[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 50 (Tuesday, April 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1919-H1925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    OVERWHELMING NEGLECT: THE ARITHMETIC OF FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sweeney). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is recognized for 60 
minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to clearly label my discussion 
this evening with a topic. I want to call it ``Overwhelming Neglect: 
The Arithmetic of Federal Aid to Education.''
  Overwhelming Neglect: The Arithmetic of Federal Aid to Education, and 
I am pleased that this special order has fallen in a period when there 
may be large numbers of school-going youngsters, students in high 
school and elementary school and junior high school, awake, and maybe a 
few will be listening.

                              {time}  1715

  I want to address a large part of my remarks to those students, and I 
assure them that what I have to say will not be complicated. I am not 
going to talk in terms of complex and abstract ideas. I am going to 
talk about the simple arithmetic of Federal aid to education, no higher 
mathematics, no logarithms, no differential equations and calculus, 
nothing complicated, just simple arithmetic.
  I want the students of America out there attending school to join me 
in trying to educate my colleagues here in the House of Representatives 
and in the whole Washington decision-making arena. There is something 
wrong with decision-making in Washington at this point about education, 
something radically wrong.
  I think we need the children, the students, younger minds, to come to 
the aid of the decision-making circles here. We have some decision-
making circles with closed minds. We are hemmed in and smothered by 
some conventional thinking and we need a breakthrough, and I am going 
to call on the children of America to help us make this breakthrough.
  There is some simple arithmetic we should start with. The arithmetic 
begins with an allocation of priorities here in terms of time and 
attention and money based on the priorities that are established by the 
American people. In other words, we live and die by opinion polls here 
in Washington. Public opinion polls are very important to the 
Republicans, they are important to the Democrats, they are important to 
the White House. Everybody is concerned about what the public thinks 
and we spend a lot of time and energy discussing public opinion polls.
  There are a large amount of resources committed to finding out what 
is it that the public thinks. The impact of public opinion polls, of 
course, can be tremendous on public policy. We saw the impact of public 
opinion on the impeachment proceedings which the Republican Party 
insisted on going ahead with despite the fact that common sense, as 
reflected by public opinion, the common sense of the American people 
dictated that it was a wasteful venture, kind of a silly venture and 
that is what it turned out to be. So public opinion can sometimes be 
ignored by powerful forces here that refuse to listen.
  Right now we have a war in Kosovo which public opinion, I think, will 
play a great role in determining what else do we do, where do we go in 
terms of United States policy.
  For good or ill, sometimes public opinion is not so desirable in 
terms of the results that I think we need. I did not agree with public 
opinion when we had a dictator, self-imposed Army dictator, in Haiti 
for 3 years. They got rid of the lawful government and they sat there 
and they would not move, and negotiations went on and on and on.
  I wanted to go in and restore the rightful president of Haiti, 
elected leader of Haiti, and if it took troops to do that, armed 
intervention, then I was in favor of that. Two-thirds of the American 
people said no. Two-thirds of the Congress said no. I am glad that the 
President did not listen to public opinion in that case. I am glad that 
he went ahead and took some decisive action and it all worked out in 
the interest of not only the people of Haiti but in the interest of 
democracy in this hemisphere.
  I am glad that Abraham Lincoln did not listen to the opinion of his 
cabinet when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. All the votes 
were against the Emancipation Proclamation which set the slaves free, 
but he went ahead and signed it anyhow.
  So there are times when public opinion, I admit, I may not agree with 
it but we do listen to it. We do listen to it.
  I want to call upon the decisionmakers in this Congress and in the 
whole Washington arena to listen to public opinion on the issue of 
education. Public opinion has been speaking not sporadically but 
consistently over a long period of time about the priority it assigns 
to education.
  The great majority of the American people say that government 
assistance to education ranks highest on their list of priorities, and 
it has been among the top priorities in the last 5 years.
  Education consistently, the American people say, needs help. We need 
government at every level to do more for education and certainly we 
need the Federal Government to do more because the Federal Government 
really does very little in terms of dollar value. The Federal 
Government is responsible for less than 8 percent of the total budget 
for education in general. That includes college education, where most 
of the money goes. So the Federal Government should do more. The public 
keeps saying that.
  Just to refresh everyone's memory, let me cite the polls generally. 
Whether taken by Republicans or Democrats, they are saying that 
education ranks number one. Seventy-four percent of the American people 
consider education as a number one priority. We might think it is 
Social Security because we hear more talk about saving Social Security. 
Among the elected officials and political leaders of both parties, 
Social Security is on everybody's lips. So Social Security is 
important. However, it is the second highest concern. Seventy-one 
percent rank Social Security as the highest priority.
  Crime reduction is the third. Health care reform is the fourth. 
Eliminating poverty is the fifth. Tax cuts are the sixth. Jobs, number 
seven; getting rid of the national debt, number eight;

