
  The teachers in the Head Start program make from $12,000 to $18,000. 
Here is the list of their salaries. I should say it starts at $11,618. 
The administrators make from, well, the lowest one I can find here is 
$17,000 up to $50,000. I have in this program less than 500 students, 
and I have over 20 administrators earning from $17,000 to $50,000 to 
administer this program. The cost per pupil in this program is nearly 
$6,800. The very best private preschool program in my district I could 
send a child to, and it has longer hours than the program that 
currently exists, which would benefit the single working mother, 
because sometimes they cannot get their child out of school in the 
middle of the day when the Head Start program ends.
  How does it make sense to have that many administrators? I begged and 
pleaded with the committee and with the bureaucrats to change this. 
Unfortunately, they would not change this. They granted us very little 
flexibility. But this is exactly what this argument is about. It is how 
many bureaucrats, how many folks we can mandate from Washington, and 
they do not want to give any flexibility. We built this into a great 
little bureaucracy; not a little bureaucracy, unfortunately, but a big 
bureaucracy. Who gets the disadvantage from this? It is those children 
that need it the most. We are spending the money on overhead, not on 
classrooms.
  Let us look at the teachers who earn, so-called teachers, from 
$12,000 to $18,000. I won part of this battle, but they fought us tooth 
and nail. We are demanding quality in these Head Start programs so that 
that disadvantaged child has the best opportunity.
  I will tell the Members, this is not all of the Head Start programs, 
and we must sort through them to make certain that we have quality. But 
when I went into some of those programs, I saw that the students there 
did not have the best opportunity. They did not have opportunities to 
the best exposure.
  So if we take them out of a tough setting, a setting where they are 
not exposed to the culture, to the education, to other opportunities, 
language skills, and we put them back into that in some type of a 
minority hiring program, what have we done to these students? We have 
done them a great disadvantage.
  So this has been one of the great, fundamental debates that is going 
on here. It is not just about dollars or number of dollars into these 
programs, it is about the quality of the programs, how the taxpayer 
dollar is spent, to give the flexibility. There are small districts and 
there are small areas in rural areas with disadvantaged students who 
have no opportunity to participate because they cannot afford the 
administrative overhead that this requires. They would not grant us the 
flexibility to do that.
  We did get some concessions. Let me describe some of them in the 
legislation that will pass, I hope. We have provisions, and our side 
insisted on language and literacy growth assistance for children. We 
proposed new education performance standards and measures. We are 
asking for legislation that ensures that children, and listen to this, 
that they develop print and numeracy awareness, that they understand 
and use oral language to communicate for different purposes, they 
understand and use increasingly complex and varied vocabulary, they 
develop and demonstrate an appreciation for books, and in the case of 
non English speaking children, progress towards acquisition of the 
English language.
  I think back to my grandparents, all of whom were immigrants. If 
their children had gone to public schools and they had not been given 
the opportunities we are talking about here and the exposure, if we had 
put them into another immigrant or minority setting, if we had not 
exposed them to the language skills, if we had not given them the 
opportunity to learn English, where would my parents and others in my 
family have gone?

                              {time}  2245

  So, we have lost track of where we wanted to go with this program. 
We, as Republicans, want to bring accountability. We want to bring 
quality to Head Start. We support Head Start. We will fund Head Start. 
But the battle is about how the dollars are expended and what are the 
results with taxpayer dollars. Because there are many Americans who 
work very hard to send their money to Washington. They want that money 
spent on programs that assist those most in need.
  We are a very compassionate society and we have a responsibility 
because, again, those children, if they do not develop these skills, 
they will be our discipline problems, they will be our learning 
problems, they will be our dropout problems, they will be our crime 
problems, and we will pay for them at the other end.
  So, it is important that we fund viable Head Start programs. That we 
have flexibility, but we also have accountability. That we reach out. 
We are now serving in Head Start 830,000 students. With just a little 
bit of flexibility in my community, if they had granted me that 
flexibility, I could have sent half the kids to the best preschool 
programs and sent the other half to any program of their choice, if 
they had granted us a little bit of flexibility.
  So, instead of serving 500, we could have served a thousand. But, 
again, this need to control things here in Washington, to maintain the 
bureaucracy, the control, and set all these regulations in one box, 
whether they serve Central Florida or a rural area in Texas or Michigan 
or whenever, they did not want to do that.
  So, that is what this fight is about tonight. The battle is not 
because Republicans do not care about education. In fact, the battle is 
because Republicans care about education and they care that in fact we 
are not getting a return for our tax dollars.
  I would like to also take an opportunity to talk tonight about 
another issue which I think is very important. We have heard the other 
side talk about children and how they are concerned about children and 
care about children. I think it is an area that we

