[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 4 (Thursday, January 27, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H16-H23]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 DEMOCRATIC AGENDA FOR PROGRESS IN 2000

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me say that I am glad to be back.
  I think my colleagues know and I am sure most of the American people 
or many of the American people know that the House of Representatives 
has been in recess, has not had a session, for approximately 2 months 
since we adopted the budget at the end of November for the next fiscal 
year.
  Tonight, of course, the President will give his State of the Union 
Address, which represents really a new opportunity. This is the second 
session of the 2-year Congress. And when we come back today, we know 
that although we perhaps only have about 10 months before the House 
adjourns and the Congress adjourns there is this 10-month period when 
we can pass legislation and get things done that will positively impact 
the American people.
  Of course, the President will give his speech tonight and we will not 
know exactly what is in it until we hear it from him. But we know that 
he is going to talk about how the state of the Union is strong, how the 
country is strong economically, record new surpluses, overall crime 
rate down 25 percent, welfare rolls deeply cut.
  A lot of progress has been made under President Clinton, certainly in 
the 6 or 7 years now that he has been in office.

                              {time}  1330

  But part of the problem particularly in the last year is that many 
times when the President suggests a positive agenda, progressive agenda 
to the American people as he did in his last State of the Union 
address, the Congress, which of course is dominated by the Republican 
majority, the Republicans are in the majority, resists his 
recommendations and do not pass the legislation or provide the 
resources so that we can move his agenda. And so I hope that this year 
that will not be the case again.
  If we look at what happened last year in the Congress, particularly 
in the House, there really was a resistance and most of the President's 
agenda was not adopted. I hope that is not the case this year. I hope 
that this year the Republican majority in the Congress will go along 
with the President's programs. If they differ slightly, fine, we can 
come to accommodations, but let us try to work together to come up with 
an agenda to pass legislation that helps the people and that moves this 
country quickly in a positive way into the next millennium.
  I wanted to talk a little bit about President Clinton and the 
Democratic congressional leaders' agenda for a few minutes if I could. 
What we want to do is to get the job done, if you will, for the 
American people in the year 2000. I am going to talk about a few 
specific points. Basically our Democratic agenda for progress in 2000 
includes, first, repairing, renovating and renewing our schools. 
Second, cutting taxes while maintaining fiscal discipline because 
obviously we want to maintain the balanced budget that we have had and 
the surpluses that we continue to generate. Third, the Democrats want 
to modernize Medicare and include a voluntary prescription drug 
benefit.

[[Page H17]]