[[Page H1920]]

campaign finance reform, number nine. Here is a list of priorities with 
education at the very top.
  By the way, I have not mentioned defense. Defense expenditures and 
increases in government aid for defense does not even score. It is not 
on the chart. It is not on the chart. It is not ranked. So one would 
think that the priorities that we set here in Washington would have 
some relationship to the priorities which public opinion has set. One 
would think that there would be a correlation between what the American 
people say they want government to do and what we are actually 
proceeding to do here in Washington, in the Congress and in the White 
House.
  Is there a priority? Is there a correlation? Well, on the surface, it 
may seem so because on the surface we have a lot of talk about 
education. Both Republicans and Democrats have all seized the issue in 
terms of public relations and spin, in terms of getting out press 
releases, in terms of posturing. Everybody wants to make it appear that 
they are concerned with education.
  However, when we look at the budget, when we look at the arithmetic, 
we find that there is a very shallow commitment. When we look at the 
arithmetic, we will find that education is not a priority. The 
arithmetic of the budget, the allocation of resources, of dollars, it 
places education way down on the list of priorities. Defense, which is 
not even in the top ten, defense is the highest priority for both 
Democrats and Republicans, if we measure priorities according to the 
amount of money they are willing to appropriate.
  Now, defense we often say is the business of the national government; 
the Federal Government is defense, so it is natural that defense should 
be the very highest priority. But why a big increase in defense at a 
time like this? Why do we have to have a tremendous increase proposed 
for defense before the arms intervention in Kosovo?

  We have to pay separately for that. Most people do not know it, but 
the defense budget is for something else besides fighting wars. When we 
went into the Gulf War, we had to have a special appropriation for 
that. Any special armed intervention, any deployment of our forces in 
large measure, we have special appropriations. So we are going to have 
to have a special appropriation for Kosovo. We are already in 
Yugoslavia, to the tune of $8 billion. Our armed forces are in 
Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, and part of Croatia and carrying out a peace 
plan. So we have spent up to $8 billion already. All of that money is 
appropriated on top of the defense budget.
  So let us leave out Kosovo for a moment, although I think that Kosovo 
is certainly important to what I have to say today, and I am going to 
mention Kosovo because I think Kosovo is an example of how the military 
strength of the United States is very important in the present world.
  We are the last superpower and Kosovo certainly would not be possible 
if it were not for the participation of this American superpower in 
that intervention.
  What do I think of that intervention? I think it is very important 
that the American people support the intervention into Kosovo, just as 
I thought it was important to intervene in Haiti and to follow up a 
long list of various efforts that were made to resolve the problem 
peacefully. We negotiated and we negotiated and we negotiated but the 
predators in Haiti, the vicious, savage people who were killing people 
every day and killed nearly 5,000 of their own people, they were not 
about to back down just via negotiations.
  Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, Serbia, is the same breed of 
character. He is a sovereign predator. He and his gang are in control 
of the tanks. They have control of the machine guns. They have control 
of the arms might of the Nation and they are not about to stop the 
genocidal destruction of Kosovo. They are not about to stop it via 
peaceful negotiations.
  I want to pause and comment on Kosovo because a strong nation must be 
strong across the board, and our military strength is very important 
for now and for the future. Even our military strength is weakened and 
jeopardized by the fact that we are blind to the need for a greater 
investment in education. We are blind to the need to make the 
investment now in order to guarantee that we will not have shortages in 
the future anywhere, shortages in our military personnel who are 
capable of running a high tech military operation or shortages in the 
civilian sector, in any area of the civilian sector, information 
technology, teachers.
  We have a lot of shortages that have been projected as a result of 
the fact that not enough people are being educated in this country. Not 
enough people are in the colleges now in various fields that are 
threatened with great numbers of vacancies. To be specific about the 
military, the aircraft carrier that we launched recently, the super 
aircraft carrier like none other in the world, was short of personnel. 
Almost 300 staff members that they needed for that aircraft carrier, 
they could not find them. They were short of personnel. They could not 
fully staff the last great aircraft carrier that was launched by the 
United States Navy.
  Why could they not staff it? We have a Nation of almost 260 million 
people. In a nation of 260 million people, we cannot find enough people 
to staff an aircraft carrier? It is because we are not talking about 
simple bodies. We do not need just a physical body, a man or a woman to 
stand there and staff the aircraft carrier. We need people who have 
some orientation, some orientation toward a computerized world and can 
be trained to run a high tech aircraft carrier. They need a certain 
kind of people. They still need certain kinds of people.
  There are other shortages. Already I mentioned in Kosovo, we have got 
shortages of fuel tank pilots, tanker pilots. One might have picked 
that up if they were listening to the news, because it came out in the 
regular news. One does not have to listen to C-SPAN to get serious 
things like that. I think I heard it twice. I think I heard it again on 
C-SPAN, but certainly I heard it on the regular news. Tanker pilots in 
shortage. They are going to find other shortages soon. In a high tech 
world where we cannot just take a body, an individual and throw them 
into an activity and expect them to perform, we need educated people.
  So it does not matter where we look. Economic security or military 
security, whatever, it is threatened by the fact that we are not 
measuring up to the economic challenge.

