[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 19, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S312-S313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are finally 
getting to introduce bills today. This is, of course, the first day 
that we have had that option. I want to talk about the legislative 
priorities of the majority party in Congress as well as several of the 
bills that I will be introducing that I believe reflect those 
priorities.
  The leadership of the majority in Congress has just had a press 
conference talking about the opportunity and the security that we are 
going to provide with our major bills and priorities this session. We 
are talking about Social Security reform, trying to make sure we have 
the security for those who have retired. We are going to add to that 
pension reform to give more Americans the opportunity to add to that 
Social Security base. Social Security is supposed to be a base, but 
every American ought to be adding savings, tax free, as an incentive to 
have retirement security.
  We are going to address education as an opportunity, making sure that 
every child in America has a chance to succeed with a public education. 
By that, we are going to give more choices. I will introduce today a 
bill that I call Options for Excellence in Education, to try to replace 
the paperwork and bureaucracy of federal education programs with 
rewards for innovation, excellence, and choice.

[[Page S313]]

  In a bill that I will introduce today, the Options for Excellence in 
Education Act, we are going to give incentive grants to states and 
school districts that demonstrate exceptional educational progress and 
practices that translate directly into better student performance. The 
bill will also build upon a very successful program to place military 
veterans who wish to teach into schools where there is a need for 
qualified teachers by expanding the concept to include civilian 
professionals. Under the program, individuals with special skills and 
experience will be given stipend while they seek teacher certification 
under a streamlined state process so that they can translate those 
skills into benefits for students. We are going to give help to 
expedite certification so that if a retired military or civilian 
professional has the ability, for example, to speak Russian or French 
or has experience in computer science or math, and the school district 
has an unmet need for teachers with those skills, those professionals 
can enter the classroom much more easily and cheaply than they could 
otherwise.
  And then we want to grade the ability of the schools through the 
ability of the children. If those schools that are in the bottom part 
of the achievement levels don't come up, we want to give more 
educational options for their students. States will be able under the 
bill to use federal funds for a variety of school choice options, 
including allowing students to attend another public school in their 
area, the expansion of charter schools, magnet schools, or even private 
school choice if that's what the state wants to do to give kids trapped 
in failed schools the chance to succeed.
  Finally, the bill addresses the need for the construction of new 
schools that so many of our school districts are facing by giving tax 
incentives for the private construction or renovation of public schools 
in low-income and high-growth parts of our country. So that is what my 
Options for Excellence in Education bill that I am introducing today 
will do.
  We in Congress must also address the issue of economic opportunity. 
More people in this country are paying more taxes than ever before in 
our peacetime history. Thirty-eight percent of the average American's 
salary goes to pay taxes to some government entity. Well, I want to 
give more of the money people earn back to them to spend as they wish. 
So one of our key priorities is going to be tax cuts. We are going to 
propose a 10-percent across-the-board tax cut for every American.
  We are also going to supplement that by doing away with the marriage 
tax penalty. Why in the world do we have tax laws that say to people, 
if you get divorced we are going give you $1,400? That is essentially 
what we have today. Twenty-one million American couples pay $1,400 
more, on the average, just because they got married.
  So I am introducing two bills today to grant marriage tax penalty 
relief. The first will allow a married couple to split their incomes 
right down the middle, if doing so would be better for their bottom 
line tax liability.
  The other option for married couples I am proposing to alleviate 
their tax penalty for having said their vows to just double the 
standard deduction. Today, the standard deduction for a married couple 
is $7,100. Instead, we would double the single exemption so it would be 
$8,500. These are things we can do to equalize the tax burden for those 
who choose to be married and those who choose to stay single. So 
certainly in the area of economic opportunity, tax cuts have to be our 
very first priority.
  So we are going to try to do these things and also at the same time 
make sure that we have a strong national defense. Security for our 
country as a whole is the No. 1 responsibility of Congress. So we are 
going to immediately propose legislation to raise military pay.
  I will also soon introduce a bill that will go beyond the important 
issue of pay, and address one of the critical quality of life factors 
facing our service men and women and their dependents--the quality of 
health care for military personnel and retirees. One of the biggest 
complaints that I get when I visit bases in Texas or bases overseas, 
when I am talking to our troops, is they worry about the health care of 
their families. They worry that their families are not getting the 
quality health care that they were promised, that they deserve, and 
that they must have. Beyond that, they worry about what will happen to 
their health care and that of their families if they make a long-term 
commitment and retire from the military.
  So I am introducing a bill that will give more choices to our 
military families so that they can receive quality health care for 
themselves, and for their families, so that we can retain the best 
people in the military. We need to recruit better; we need to retain 
better. To do that, we must pay them a wage that is fair, more 
competitive with the outside civilian life, and we need to make sure 
they and their families have quality health care.
  On top of that, we want to give them the equipment they need to do 
the job.
  Senator Warner, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is 
going to have a comprehensive bill that increases the spending on the 
equipment and on the technology for the future. The main technology 
that we want to deploy immediately is a missile defense system for our 
country. Senator Thad Cochran has introduced a missile defense 
technology bill in this Congress. Last year, he lost that bill twice by 
only one vote. He is going to be up front and center with an absolute 
priority for our missile defense technology, to go forward at the 
earliest moment that we can because we don't have a ballistic missile 
defense not only for our own country and our own shores, but we don't 
have an effective missile defense for our troops to protect them in the 
field wherever they might be in the world. That is not acceptable for 
the world's greatest superpower.
  Mr. President, you can see that our priorities for this Congress are 
fairly simple: enhance the security and expand the educational and 
economic opportunities of all Americans. Security and opportunity. 
Security for America through a strong national defense. Economic 
security for every American to have more of the money they work so hard 
to earn, to give them more opportunities for retirement security, for 
better Social Security, and more pension options, and economic 
opportunity so that every child in America can fulfill his or her 
potential with a quality education. That is what sets us apart from 
every other country in the world--a universal, quality education 
system, which ensures that every child who works hard can reach his or 
her full potential.
  We are eager to move forward with this agenda for security and 
opportunity for our country. We believe we have a solid agenda with 
good bills to back it up. And we are starting today. We are going to 
focus on the people's business. We are going to make sure that at the 
end of this year we can say we have given more Americans the money they 
earn back in their pockets, better retirement security with Social 
Security reform, and the feeling that they can be secure in the quality 
of both their national defense and educational systems.
  I appreciate very much the opportunity to start talking about our 
agenda today, to introduce our bills, to get them into committee and to 
get started on the people's business.

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