  I would say, Mr. Speaker, during the 2 months that we were not in 
session I had many forums, some forums with senior citizens in my 
district, some with just people in general, constituents in general in 
my district. The number one concern that they had was with regard to 
health care. If it was seniors, they were concerned about the lack of 
access and the affordability of prescription drugs. Generally people 
expressed concern about the need for reform of HMOs because of the 
difficulties that they were having with HMOs in getting the health care 
that they thought that they needed.
  Then, of course, I had a lot of my constituents who simply have no 
health insurance whatsoever and want to see what we are going to do as 
a Congress and as a country to provide more options for health 
insurance. But let me continue with the Democratic agenda. I am going 
to go back to some of those health care issues a little later. The 
Democrats' agenda for progress in 2000 also includes strengthening 
Social Security. The President in his last State of the Union address 
stressed that whatever surplus was created as a result of the Balanced 
Budget Act, that that primarily, overwhelmingly, should go to shore up 
Social Security.
  Now, again when I had my forums in the district over the last couple 
of months, many of the seniors expressed concern over Social Security. 
I explained to them that Social Security was not bankrupt and that 
Social Security was sound but that the problem would come in, say, 
another 20 years, in another generation and that we needed to prepare 
now to make sure that for the next generation, Social Security was 
there. The President says the easiest way to do that is to certainly 
put a down payment down for the future by using the surplus primarily 
that is generated over the next 5 or 10 years.
  The other very important, perhaps the most important part of our 
Democratic agenda for progress in 2000 is to enact a real Patients' 
Bill of Rights. Some of my colleagues know that for the last 2 years, I 
have been pushing for this. We have yet to have a conference on the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, on HMO reform. I was pleased to see, I 
believe, today that the Republican leadership indicated that they were 
going to have a conference between the House and the Senate to try to 
work out differences on the Patients' Bill of Rights, on HMO reform, at 
some time next week or very soon. I applaud them for that but I think 
it is crucial that we have a good, strong Patients' Bill of Rights and 
I will insist on that as one of the conferees, because this is an 
important issue and if all we do is put together some makeshift reform 
that really does not do anything, some Band-Aid approach, the American 
people are going to hold us responsible and say, ``You didn't get the 
job done,'' so we need a strong Patients' Bill of Rights.
  The other important part of our Democratic agenda for progress in 
2000 is to raise the minimum wage. We all know that the economy is 
strong. We know that this economy has generated hundreds of thousands 
of new jobs. But the bottom line is there are a lot of people who work 
and who basically do not make enough money, even though they are 
working full time or have two or three jobs, because their salaries, 
their wages are so low. We need to enact legislation that was primarily 
sponsored here in the House by our minority whip the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Bonior) to raise the minimum wage. Finally, we also need 
to pass legislation to fight hate crimes, another important part of our 
agenda.
  What I would like to do, Mr. Speaker, if I could, is to go through 
some of these items individually. I see my colleague here from Texas. I 
do not know if he wants to join me now. If he would like to I would 
certainly yield to him.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to just 
congratulate the gentleman for outlining the items. Especially I know 
he has been in the forefront when it comes to health care. I know one 
of the concerns that a lot of Members had and in conjunction also with 
the constituencies that are being serviced by managed care systems, 
that a lot of them are concerned that they do not have any appeal 
process. I know that we have been trying to push forward in allowing 
that opportunity that when individuals are denied access to health 