                              {time}  1730

  Now, back to Kosovo, do I think we should be in Kosovo? Do I think 
that should be a challenge that the American superpower should take on, 
the so-called, what I like to call, in agreement with President 
Clinton, the indispensable Nation?
  We are the indispensable Nation in terms of certain kinds of 
activities in the world. In this particular instance, I do not think we 
would be in Kosovo if this indispensable Nation did not play an 
indispensable role.
  I was going to make a statement on the Floor earlier, but did not get 
a chance today, so I am going to make my statement on Kosovo right 
here, because I do think it relates to education. It relates to the 
need for the indispensable Nation to have the most educated population, 
not only military, but we need more diplomats, we need more people who 
are able to deal with the details. We need all kinds of specialists to 
take care of the various kinds of problems of the world which require 
people who have a great deal of technical competence.
  On Kosovo, I call Kosovo a campaign of compassion. It is a campaign 
of compassion, and this Nation should be proud of the fact that it has 
provided a leadership role in this campaign of compassion. The U.S.-
NATO military intervention in Kosovo is not driven by any vested 
interests, any financial interests, or any strategic hidden agenda. 
That is not the case.
  There are some cynics who say, well, we would not be over there if it 
was not for something. Tell me, I would like to know. Are we in Kosovo 
because we are afraid that the price of oil or gasoline will go up? 
They used to say that about the Gulf War, that we had to protect our 
supply of oil, and we had a vested interest. But Kosovo does not have 
any oil. Yugoslavia does not have any oil or minerals of any great 
importance to us.
  Somebody said in a joke the other day that we are in Yugoslavia to 
lessen the competition to Ford and General Motors for the building of 
autos. They

[[Page H1921]]

were making fun of the Yugoslavian automobile industry. The Yugoslavian 
automobiles have not caught on in the world.
  We have to search very hard to find some vested interest we could 
pinpoint of the United States in Yugoslavia. We would have to search 
pretty hard to find a vested interest we could pinpoint with respect to 
most of the NATO countries. We are not in this by ourselves. It is the 
NATO countries, including Great Britain and France. France has provided 
a great deal of moral leadership. I understand the people of France are 
clearly articulating the reason why they think this is an important 
intervention.
  The NATO nations, the United States and the other nations, are 
motivated by great moral interests and high standards which require 
that civilized people never again should tolerate any rationalization 
for genocide.
  I would like to repeat, these NATO nations and the United States are 
motivated by great moral interests and high standards which require 
that civilized people never again should tolerate any rationalization 
for genocide.
  Our Nation's generous commitment of resources and the large-scale 
risks of American lives, and they are already being risked, those 
pilots are risking their lives. With people over there in the fervor of 
just getting ready, just loading material and so forth, many people can 
die by accident in that kind of atmosphere. But certainly people who 
fly those missions are risking their lives. Even before we move to the 
level of ground troops, large numbers of lives are being risked. We are 
doing that already.
  The large-scale risk of American lives, not in the pursuit of the 
usual narrow vital interests, but to protect the sacred lives of human 
beings that we will never know personally, this action represents a 
laudable and noble national action.
  The Roman empire only dispatched its legions to achieve greater 
conquest. This American indispensable Nation has deployed its armies in 
an unprecedented campaign of compassion. This is a campaign of 
compassion.
  Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, the Hutu 
generals of Rwanda, Slobodan Milosevic, we can call the roll of 
sovereign predators who have used murderous ethnic scapegoating to 
seize, to hold, and to expand their powers.
  The oldest trick in the world is to scapegoat. Scapegoating even 
existed where there were no ethnic groups involved. Scapegoating, in 
fact, the whole description of it is an actual goat. The dead and dried 
carcass of a goat was used in some villages when there were plagues or 
hunger and famine, and people were so downtrodden and angry and bitter 
and hopeless that they would pull together the dead carcass of a goat 
and they would heap all of their rubbish and stuff, and the symbolism 
would be that all the evil and all the disease and everything in the 
town and in the village would be heaped on this thing, and it would be 
driven out of town or dragged out of town. Scapegoating was done even 
without having another ethnic group.
  But in the history of humankind, scapegoating has become a very 
convenient vehicle for demagogues. Demagogues throughout time find it 
easy to come to power. The easiest way to power is to brand somebody as 
the enemy, and to set yourself up as the savior of your group against 
that enemy. It has been done repeatedly, and any group that happens to 
find itself in a minority is likely to be victimized.
  It is not because the minority has something wrong with it. African 
Americans have often absorbed a whole lot of self-hate, and they think 
that there was something wrong with them, that they allowed themselves 
to be enslaved for so long, and that it is because of some curse in the 
Bible, it is because of some genetic inferiority. They believe the 
white folks who say that African-Americans are inferior. They have 
taken in a whole lot of guilt and inferiority feelings, and they said, 
this is the reason why we are persecuted.
  No, there have been minorities in history who have been superior, who 
have been acknowledged as being superior. It does not matter whether 
you are accused of being inferior or of being superior, but when they 
are ready, the demagogues are ready to take advantage of a situation 
and they need scapegoats, they will seize upon and utilize the weakest 
element of the population. Just being the minority guarantees that you 
are going to be in the line of victimization.
  The Jews in Germany, they were too rich, they were too educated, they 
were too accomplished in the arts, too accomplished in the sciences, 
they were despised because they had achieved too much. It did not 
matter, if it had been just the opposite they would use another kind of 
excuse. This is the process that demagogues use to come to power.
  The most recent demagogue, of course, that we are dealing with is 
Slobodan Milosevic. People say, well, they have been fighting in the 
Baltic for years and we cannot do anything about that, because they are 
going to do that. It is ancient hatreds.
  Well, there was a period of several decades where Kosovo was given 
its autonomy, and the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians lived together in 
peace. In fact, all of Yugoslavia has been falling apart for the last 
15 years, but all of Yugoslavia was united under one banner for several 
decades.

