[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 127 (Monday, September 27, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11472-S11473]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EDUCATION

  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about 
education because somehow or another we have ourselves involved in 
competing resolutions about the funding of education when we do not 
know how much education is going to get funded because the 
appropriation bill has not been produced yet. If this were a court of 
law, the Daschle resolution would be dismissed as being premature. 
There is no issue yet. But we will have to debate it and vote on it. 
Before we are finished, the Appropriations Committee that handles 
Labor-Health and Human Services will produce a bill that is more 
consistent with the budget resolution than anything else.
  Regardless of what it looked like 3 or 4 weeks ago, they are going to 
have sufficient resources. Remember, the President of the United States 
advance appropriated, in his function and in his budget, $21 billion. 
We are going to do some of the same things because they are legitimate 
and proper. When you take that into consideration, frankly, the Daschle 
resolution is talking about a nonreality.

[[Page S11473]]

  I can say there is a high probability, and if I had one more 
afternoon to go talk to a couple of Senators on that committee, I would 
predict with certainty--but I can say with almost certainty that the 
subcommittee of the Senate on Labor-Health and Human Services will 
appropriate more money in education than the President put in his 
budget. When you combine what they are going to give, it will be more 
than the President's.
  Is it going to have every single item in it? I do not know. In fact, 
before we vote on the final determination of education funding, the 
Senate will debate the issue on an appropriations bill which I have 
just described which will have more funding in it than the President's. 
We will probably decide in a floor fight on this floor how that 
education program should be structured. I think the occupant of the 
chair knows that Republicans have been working very hard at loosening 
up this money from the strings and rigidities of Washington into 
something that will go local schools in a looser fashion, from which we 
can get accountability and flexibility. We give flexibility and we 
expect accountability. It will not be all the line items the President 
wants, but it will be more money than the President requested.
  So I do not know what we are voting about in these resolutions. They 
are premature. The only guidance we have is the budget resolution that 
Republicans voted for and which said that of the domestic programs, 
there are a number of priorities but the highest one is education. The 
Senator occupying the chair voted for that resolution. In fact, it said 
we should appropriate, over the next 5 years, in excess of $28 
billion--$26 or $28 billion more than we had been appropriating 
regularly under the President's approach. Over 10 years, it should be 
somewhere around $85 billion or $90 billion more. That is the only 
direction and guidance we have.
  That is not binding. But if ever there was something you know you are 
going to do when you pass a budget resolution, it is this because the 
American people think it is right. But the American people do not think 
we are making headway with the existing education programs. They would 
be thrilled if we gave more money and did it differently. Why should we 
be doing it the same old way which we have been doing it, which has no 
accountability and is all targeted whether the schools need it or not? 
They have to put on the same pair of socks and same shoes in every 
school district in America. They have to fit into the same shoes in 
order to get the Federal money, whether they have the problems or not.
  Then we have the great program that we call IDEA, where we told them 
you get started with special education and we will end up paying a 
substantial portion of it. We did not. We cheated. We made them pay a 
lot more than they were supposed to after we mandated it. Under 
Republican leadership, we are putting more and more money into that 
program for special education because we told them to do it, and we 
said we would pay a certain percent and we never came close. We keep 
putting more in than the President. The President complains about some 
targeted program we do not fund, but we fund IDEA and it loosens up 
money the States would otherwise have to spend for a program that we 
mandated, that we never lived up to our commitment on, and that is 
pretty good and we probably will do that this year, provide more 
funding than the President asked for.
  So I don't know, when this 5:30 vote comes, what we are voting on. I 
think we ought to put them both off and let's see what the 
appropriations subcommittee does. But if we do not, I can say I don't 
know why anybody would vote for the Daschle resolution. It is a 
statement of unreality. It is a statement of hypotheticals. It is a 
statement of: Here is how much money they have to spend in that 
subcommittee, so I am going to do some arithmetic and assume everything 
is going to get cut 17 percent. That is about where the 17-percent 
number comes from, but it does not mean anything because nobody 
suggests that all the money Labor-Health and Human Services gets is 
going to be divided the way any Senator currently thinks it should 
be. It is going to be done by a committee that has been doing it for 
many years.

  Those are my two thoughts for the day. I have used about 5 minutes on 
each, and I talked faster than I normally do because I did not want to 
stay down here too long. Other Senators want to speak. I repeat: If we 
cannot give the American taxpayers a cut in their taxes when in the 
past 6\1/2\ years the tax take of America, what we have taken from the 
taxpayers, is up 58 percent--got it?--the tax receipts of America in 
the last 6 years 9 months is up 58 percent. The average check increase 
for American working people is up 11 percent, and the cumulative 
increase of Government annually over 7 years--6 years 9 months--is 22.
  Who was cut short? A 58-percent tax increase, 22-percent growth in 
Government, 11-percent growth in the paychecks of Americans. They need 
some of their money back. That is what that issue is about. If not now, 
when? On education, wait and see. We will do better than the President. 
It will be hard to convince the President, and he will have something 
to say about it. We ought to put up a nice big board and add up the 
numbers when we are finished with appropriations. We will do better 
than he did.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.

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