care, that they can be able to appeal. One of their concerns is that we 
will have too many lawsuits. I am here to attest to the fact that in 
Texas we have allowed for that appeal process to exist and we have not 
had the number of lawsuits and we have had the accountability on the 
part of the managed care systems to be a little more responsive. I 
think that the Patients' Bill of Rights needs to go through and we are 
hoping that it will. I am here just to thank the gentleman for that.
  I know that he has also been in the forefront when it comes to 
prescription coverage. In the area of prescription coverage, it just 
does not make any sense now that in Medicaid for indigents we provide 
prescription coverage, yet when it comes to our senior citizens we do 
not. That to me just does not make any sense whatsoever, at a time when 
we know that we want to take care of our senior citizens, that 
prescription coverage is also a very instrumental effort and tool to 
take care of illness. As we all well know, when Medicare started, that 
was not the case. We did not use prescriptions as much as we do now for 
taking care of our patients. That is something I think that now is 
really important and we have got to make sure that that happens.
  I am also very pleased that we have moved and are beginning to take 
care of our uninsured. We have the largest number of uninsured in Texas 
and it is unfortunate that Texas also was unwilling to provide any 
local resources. Most of the resources for the CHIPS program, the 
children's program, are resources that were provided through the 
tobacco lawsuits. There is a real need for local communities to come 
forward, also, and help out in that process as the Federal Government, 
the President has moved forward in providing the uninsured children of 
this country an opportunity to have access to health care. As our 
leader in this area, I want to thank the gentleman for allowing me the 
opportunity just to say a few words and to thank him for his efforts. I 
look forward to working with him during this particular Congress.

  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman for his kind words. I am 
really pleased that he is here because I think that his State really is 
a model for so many of the things that we have been talking about here 
on the House floor over the last year with regard to these health care 
concerns. If I could just comment on some of the things the gentleman 
said, with regard to the Patients' Bill of Rights, in many ways the 
Texas legislation, which has been in force now for a couple of years, 
is really a model for the Federal legislation, not only in terms of the 
basic rights that are provided to patients to protect them against the 
abuses of HMOs but also in terms of the liability provisions. It is 
kind of interesting, because I noticed that the majority leader, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), who for a long time has resisted, as 
long as I can remember he has been resisting the idea that there would 
be any ability to sue under Federal law, sue the HMO, finally came 
around today to saying that he would provide some limited ability to 
sue. Again, we are going to call him to task on that, to make sure that 
the Federal legislation that comes up here does provide the ability to 
sue as a last resort. I am sure that to some extent, though, he was 
probably saying that because of the Texas experience, because if we 
remember, when the Texas legislature was considering something like the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, there was tremendous opposition to any 
ability to sue on the grounds that the litigation would be forever and 
everybody would be suing the HMOs. I remember back in November when we 
last convened, at that point I think in the 2-year life of the Texas 
legislation, they had only had two people file lawsuits, maybe two or 
three people file lawsuits. That just totally denigrates the idea that 
somehow by allowing lawsuits against the HMOs that we are going to have 
all this litigation.
  But the other aspect the gentleman mentioned is just as important. In 
other words, the problem is if we give people all these rights to 
prevent abuses by HMOs but they do not have any ability to enforce it, 
what good are the rights? We all know that. In our Patients' Bill of 
Rights that passed the