  The answer to that, they say is Tito. Tito was a Communist. He made 
them do it. I do not pretend to know how it all happened. I am not a 
historian. I am not a sociologist. I think there ought to be a study 
made of how did they hold it all together. Even under communism, there 
are no magic formulas.
  But nevertheless, these people, they say, cannot live together in the 
Balkans. They are always going to fight each other. But they did live 
together. In Kosovo there was a solution. Slobodan Milosevic wrecked 
the solution. He took away the autonomy. He started the problem.
  We have been negotiating with him for 8 years. How long do you 
negotiate before you realize that there is no profit to this so-called 
peaceful negotiation? Slobodan Milosevic is a sovereign predator. He is 
in the vein of Hitler, Stalin, the Hutu generals, Hutu leaders of 
Rwanda who massacred the Tutsis. They needed to come to power fast, and 
they just used the hatred of people to scapegoat and come to power.
  From ancient Egypt to Kosovo, the demagogues repeatedly have used the 
same methods and found a willing mass of supporters. The United States-
led resistence to genocide in Kosovo shows that finally we have not 
only learned a vital lesson in history, but now that knowledge has also 
provided us with an imperative for painful but effective action.
  We are not just looking back at what happened when Hitler killed 6 
million Jews and the world stood by and did nothing. We are not just 
regretting that that happened, but in this particular instance we have 
been forced to come to grips with a decision.
  As a Nation, I am proud of the fact that public opinion in this case 
is behind the President, who has made a very difficult political 
decision and moved forward on this venture that becomes more complex 
and violent every day.
  The U.S.-led resistance to genocide in Kosovo shows that finally we 
have not only learned a vital lesson of history, but now that knowledge 
also provides an imperative for painful but effective action.
  Slobodan Milosevic should have been declared a war criminal 8 years 
ago. Diplomatic patience has been cleverly manipulated by this 
sovereign predator. Better late than never, however. We must now 
declare Slobodan Milosevic a war criminal, and send a clear message to 
all of his confused civilian followers, now mobilizing in their 
neighborhoods under misplaced banners of nationalism and patriotism.
  For more than 8 years the citizens of Serbia and Yugoslavia have 
failed to marshal internal sovereign resistance to the genocidal 
policies of their dictator. Their popular will, majority complicity 
with evil, is the true cause of the present conflagration in the 
Balkans. It is not the designs of NATO, it is not the vested interests 
of the United States, it is not some kind of outside desire to 
humiliate the people of Yugoslavia and Serbia. It is the majority 
complicity with evil that has allowed Slobodan Milosevic to stay in 
power that has led to this conflagration in the Balkans at present.

[[Page H1922]]

  War is hell, and we extend our prayers to innocent victims on all 
sides. War is hell. We need to pray for all those people who have been 
caught up in this.
  Most people are innocent, because only a handful control the power, 
the tanks, the machine guns. But the refusal to watch the repeat of 
Hitler's death pageant is our duty. It is our duty to refuse to watch a 
repeat of Hitler's death pageant.
  There are some who say that because we cannot stop genocide 
everywhere, we should refuse to stand against genocide anywhere. People 
are saying, well, you are not doing anything about Tibet, you were not 
doing anything about genocide against the Kurds in Iraq, you did not do 
anything to help the Tutsis in Rwanda, so why are you in Kosovo? 
Because we cannot stop genocide everywhere, we should refuse to stand 
against genocide anywhere. That is the logic they have.
  We reject that logic. We cannot save them all. We could not save the 
Tutsis in Rwanda. We cannot save the Kurds in Iraq at this point, the 
Tibetans in China. But the world can take united action now in Kosovo.
  In this clear and present instance, a portion of the civilized world 
has both the capability and the will to stop genocide. I am certain 
that the angels in heaven are applauding these bold and brave actions. 
Since the civilian electorate of Serb-Yugoslavia has not been willing 
or not been able to save itself from totalitarian disease, and because 
a minority of military monsters with tanks and machine guns can hold 
the majority of a Nation hostage, outside intervention is sometimes the 
only antidote to a spreading poison.
  Decades of autonomy was the peaceful solution that Milosevic 
eradicated. Let the Kosovo campaign of compassion send a message to 
sovereign predators everywhere. Sovereign predators will not be allowed 
to savagely devour human rights. Diplomatic condemnation of genocide 
will always be a certainty, and sometimes military confrontation will 
also be possible.
  I appeal to progressive thinkers everywhere to lay aside their fuzzy-
minded analyses and remember the Hitler syndrome. Remember the Hitler 
syndrome. ``Never again'' must not be an abstract slogan. Each one of 
us has a duty to take a forceful position.
  We should all be proud of the fact that this indispensable Nation has 
both the will and the power to reinforce the foundation of a 
compassionate civilization.
  I make this statement in the midst of my discussion of education 
because I think that, as the indispensable Nation, the last remaining 
superpower assuming great responsibilities in the world, our citizenry, 
the people out there, including the students who are still awake and 
attending high school and grammar school and listening, they certainly 
ought to understand and know or be stimulated by my remarks to go and 
do more research, if you wish.
  We need to move on all fronts. We need a peace academy in this 
country that is as big as West Point. We have a peace academy, by the 
way. Look it up on the Internet, or do some research on the peace 
academy. We have a budget for a peace academy, a very tiny budget. I 
know, because it was under the jurisdiction of one of the subcommittees 
that I served on at one time.
  The peace academy is very important, and understanding how to make 
peace, how to negotiate. What shall we do about the world court at the 
Hague, which is responsible for trying war criminals, or how 
significant should that be? It should be given a greater role in the 
present situation and in our present modern day society.
  As we go toward the future, we need to have as much energy and effort 
put into studying how to make peace as we have in the process of making 
war.

