[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10838]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           WE STILL HAVE TIME

  (Mrs. CLAYTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, eating and learning are two very important 
functions for the young people of this Nation and for my State of North 
Carolina, yet both of those functions are threatened because this 
Congress would rather focus on the President than to fight for our 
children.
  Eating is threatened because we have not yet corrected the provision 
in the 1996 farm bill which are driving small farmers out of farming. 
Unless we allow small farmers access to credit, we are threatened with 
losing almost 57,000 of them. There is still time now to pass the 
agriculture appropriation bill of year 1999 with the corrected 
language. I hold out hope for that.
  Learning is threatened because Congress has not come to final 
agreement on the problems of overcrowded classes and has not addressed 
the problem of crumbling schools. There is still time to pass education 
legislation that addresses both of these problems. We still have time, 
Mr. Speaker, to make sure American children, we can make sure that they 
are fed and that they are learning, but time is rapidly falling aside.

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