[[Page H18]]

House, we have an internal appeal process. Then we also have an 
external appeal process, the idea being that if the HMO internally 
denies a person the ability to stay a few days in the hospital or a 
particular operation or procedure that the person and their doctor 
think they need, they can go outside the system without going to court 
and have an external review board look at it that is not dictated or 
controlled by the HMO. So we have that external review process before 
you would even have to sue in court. Texas has the same thing. That is 
one of the reasons why they have so few suits, is because these things 
go to an external administrative review and at that time usually the 
HMO reneges and lets people have the operation or procedure they think 
is necessary. Texas is really out front and very progressive in this 
regard. We need to do the same thing on the Federal level.
  The other thing the gentleman talked about with the prescription 
drugs, I just find so many of my seniors coming to me at the forums or 
at the office and talking about the problem not only with price but 
also the inability to have any kind of benefit under Medicare. We have 
seen so many cases, the gentleman has probably seen them in Texas, too, 
as a border State. I am maybe a little more familiar with the Canadian 
example where people have been going across the border to Canada to buy 
drugs because it is so much cheaper. We know the majority of Americans 
who are seniors have no access to prescription drug benefits. That is 
really crucial, too. That is going to be part of the President's agenda 
and the Democratic agenda again.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. If the gentleman will yield further, we do have an 
experience in South Texas. In fact the gentleman is aware of the 
studies that we did in reference to the expenditure for certain 
prescriptions. When we looked at those prescription coverages and how 
much they cost, for a person with an HMO or the government, the prices 
ranged almost 25 percent less. The senior citizen was sometimes having 
to pay up to 300 percent more for the same medication. The same 
individuals that are paying for it are our senior citizens. Basically 
at the expense of our senior citizens, we are causing this to occur. I 
think the President is correct in saying that we need to come back and 
reassess that and that Medicare also has the responsibility to provide 
prescription coverage. I think that this is something that needs to 
occur, that needs to happen. For all practical purposes, the way it is 
now, it does not make any sense. We give it to our indigents but we do 
not provide it to our senior citizens. In fact, not only do we not 
provide it to them but we charge them 100, 200 to 300 percent more for 
the same prescription. We are basically robbing them. That is not 
right. We need to do whatever we can. I am hopeful that this time 
around there is a feeling that we can do a bipartisan effort in making 
something happen in this area. I am optimistic.
  We have a unique opportunity as the gentleman well knows. It is an 
election year. We are all up for reelection, including Democrats and 
Republicans, both in the presidential and in the Congress and so it is 
a unique opportunity to ask our constituents to put the squeeze on 
their local official, their local Congressman and the presidential 
candidate, Republican or Democrat, to make it happen. I think it is 
something that most people feel it is the right thing to do. When we 
are asking our senior citizens to pay 200 to 300 percent more for the 
same prescription, it is not fair, it is not right, and we need to do 
something about it.
  Again, I thank the gentleman very much for being here and taking the 
lead not only in terms of some of the health issues but a lot of the 
other issues that are before us. I thank the gentleman for allowing me 
the opportunity to say a few words.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman again. I was just going to 
say there was one very positive development, I think, with regard to 
this prescription drug issue. That is, that a few weeks ago, I am sure 
the gentleman noticed that the major pharmaceutical companies, a lot of 
which are based in my State of New Jersey, announced that they were 
going to stop opposing a prescription drug benefit and speaking out 
against the President's proposed Medicare prescription drug benefit and 
were going to try to work with him to come up with a solution. I took 
that as a very positive development and contacted some of the 
pharmaceuticals in New Jersey which have their corporate headquarters 
in New Jersey in trying to work with them to accomplish that.