                              {time}  1745

  Education. The Peace Academy would have a big education budget, not 
as big as West Point maybe, but it needs a big education budget.
  So back to my major topic, overwhelming neglect, the arithmetic of 
federal aid for education. What I am trying to say tonight is we are on 
the verge of making a great mistake in America. We can act with great 
nobility and great bravery and courage in emergency situations, and we 
have done that.
  In the case of Kosovo, it is an emergency which the machinery of our 
government, starting at the White House with the leadership of 
President Clinton, the machinery of our government has gone into motion 
to provide support for the foundations of a compassionate civilization. 
This is a great compassionate crusade to stop genocide in Kosovo.
  So while I am applauding the expression of the American people, which 
is what such an action is, I would also like to caution us and warn our 
Nation at this point. The way we are responding to the education 
crisis, there is a crisis, we are not educating the kinds of people, 
the numbers that we need for the future. We are not educating at a 
quality level to deal with a complex future.
  I think we are going toward a cyber civilization, a cyber 
civilization, which is very complex. We need not fear it because it has 
already created miracles. It will continue to create miracles.
  There is a future out there which is possible where some of the most 
difficult problems and burdens that mankind faces will be able to be 
resolved because of the nature of this cyber civilization that we are 
going into.
  So, as we prepare for that, we have to understand that an investment 
in education is the one thing we must do. We do not know all of the 
pitfalls. We cannot project and predict everything that is going to 
happen. But one thing is clear, we need the most educated population 
possible, and we need more people educated. We need better education.
  Right now we are failing to do that, to respond to the need for that 
kind of investment. We are failing to respond to the clear clarion call 
of our own people.
  The common sense of America is amazing sometimes, the common sense of 
American people. They sense, they understand, they feel that education 
is very important. Across this country, most people have never 
graduated from college.
  But in this Congress, 99 percent of the people have graduated from 
college. In Washington, all of the decision makers and the 
bureaucracies, the White House, everyone, they are all graduates from 
college. They have all benefited from our great education system. Yet 
they are blind, they are blind to the need to follow the lead of the 
American people and make education our number one priority.
  There are some of my colleagues listening to me who would say, what 
are we talking about? It is our number one priority. We talked about it 
in the Democratic Caucus all the time. We talk about it in the 
Republican Caucus all the time. We have made great statements to our 
party about how important education is.
  It is all a bit strange when this talk adds up to peanuts in the 
budget. The arithmetic of the budget does not show that we understand 
that education is important.
  Let me give my colleagues a little of that arithmetic. As I said 
before, it does not take a genius to figure these figures out. The 
billions and the millions might confuse us sometimes, but this is 
simple arithmetic.
  Defense is not on the list of the American priorities. Highways and 
transportation are not on the list of American priorities. Remember 
that as I talk.
  Right now the budget for public schools, elementary and secondary 
schools in America, this Federal Government is giving $22.6 billion in 
assistance. This is probably less than 5 percent of the total budget 
for elementary and secondary education assistance because the States 
and the localities provide most of the money for the education.
  The Constitution does not require the Federal Government to assume 
the responsibility for education. People are always repeating that. 
Since the Constitution does not require the federal government to 
assume the responsibility for education, why should we make a great 
investment at the Federal level in education?
  Well, the Constitution does not require the Federal Government to 
assume responsibility for highways and roads. That really has always 
been traditionally a State and local function. But we are spending 
$22.6 billion for public schools, elementary and secondary education, 
$22.6 billion right

