[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 34 (Thursday, March 4, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H989-H990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1345
                CONGRESS MUST DOUBLE PELL GRANT FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to join with the gentleman

[[Page H990]]

from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Lewis) on this extremely important piece of legislation.
  In my State of Vermont, and I believe all over this country, one of 
the great concerns that the middle class has is the high cost of 
college education. Everybody knows that in order for our young people 
to earn a decent living, it is increasingly imperative that they have a 
college degree. And, at the same time, everybody also knows that the 
cost of a college education is soaring. It is soaring in the State of 
Vermont. It is soaring all over the United States of America.
  So we have folks in the middle class who are working longer and 
longer hours to keep their heads above water, and then they look at 
what the local college or the good colleges in this country are asking 
and they say, ``How am I, who makes $20,000 to $25,000, or $30,000 a 
year, or $40,000 a year, going to be able to afford to send my kid to 
college, when the best schools in this country now cost over $30,000 a 
year and many cost $15,000, $20,000 or $25,000?''
  And what happens if they have two kids or three kids? How can they 
afford to send their kids to college?
  The answer is, it is increasingly difficult for those families. So we 
have the outrage that all over this country millions of young people 
are unable to go to college, or are unable to go to the college of 
their choice, because they cannot afford it.
  Mr. Speaker, this is absurd. It is not only unfair to the young 
person. It is unfair to the family. It is unfair to this Nation.
  What an absurd policy it is that we waste the human intellectual 
potential of millions and millions of people who want a higher 
education. How absurd it is that in the global economy we throw in the 
towel to competitive nations and say we are not going to have the most 
competitive, best-educated workforce in the world.
  What kind of stupidity is that? What kind of an absurd sense of 
national priorities is it that says that we can afford to spend huge 
sums of money on B-2 bombers, that we can give tax breaks to 
billionaires, but we are not going to help the working families and the 
middle class of this country be able to afford to send their kids to 
college?
  Now, I know that many of the people in the Congress understand that 
in countries throughout the world, in Great Britain, in Scandinavia, in 
Germany, in France, the cost of a college education is not $30,000 a 
year, it is not $20,000 a year, it is not $10,000 a year. In many 
cases, it is zero, because those countries understand that it is a very 
wise investment to make sure that as many of their young people as 
possible can get a college education. We should learn something from 
that.
  Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and I would like to do is to 
double the amount of money we are spending on Pell Grants.
  Some people may say doubling that is a lot of money, $7.5 billion a 
year more. That is three B-2 bombers. There are people in both the 
Democratic and Republican parties who want to increase military 
spending by well over $100 billion in the next 6 years. We give, as a 
Nation, $125 billion a year in corporate welfare to large corporations 
who do not need that money. There are people on the floor of this House 
now who are saying Bill Gates needs a tax break. Billionaires need a 
tax break.
  Mr. Speaker, if we can spend billions on corporate welfare, billions 
on wasteful military spending, billions on tax breaks for those who do 
not need it, we can certainly afford $7.5 billion a year more for the 
working families of this country so that we can move toward that day 
when every person in this country, young, middle-aged, old, will be 
able to get the higher education they need.
  This is a smart investment for America. I congratulate the gentleman 
from Massachusetts and the gentleman from Georgia for their work on 
this, and I will do my best to see that it passes.

                          ____________________