                              {time}  1345

  On a somewhat negative note, though, I noticed that my colleague, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), revealed some documents that 
had been circulated by some of the pharmaceuticals last week where they 
indicated that they were still going to be spending money and doing ads 
and doing things to try to oppose some of the efforts to keep the costs 
down.
  I would say that there are two things here. We need the Medicare 
benefit, but we also need to have affordable drugs. It is also 
important for the pharmaceuticals, as I know the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman) has said, that whatever benefit we provide has 
to be an affordable benefit as well in terms of buying drugs. Because 
if there is some kind of benefit but the costs keep going up and 
ultimately people cannot afford it, the benefit does not do them any 
good.
  So we need to have the benefit, but we also have to have 
affordability and I think kind of empower people to be able to act 
together so that they can keep prices down.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. That advertisement that has been going on with Flo 
that comes out and she talks to our senior citizens, she is covered. 
She is taken care of right now with prescription coverage, but our 
senior citizens out there that are straight Medicare are not. I would 
attest the majority of Americans out there only have the straight 
Medicare and do not have prescription coverage.
  For Hispanics and a lot of our minorities and especially those 
individuals that have worked in areas that do not have any form of a 
pension, which a lot of people that have worked for small companies, do 
not have that extended care. So it is important that we reach out to 
those individuals and that we provide that care.
  I think that it is about time that we come back and kind of look at 
that. I know that throughout history, when it comes to health care, we 
have had some endeavors of trying to take care of and provide health 
care in terms of universal, across the board, and that occurred in the 
1930s with Roosevelt, 1960s with Kennedy and Clinton in the 1990s. 
Ironically enough, we have not been able to do that, and I am hoping 
that we can soon start talking about also those uninsured that are out 
there.
  The uninsured, they are over 44 million and growing, and I would 
attest that if the economy was not doing as well as it is that we would 
have a lot more uninsured, and that is something that is very scary 
because a lot of people are out there that are in need, and these are 
people that are not poor enough to qualify for medicaid, not old enough 
to qualify for Medicare and are working Americans that fall in between. 
So there is a real need for us to reach out to that population as well 
and the uninsured.
  We have been doing those efforts with the CHIPS program, the 
children's program, but there is a need for us to push forward. I am 
hoping that the insurance companies, because they have been, in all 
honesty, an obstacle in the past; and I look at Medicare and the 
reasons why we were able to establish Medicare when LBJ was because of 
the fact that the insurance companies recognized that when people 
reached 65 they got sick, and that is when they did not want us, that 
is when they wanted government involved at that point in time. And if 
they were poor enough they knew people did not have money so they did 
not mind government being involved in medicaid because, after all, they 
were too poor to pay for that insurance.
  Now we have this middle class that cannot afford it, do not have the 
access and are uninsured out there; and there is a need for us to 
provide some alternatives. And I am hoping that the private sector can 
participate in that effort and we can be able to come up with some kind 
of response.
  Again, from Texas, we have the largest number of uninsured, the 
largest throughout the country. I am not proud to say that. Yes, we 
should be

[[Page H19]]

proud that we have passed some legislation on HMOs that are far-
reaching in terms of appeal process, but some of those areas we are 
still lacking. So we are hoping that as we look at this session that we 
can concentrate on some of those specific areas and try to meet some of 
those needs.
  Mr. PALLONE. Well, again, I appreciate the gentleman bringing that 
up. The gentleman says that Texas has the largest percentage of 
uninsured, but this is a problem that is national. Six years ago, when 
President Clinton first proposed the universal health care plan, which 
I think was a good idea and if we did not have all the opposition from 
the insurance industry and the Republicans that we probably could have 
worked something out that provided universal coverage, but now over the 
last few years we have been trying in some of these areas, as you 
mentioned, with the kids' health care initiative in particular, to try 
to plug up the holes and cover some of the uninsured in sort of a 
piecemeal fashion.
  It has been working, but even with that, even with the Kennedy-
Kassebaum bill to deal with the problem of people having preexisting 
medical conditions not being able to get insurance and a lot of them 
can even with the kids' care insurance, we still have the number of 
uninsured growing nationally. We have to do more.
  One of the things that the President is going to announce tonight is 
a major new initiative to try to expand on some of these health care 
Federal programs to provide more coverage for the uninsured. If I could 
just mention a couple of things that I think are very significant, with 
regard to the kids' care initiative as well as Medicare, he has major 
proposals to spend money and to do outreach so we can get more kids 
signed up both for medicaid as well as the kids' care program. Because 
we have had a problem getting kids signed up, I think that one of the 
major reasons why they do not sign up is because, many times, those are 
the same parents of those children who are uninsured, and what the 
President is proposing now is to expand the kids' care initiative so 
that the parents of those uninsured kids can also sign up for insurance 
using the State and the Federal subsidy that is provided with 
additional funds that he is going to include in his budget. I think 
that is a great idea. We need to make sure that we get all the kids, 
but if we can get those parents in that will help.
  Then the other thing the gentleman talked about is to try to build on 
the private sector. Because the main way people traditionally obtained 
health insurance and still do in this country was through their 
employer, and if we can create financial incentives for employers when 
they hire people to make sure that they provide a health insurance 
option, that will go a long way as well. This is a major issue.
  The other thing, too, is I am sure the gentleman heard that during 
the break a lot of the States are really worried about this now and 
they do not know what to do. I know New York and Wisconsin and other 
States are trying to come up with ways that the States can provide for 
the uninsured, but they are never going to be able to do it effectively 
without some Federal initiative. I think it is important to have that 
Federal initiative.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. One of the things I want to share with the gentleman 
and one of the concerns that I have and I will share with the gentleman 
the Texas experience in that the legislature moved for pretty good 
coverage overall but it is only funded at 55 to 65 percent, which means 
that even if they cover all the kids they are supposed to they are only 
going to cover half of the need that is out there.