[[Page H10664]]

need to talk about as Republicans, as majority members.
  I came to this Congress, Mr. Speaker, in 1992 when Bill Clinton was 
elected President. When Bill Clinton was elected President, he began a 
dismantling of our drug enforcement programs. I spoke more than any 
other Member on the floor of the House and in committee about what was 
going on.
  Bill Clinton dismantled interdiction. He dismantled use of the 
military. He dismantled the Andean strategy to stop the drugs at their 
source. He hired Joycelyn Elders, the infamous Surgeon General, our 
chief health officer, who said ``Just say maybe'' to our children. He 
took the Coast Guard and the military out of our fight in the war on 
drugs. Just one disaster after another, and we are paying for it today.
  We have the highest incidence of drug use and abuse, particularly 
among our children, that this Nation has ever seen. From 1992 to 
present, the statistics for heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, hard 
drugs has skyrocketed.
  In today's paper, in the Washington Times, there is a big article 
about cocaine cartels taking on a new product, heroin. Heroin that has 
killed so many in my district. Let me read what Tom Constantine, the 
Drug Enforcement Administrator, said in this article. And I quote,

       ``For years we have seen a hard-core, older population of 
     approximately 600,000 heroin addicts. Today, we are seeing 
     11th and 12th graders turning to heroin. These initiates are 
     at the outset of a long, downward spiral into hard-core 
     addiction or death.''

  That is what has happened. In every area, our young people, some in 
the elementary schools, are now exposed to hard drugs, cocaine, heroin, 
methamphetamines. We have 15,000 deaths, many of them teens. I come 
from Central Florida. I have held this up many times on the floor of 
the House, Orlando number two in cocaine deaths. Long out of sight, 
heroin is back killing teens. We have lost nearly two dozen teens in 
Central Florida to drug--heroin and cocaine--abuse just in the last 
year or so. It is almost becoming routine to see our young people 
dying.
  Let me tell my colleagues what the Republicans have done. During the 
Democrat administration, we held one hearing on the national drug 
policy and that was closed within an hour and I was denied the 
opportunity to speak. Under the leadership of the Republican Majority, 
we have held over 50 hearings on our national drug policy. Part of the 
battle and part of the reason we are here is we wanted 3 additional 
billion dollars to reorganize and reinstitute the programs that 
were cut, the interdiction programs that were cut, the source country 
programs, the involvement of the military and the Coast Guard that were 
cut by this President.

  Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here tonight, because there is a 
major battle looming on the streets and in the communities across our 
land dealing with drug abuse and misuse. It is an incredible sad 
commentary on this administration.
  And also I am concerned about the American people when they have a 
couple of dollars in their pockets that they do not care or express 
concern or outrage that this is allowed to go on. And it affects them 
in every community, because crime is tied into this drug use and abuse 
in every one of our communities.
  It is particularly affecting our young people. Again, this 
administration has ignored any hard steps in this fight. Now, today, 
they are still fighting us, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert), the chairman of our Subcommittee on National Security, 
International Affairs, and Criminal Justice is fighting to put the 
dollars that we need to stop, in a most cost-effective way, drugs at 
their source.
  We know where the cocaine comes from. It is coming from Bolivia. It 
is coming from Peru. It is coming from Colombia. And there is no reason 
why we do not have the resources, the dollars spent there to stop drugs 
at their source or in interdiction where we can stop them. Trying to 
catch them when they get into our communities is like going out on the 
lawn and having a lawn sprinkler and running around with cans trying to 
catch all the sprinkles. We will never do it in that fashion, but we 
can restore the cuts that were made in 1993 through 1995 that destroyed 
our ability to repel drugs at our source.
  That is why we are here. We are here to improve education. We are 
here to correct the mistakes of 40 years. Again, well-intended but 
misguided, and very liberal solutions which have gotten us into a fix 
in education that appalls every teacher, every parent, and every 
American who takes a serious look at public education today.
  We are here because we are having a battle over where we put our 
resources. Do we put our resources in failed programs? Do we put our 
resources in programs that are cost-effective that stop drugs at their 
source, that restore the cuts in the Coast Guard that bring the 
military back into this battle so we stop heroin, cocaine and hard 
drugs before they ever reach our shores?
  We have 2 million Americans in jail, and any sheriff or any law 
enforcement official will say that between 60 and 70 percent of those 
folks are in prison at great public expense because of drug abuse and 
misuse.
  So, my colleagues again we come before the American people. We are 
winding down. Some of the easier bills are behind us. We have 13 bills 
to fund the government to make our system of government work. 13 bills. 
Eight or nine of them have been decided upon. The tough ones are still 
to go. But they are very important and they are very important 
differences in the American people and every colleague should know 
those differences.
  Our intent again is to do the very best job for the people who sent 
us here with their hard-earned tax dollars. So as I conclude, I thank 
the Speaker for his indulgence this evening. It is my prayer and hope 
that we can work together to resolve these differences; that we can 
learn from the mistakes that have been made in the past; that we can 
come together in the best interest of the American people, the children 
that are talked about so much, whether it is education or drug policy 
and resolve these source social problems facing our Nation.

                          ____________________