[[Page H1923]]

now. The budget for highways and transportation, most of which is 
highways, is $51.3 billion.
  Where did we take on the responsibility of roads and highways from 
the local and State governments? Somewhere down the line, because it 
was important. I think it is important.
  Last year we passed a bill which authorized $218 billion over a 6-
year period for highways and transportation, mostly highways again, 
$218 billion in 6 years. What we are proposing in terms of school 
construction, however, is $3.7 billion over 5 years.
  Listen. Make the comparisons. $22.6 billion is our total education 
contribution from the Federal Government at this point. But $51.3 
billion, more than twice the amount, goes for highways and 
transportation across the country. Why are we investing more in 
highways? I have no problem. Let us invest in highways. Let us 
understand how minuscule our investment is in education.
  The President, who is in the leadership on education, and I applaud 
the White House leadership on education, the White House has proposed 
to increase the education budget by $697 million this year. The annual 
increase is $697 million, which is more than the Republicans are 
proposing. They are proposing $500 million this year although both 
parties say that they are very concerned about education.
  The increases in the case of the Democrats or the President's budget 
is 5.1 percent. The increase in the case of the Republicans is 3.7 
percent. The increase for the highway budget was 12 percent. The 
increase for the defense budget is staggering. They are proposing $110 
billion at the White House, $110 billion or $112 billion, I forget, 
$120 billion, but no less than the $110 billion, it has sort of been 
fluctuating, $110 billion for defense when the American people did not 
say we need anything in terms of increase for defense. Remember, we 
have got to pay for Kosovo and any emergencies on the side with 
additional funding anyhow.
  Let us take a look at what we are getting per student. The number of 
enrolled public school students in America is 54.4 million students, 
54.4 million students. That means that the Federal expenditure per 
enrolled student at this point is $415 in annual yearly expenditure for 
each student enrolled in public school across America is merely $415.
  If we take a look at the proposed increase this year on a per-student 
basis, the President has proposed to increase the budget by $12.80 per 
student. The Republicans are proposing to increase the budget by $9.20 
per student.
  When one looks at the number of students we have in the schools out 
there and one looks at the amount of money being appropriated, one 
wonders where is the response to the American public opinion polls 
which said that education is a priority. Think about it.
  I have proposed an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Assistance Act, title XI, I have proposed to increase the 
education budget just for construction, school construction, including 
modernization, repairs, and basic technology, wiring of the schools for 
the Internet, et cetera. I am proposing increasing it by $22 billion a 
year over the next 5 years. I want to get close to the defense budget, 
$110 billion over 5 years.
  Twenty-two billion dollars a year would be an appropriate response to 
the fact that education is in great need of Federal assistance. It 
would be an appropriate response to do it in construction because that 
is the simplest way for the Federal Government to help education.
  It would be an appropriate need because that is where we have a need 
for larger amounts of capital expenditures. It would be an appropriate 
place for the President and the Federal Government to intervene because 
it does not involve the Federal Government getting involved in running 
the schools on an operational basis.
  We do not have to get involved in determining what the curriculum 
should be. We do not have to interfere with the internal workings of 
the school that is basically the responsibility of the State and the 
local government.
  So to appropriate, and I do not propose doing it in any way except 
straight appropriation, a straight appropriation of $22 billion a year 
for the next 5 years would not bring schools equal to highways. 
Remember, I just said highways get $218 billion over 6 years. So school 
construction would not come anywhere near the capital outlays for 
highways.
  If we divide the 54.4 million students into the amount of money I 
propose to spend per year per student, we are talking about school 
construction expenditures by the Federal Government would be $416 per 
student.
  If there are young people listening, they are going to go to school 
tomorrow. Talk to your teacher about why is it that the Federal 
Government cannot spend $416 for each student going to elementary and 
secondary education schools. Why can we not spend $416 per student?
  Why do we say we care about education, that the federal government 
wants to help, while the Republicans are out peddling their education 
agenda, saying that they are all for education and want to do something 
great for education, while the Democrats out there are pushing hard, 
the President is certainly stressing education in his program, why do 
they do so little?
  The President is out way ahead of the Republicans. He is proposing 
$3.7 billion for construction. He is not proposing to do it the way I 
want to do it, that is a direct appropriation, put it in the budget and 
appropriate it, he is proposing to do it via a tax credit. The 
Committee on Ways and Means has to approve a tax credit for school 
construction.
  Over a 5-year period, he proposes to make $25 billion available; that 
is, he allows the States and the local governments to borrow $25 
billion. They have to borrow that. In New York, we have to have a bond 
issue on the ballot. Voters would have to vote to borrow some money in 
order to qualify for that Federal program because it only provides the 
interest on the $25 billion. Over a 5-year period, he proposes to pay 
the interest on $25 billion worth of bonds that local governments and 
State governments would borrow.
  That comes out to $3.7 billion over 5 years, roughly, depending on 
what the interest rate is. And $3.7 billion over 5 years is the only 
commitment we have to the school construction, but we have $110 billion 
over 5 years committed to defense in increases I am talking about, 
increases.
  The defense budget is already $280 billion. We are going to increase 
it over a 5-year period by an additional $110 billion.
  Highways are going to be spending, over a 6-year period, $218 
billion. Yet, we propose to spend only $3.7 billion for school 
construction over a 5-year period.
  So take out a pencil and paper and do the addition and the 
subtraction and the comparison. I am not really going to leave here 
with my colleagues believing that the President is not trying. He 
assumes this is all he can pass. I say we need to, from the White 
House, state the case more clearly and call for what is needed.
  The Republican proposed budget for school construction is zero. Zero. 
Nothing. They do not propose anything for school construction 
whatsoever over a 1-year period, over a 5-year period, nothing.
  If we look at the President's construction budget, the only one on 
the agenda, the only one on the table, nobody else has it, we must 
praise him for having a proposal on the table for school construction, 
but if we look at it closely and we divide the number of students in 
elementary, secondary education institutions, in schools, the President 
is proposing $68.50 over a 5-year period for school construction per 
student, $68.50 per student.
  The Republican construction per student of course is zero because if 
we start with zero, we end up with zero. I am sorry, that is per year, 
$68.50 per year, per student. My proposal is of course, as I said 
before, $415 per student, $416 per student when we look at all the 
students.
  My colleagues might say how are we going to evaluate those costs? Is 
that a lot of money, $416 per student times 54 million students, which 
comes to about $22 billion a year. Is that a lot of money?