  One of the things that the gentleman mentioned that I would like to 
stress is that there were very little resources that were actually 
allocated for allowing individuals to educate people as to the fact 
that those monies were even available and so that if people do not take 
advantage of that it is not going to do any good. It can be out there, 
but that is one of the problems that we encounter in Texas is that they 
did it and they passed it, but if they do begin to utilize it only half 
of the people are going to be able to have access to it.
  I wanted to share one other thing I think that is very important. I 
sit on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. From a veterans' 
perspective, and I have seen a lot of the documentation for veterans 
where they were promised access to health care and were not given that 
access to health care and there is a real need and we are pushing for 
it this time around to try to make something happen to provide access 
to health care for our veterans. Last year we moved on providing them 
additional monies for the ones that are in military raises as well as 
the pensions. This year we also want to concentrate on health care for 
our veterans, and we are looking at providing up to $5 billion that is 
needed to make sure that those individuals are covered.
  Last year, we had a big fight on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs 
when we tried to add up to $3 billion for access to our existing 
services. We were able to add up to $1.5 billion, but that was after a 
big fight and only after that money came from future resources. So it 
is kind of like giving a raise right now with the intent that next year 
that that money was coming out of future years. So we are in a deeper 
hole and we find ourselves in a problem and we have an obligation to 
our veterans to provide them access to health care, and throughout this 
country we have a multitude of veterans and the services have not been 
there. It has been poor access, and the quality also leaves a lot to be 
desired.
  So we are hoping that as we move along this year that we look at 
access to health care for our veterans and also look at what we can do 
with TRICARE for our people that are in the military.
  I have people that are in the border areas that will have to travel 
200 miles to San Antonio to have access if they wanted to. Those are 
some of the areas that we really need to kind of look at a little more 
seriously and pay a little more attention to. Those veterans deserve 
what we have promised. We have gone back on our word as a Congress. We 
can blame the administration, but we as congressmen also have an 
obligation, and that obligation is to make sure that we hold up to our 
word to make sure that those veterans who served our country and 
protected us and have protected our democracy that we also assure that 
they would have access to health care.
  I am hoping that we will also move in that direction.
  Mr. PALLONE. I totally agree. It is interesting because I remember 6 
years ago when President Clinton first talked about his universal 
health care plan, he had a very important proposal in there to expand 
programs for veterans as well. Again, we have not been able to fulfill 
that, and we need to. We need to make sure that the veterans' health 
care system is adequately funded and that we look at new technologies 
and new ways to do things for the next millennium because otherwise we 
are not meeting the commitment to them.
  So I want to thank the gentleman again.
  I yield now to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. 
Norton). I have not been back here for some time now, but I am glad to 
be back and hear from the gentlewoman.
  Ms. NORTON. I would like to welcome the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Pallone) back personally and to welcome all of my colleagues back. 
We have missed the gentleman, and we are ready for a very productive 
year.
  I would especially like to commend and thank the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for his initiative. He has been so much on the 
case for these issues for a number of years now, so I am not surprised 
that he would come to the floor and offer others of us an opportunity 
to come to the floor before the State of the Union speech this evening. 
I want to thank him for all of his hard work on the issues that face 
this House. There is no one more indefatigable in forcing us to face 
the issues than the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).
  I think it is a very good idea for us to look, pick out, among the 
many issues that the President will raise this evening, some which 
deserve to be highlighted. I must say that as I look down the subjects 
that are likely to be covered I see a very bipartisan agenda that the 
President will offer. This may be his last year in office, but it is a 
year that the Congress will be under the microscope as well to see if 
we can do better than we did last year by coming up with some substance 
to take home to the American people.
  The President of the United States in this very Chamber last year put 
on the

[[Page H20]]

table what became the mantra for the entire country: Save Social 
Security, reduce the deficit. That now, as I hear both sides of the 
aisle, is no longer the mantra of the President, or maybe our side, but 
everybody, the whole country, is saying save Social Security first; pay 
down the debt. We don't hear other issues rising to the level that we 
hear those issues, and I think that the President deserves credit 
because that is what a President is supposed to do. That is what the 
State of Union speech is for. He did that last year, and this year I am 
sure that will be a major part of his theme.
  As I look down this extraordinary list, I will choose only two issues 
to comment upon. I must say that I see so many items on this list that 
I think can rally the support of Members on both sides: Doing more, as 
our country and only our country can do, to prevent the global spread 
of AIDS and to prevent the spread of AIDS in our country which is 
increasingly becoming a disease of the poor, the black and the brown; 
expanding the EITC, one of the great bipartisan programs, especially 
now when so many people are reaching the limits in their own States of 
their ability to stay on welfare.

                              {time}  1400

  There is creating smaller schools, so that there is less of a 
critical mass of large numbers of students anonymous enough so that we 
have other Columbines.
  And of course there are the rising issues that were raised last year 
that I do not think we can go home without. I do not think anybody can 
face their seniors without prescription drugs this year. And of course, 
HMO reform or the Patients' Bill of Rights is so much overdue that I 
see the two sides coming together on those.
  There are many other new issues that the President has put on his 
agenda such as the smart gun technology initiative, but I would like to 
focus on two issues that the President has raised. One is investing in 
modernization of schools. The other is increasing support for civil 
rights enforcement.
  Let me say a word about investing in new and modernized schools. This 
issue has been on the agenda 3 to 4 years now. It is dangerously 
overripe. The President wants a tax credit to modernize over 6,000 
schools, and $1.3 billion in funding for 8,300 renovation projects in 
high-poverty, high-need school districts that do not have any capacity 
to make these repairs themselves over the next 5 years. We have 
children in trailers. We have children going to school in slums.
  But I say to the gentleman from New Jersey that I want to draw to the 
attention of the body how our government, this Congress, has dealt with 
urgent matters like this affecting how we house students. In the 
sixties and seventies we poured, what amounts to ``poured'', billions 
of dollars into public and private colleges and universities to allow 
them to borrow from banks to obtain funds to construct classrooms and 
dorms. That is what we did for people going on to higher education.
  So Members of this body went to school, slept in dormitories, took 
classes in classrooms that essentially were funded out of a Federal 
program, an old loan program, that subsidized interest payments during 
the lifetime of payments so that the effective interest rate of those 
who borrowed to build classrooms and dormitories was 3 percent less 
than the actual rate.
  Something close to that notion is what has been on the agenda for the 
last several years. The President has now switched to a tax credit 
instead, because we were not able to get a subsidy for the interest 
payments. What this would mean, for example, to colleges and 
universities, where they were mostly middle class folks, is that if the 
colleges, for example, borrowed at 10 percent, then the effective 
interest rate was 7 percent. What that meant was that a lot of us were 
able to go to school and classrooms and dormitories that were decent, 
and decent only because of this.
  In other words, the Congress saw that there was a real need, and they 
did not say, look, go to your State legislature do that. They knew that 
enough money to do it was not going to come from the States. We in fact 
found a way to subsidize this.
  I ask Members, I ask the gentleman from New Jersey, does he not think 
if we could do this in the sixties and seventies for college students, 
then in the nineties, and as we are now in a new century, we can do 
something similar for kids in school who go to school with leaky roofs, 
who go to school where there are rats, who go to school in trailers?
  This is essentially the kind of moderate proposal that the President 
has offered, recognizing that he is dealing with a Congress which has 
people of many different points of view, so he does not come in and 
say, give them the money. He says, allow a tax credit to modernize up 
to 6,000 schools.
  Can we possibly go home again without a proposal similar to this, I 
ask the gentleman from New Jersey?
  Mr. PALLONE. The answer, obviously, is yes, we need to do it. I am 
trying today not to start out with a partisan statement, but the bottom 
line, we know that when the President has tried over the last 2 years 
to come up with some kind of way to help with school modernization, the 
different bond proposals, the different ways of helping the local 
municipalities, the Republicans have just opposed all these things. So 
he just keeps coming up with innovative ways of trying to get this 
across.
  I think this is a great idea, and I have to say, I was listening to 
what the gentlewoman said about the need for smaller schools, 
modernization. Every district has this problem with either crumbling 
schools or overcrowded classrooms and the need for money to build new 
schools.
  I have the combination. My district is one where we have some smaller 
urban areas where I have seen crumbling schools that need new roofs and 
new gyms and all that, and other, more suburban towns that I represent 
where they are in trailers and they talk about how they may have to go 
to split sessions because there has been so much of an influx of new 
people, and they have not been able to keep up with it.
  I think the school modernization program is crucial. Of course, we 
have not mentioned the fact that the president has been and we have 
been somewhat successful in getting the Republicans to provide funding 
to reduce class size at the lower levels, because the gentlewoman 
talked about smaller schools. Smaller schools to me means not only 
smaller schools physically, but also smaller classes, so there is more 
individual attention.
  Even that was opposed by the Republicans. We had to go tooth and nail 
until we finally got more money to reduce class size and hire more 
teachers.
  The other idea that the President came up with with regard to higher 
education is so crucial. Again, when people talk to me about education, 
their biggest concern is the ability, whether they are going to be able 
to send their kids off to college. The costs are just skyrocketing.
  In New Jersey, where we send most of our students out of State 
because we do not have enough slots in-State for them, it is a 
particular crisis. So what the President has proposed in terms of 
helping parents and students to pay for higher education I think is 
crucial. The gentlewoman is right on point.
  Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman. I want to say a word about one 
other issue.
  Of course, as a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, I am always pleased to see something on the agenda that 
relates to civil rights enforcement. A few weeks ago I was at the White 
House with a 101-year-old woman from the District of Columbia who had 
lived through reconstruction, through Jim Crow, all here in this city, 
which had legal segregation.
  The President announced that he would be submitting money for civil 
rights enforcement, at $695 million for civil rights enforcement. This 
of course is an issue that by now should bring us all together. This is 
not about affirmative action, which is an issue where we are in some 
substantial disagreement with some on the other side. This is about 
sheer enforcement, as more and more people come forward not only to the 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but to many of the civil 
rights agencies.
  I have been able to find common cause with Members from the other 
side on these issues. In fact, I can recall amendments in the 
appropriation process where we worked together. I