                              {time}  1800

  Well, $416 per student, compare that with the cost of one combat 
rifle. One modern rifle used in our Army costs how much? $835. Twice as 
much as we are willing to spend, as I propose to spend, per year per 
student on construction. I mean look at it closely.

[[Page H1924]]

  Look at this figure, also. The average annual cost per prison inmate 
in the United States. For each person we put in prison we are spending 
$24,000. The average is around $24,000 to keep a person in prison, and 
yet we cannot spend $416 per student for school construction.
  The average annual cost of a student in school, in terms of operating 
cost, is probably somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000. The annual cost 
per student in our schools, operating costs, ongoing costs, the 
average, when we take the rich and the poor districts, is between 
$8,000 and $10,000.
  I ask my colleagues to do the arithmetic and take a look at it. Is it 
in harmony with what we hear being said about the importance of 
education?
  The governors say education is very important. They have all kinds of 
nickel and dime experiments ongoing that they parade at conferences, 
and parade around about what they are doing about education, but they 
are not willing to spend the money. The governor of New York had a $2 
billion surplus but he would not spend any money for school 
construction. The Mayor of New York had a $2 million surplus last year 
and he would not spend any money for construction in New York City, 
although New York City has a very serious situation.
  In New York City they have large numbers of schools that are 
overcrowded, where students have to eat lunch at 10 o'clock in the 
morning because they have three shifts of lunchroom sittings, but also 
it has 250 schools that are burning coal in their furnaces still, 
jeopardizing the immediate health of students with pollution, and yet 
they would not move. Why are all these people talking about education?
  One of the programs we hear a lot about is the 21st Century Learning 
Centers. Now, that is a worthy program. It is an after-school center 
program, and already we have $200 million committed to that and we are 
going to raise that over the next 5 years to $600 million. When we have 
it funded at $600 million, we will serve about 1.2 million students. 
1.2 million students will be served by this program.
  It is a great program because it deals with the fact that we want to 
end social promotion and have students move on through school but we 
will not dump them. We will give them some kind of after-school help, 
tutorial programs, some summer help. Well, $600 million will only 
provide help for 1.2 million students at best.
  There are 54 million children in elementary and secondary education 
institutions. About a quarter of them, at least one-fourth of them need 
help in this area. How will we provide help for one-fourth of the 
students if all we are willing to appropriate is $600 million?
  It is a great program, but it is a very minuscule program. If we did 
10 percent, one-tenth of the total students, the 54 million, can we 
help that many? Even one-tenth? I think my colleagues can understand 
the dilemma we are facing.
  We need to understand that we are the richest country in the history 
of the world, and at this moment in history we are probably more rich 
than we have ever been. The country is richer than it has ever been. 
The government itself has a surplus. The surplus can be used partially 
to invest in education. We do not have to submit to the stampede to put 
it all into Social Security.
  Again, they are playing the American intellect and the American 
common sense cheap. They are trying to take advantage of people's 
concern about Social Security, to whip us all into a frenzy and say 
that every penny we get in the surplus should go into Social Security.
  Well, the President proposed that we use 60 percent of the money we 
have in surplus for Social Security. That sounds reasonable to me. He 
proposed to use another part of it for Medicare. That sounds reasonable 
to me, because Medicare is health security for elderly people. But then 
we have some left over. We still have a percentage that they are 
proposing no use for at this point, but we know that most of it will go 
into defense expenditures if we do not say that we ought to have some 
for education.
  Education is the key to our future's defense. Our national security 
is all bound up in the educated populace we produce. Education is the 
key to Social Security. How? Because we want a populace that is 
working. We want young people who are working, and they must be able to 
qualify for the high-tech jobs being created every day more and more.
  And if we do not have workers, young people who can qualify for those 
jobs, they will not come out and take the jobs. What we will do is 
contract with overseas corporations. We will send the work overseas and 
companies will do the work overseas who do not pay into the Social 
Security System. The best way to rob the Social Security System is to 
deny the work force the opportunity to earn the money and pay into the 
Social Security fund.
  There are some other ways we can save Social Security, too, but the 
present time-honored way we fund Social Security is through the wages 
of working people. If we have fewer people working, and they have 
already projected that, we cannot avoid the demographics, we are going 
to have fewer people working. But how few? Can we avoid wiping out the 
whole work force because they cannot qualify for high-tech jobs? So 
many will not be able to qualify for high-tech jobs. We have a real 
dilemma here.
  The kind of greatness and the kind of vision and courage being shown 
in Kosovo by our national leaders now we need to apply in the sector of 
education, looking down the road. If we do not do it, we will have a 
great deficit in major areas. This great indispensable Nation is going 
to stumble and fall if we do not have as many people educated as 
possible. Every person that can be educated must be educated.
  It is likely that our posterity will pity us. They may even spit on 
us in the future as they evaluate and analyze our great lack of vision 
at this critical moment when we have maximum opportunity to go forward 
in the revision of our education system. We are in danger of becoming 
the victim of midget minds and tiny spirits. Too much of the planning 
at the Department of Education is being undertaken by midget minds and 
tiny spirits.
  Too many tiny spirits are guiding our caucuses, both the Republican 
and the Democratic Caucus. We are not willing to take hold of where we 
are in modern America and deal with education the way we dealt with the 
GI bill after World War II. We understood the implications of the need 
for a more educated population and we had a massive education program 
in the GI bill.
  A Congressman named Morrill, many years ago in the 1800s, around the 
time of the Civil War, had the vision to see that every State in 
America needed a land grant university. We dealt with it. A big mind 
and a big spirit seized the problem.

  Thomas Jefferson, who created the first State university, the 
University of Virginia, had a vision. The model he established inspired 
Morrill to go on to create land grant colleges and universities all 
across the country.
  The vision of a transcontinental railroad, the Federal Government 
financed the transcontinental railroad. We had the people in Congress 
who had the vision to take hold and to do things in a big way.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bud Shuster) is my hero here in 
Congress. He is a Republican, but he had the vision to take hold of the 
highway problem, the transportation infrastructure problem, and with a 
lot of criticism. He was called a big spender, and still called a big 
spender, but he had the initiative and he used the available power that 
he had to pass a highway transportation infrastructure bill that is 
meaningful. We need it. We need it. We need it far more than we need 
some of the weapon systems that are being proposed. We need it far more 
than we need some of the other wasteful expenditures taking place 
presently.
  We are in danger of becoming, as I said before, the victims of midget 
minds and tiny spirits. We seem to possess the cerebral alertness, the 
statistical understanding that a crisis looms ahead if we do not meet 
the education emergency at the moment. We understand the trends, the 
projections, the inevitability of continued inadequacy in our school 
systems. We comprehend with our heads, but we seem incapable of 
engaging with our backbones and moving forward with our decision-making 
feet. In the education arena we need giant minds and great spirits. We

[[Page H1925]]

need to end the overwhelming neglect of education.
  In the minds of our citizens, the concerns related to national 
defense do not compete with the overwhelming mandate to improve our 
schools. Nothing in the minds of our citizens, the American electorate, 
the people who have common sense out there, nothing in their minds 
competes with education. It is number one. ``It is education, stupid.'' 
It is education.
  Look at the polls, but do not look at the polls and let your eyes 
blink. Here in Washington, in the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, 
we need to act on appropriating and vesting real dollars in an 
education system which will take us into a cyber civilization in the 
future where everybody needs to be educated.
  The dollars that we are willing to appropriate in response to the 
American people's stated concern about education are minuscule. We are 
throwing pennies at a problem which requires billions of dollars. We 
must change our minds.
  If the American people are listening, they might help open the eyes 
and the ears of their own Congressman or Congresswoman. Have them make 
a survey. Even in the richest districts there are often schools that 
need help.
  I challenge every Member of Congress to make a survey and select a 
few schools in their districts and go take a look at what they need. 
There are some places where they need money for wiring for the 
Internet; there are other places where they need money to fix the roof; 
there are some places where they need money to tear down old buildings 
and construct new schools. All over New York City we have schools that 
need money to put in a new furnace and get rid of the pollution and the 
asthma-generating coal-burning furnaces.
  We need to address these issues in our Education Task Force and the 
Democratic Caucus, as well as the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce. Members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce were 
on the floor before, and I want to applaud what they had to say. They 
understand the problem, but I do not think that the solutions that are 
being proposed have yet come to grips with the magnitude of the need.
  We need to spend many billions on school construction. School 
construction is just at the center of the problem, but that is a place 
to start. If we do not meet the need for adequate buildings, safe 
buildings, across America, the Congressional Budget Office says we need 
about $147 billion to just stay even, if we do not meet that need or 
begin to step forward to move toward meeting that need, then everything 
else we propose to do in Washington at any level is fraudulent, 
everything else we propose to do about education.
  We are feeding the people a spin on the problem without coming to 
grips with the reality and the substance. We must go forward and invest 
in education in order to prepare our education system to take us 
forward into a new cyber civilization.

                          ____________________