[[Page H21]]

certainly hope this money to increase civil rights enforcement will in 
fact be forthcoming.
  The President announced just this week a special appropriation to 
bolster the Equal Pay Act and equal pay enforcement and opportunity. 
The gentleman may remember that in this very Chamber, not a very 
bipartisan Chamber, at this time last year when the President mentioned 
equal pay for equal work, somehow everybody in the Chamber got off her 
and his bottom to applaud, and that is because this issue has now 
become an American issue, it is no longer a woman's issue, because men 
have seen that their wives, who have the same education that they have, 
somehow bring home less money.
  It is time we stopped talking about it, stopped sloganizing it, and 
do something about it. So the President has put in $27 million for an 
equal pay initiative for enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and for other 
purposes related to enforcement.
  I like and I hope all of us will like the part that says, to teach 
business how to meet the legal requirements. We think that one of the 
reasons that there continues to be unequal pay is that business has not 
been well educated on this important section that has been in the law 
since 1963. It was passed before the laws barring discrimination on the 
basis of race were passed.
  If in fact we use the traditional apparatus, we can come together on 
the widely-hailed notion of equal pay. I believe that the President's 
proposal will help us.
  There are other things in his equal pay proposal that go to helping, 
for example, the Labor Department to improve its own work on training 
women for nontraditional posts, because once women are in 
nontraditional posts the pay begins to come up automatically.
  We have huge equal pay problems in this country still, stemming 
largely from the fact that women are pouring into the work force. They 
still continue to go disproportionately into traditional jobs. We still 
see women seriously undervalued, even in those jobs.
  If we look at women in my profession at all, we will see women 
earning less money than men who enter the profession. There is lots of 
work to be done there. When the President takes initiative on civil 
rights enforcement, on equal pay, then we are putting our money where 
our mouth has been for a long time.
  I want to thank the gentleman for his work on this special order and 
for allowing me to highlight some of the issues of special importance 
to me.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman. I share 
her praise for the President's equal pay initiative.
  If I could just say one thing about the additional funds for civil 
rights enforcement, one of the things that I worry about, and having 
been back in the district for the last two months now, my district, not 
the District of Columbia, is that I just see a lot of cynicism on the 
part of my constituents over commitments, if you will, or promises that 
they see the government making in sort of general terms that when it 
gets to the specific do not happen.
  That is why I think it is important. If a civil rights violation 
occurs, there has to be enforcement. Otherwise it is meaningless. That 
is true whether it is the environment or whatever it happens to be.
  So many people will say to me, the law says this, but in reality, it 
does not mean anything. That is why I think it is so important that 
there be increased enforcement, and obviously there will not be unless 
we provide the money up front to hire the people to do the work. So I 
think that is crucial, and I appreciate the gentlewoman bringing it to 
our attention.
  I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Madam Speaker, I just want to share, I know the 
gentlewoman is here from the District of Columbia, and I was appalled 
to see the condition of our schools here in the District of Columbia. 
It is embarrassing to the Congress and it should be embarrassing to all 
of us, because that is one school district that we are held responsible 
for and obligated to have to provide resources for. I am ashamed that 
we still have those conditions.
  The gentleman talked also about our schools throughout the United 
States. One responsibility we have is to make sure that we provide that 
construction money to make sure that we allocate those resources. A lot 
of those schools, in all honesty, were built prior to the microwave. If 
anyone lives in an old home like I do, they know they have to go back 
and redo the wiring, if nothing else. So there is a real need for us to 
reinvest in our infrastructure as it deals with education. So I am very 
pleased that the President is pushing forward on new construction.
  I also want to add a little bit in terms of the importance of the 
digital divide. The administration, President Clinton has been in the 
forefront in allowing additional resources for new technology. Without 
that technology, a lot of our youngsters in our country would also fall 
back. There is a real need for us to prepare ourselves, not only our 
students but our adults, our mid-management throughout the country, to 
make sure we are well-trained in the new technology.
  I know a lot of resources are needed for us to go back to school. 
That includes a lot of the Congressmen, to make sure we can work with 
the new computers. But doing that is going to be key in order for us to 
compete as a country. I think it is going to be very important that we 
allocate some resources in that technology and that we prepare our 
youngsters. Part of that is having access.

                              {time}  1415

  Most of our poor communities throughout this country do not have a 
computer at home. But if they could, we could provide it to them in our 
libraries, in our schools, in our universities; and we have started to 
do that, but a lot more needs to be done. We still have a lot of 
schools that are not computerized and do not have the new technology, 
and I think that that is one of the things that we need. Not only do we 
need it in terms of ourselves, but I really see, as a way of leading 
this world, if we are going to continue to be the leading country, we 
are going to have to be in the forefront.
  One of those indicators is going to be the level of our education. I 
sit on the Committee on Armed Services; and when it comes to our 
national defense that should be our first priority, making sure that we 
educate our constituency, making sure that everyone is well prepared. 
Because that is part of our defense, and that is part of a showing that 
we are going to be in the forefront when it comes to economics. So I am 
hoping that we will continue to do that with President Clinton in his 
last year.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Texas. I 
was thinking when I saw the gentlewoman from Washington, D.C. (Ms. 
Norton) there that I remember, I do not know if it was 6 months or a 
year ago, the memory fades now, but there was an occasion when she 
asked us, and we marched from the Capitol to a nearby school, it was 
within walking distance of the Capitol, and I cannot remember the name 
of the school, and we had a march.
  When we went there, she showed us this very innovative public school 
within the District of Columbia. I could not believe the enthusiasm 
that existed in that school. One of the things that they had, which I 
think is somewhat unique, is that all the kids were wearing school 
uniforms, which is something that I know that the President has 
proposed. I do not mean to just dwell on that. But there was just a lot 
of excitement in that place.
  But one of the things I kept thinking about is we keep talking about 
innovation, and one can put school uniforms in schools and one can come 
up with other things, but one cannot function, one cannot be very 
innovative if the place is falling apart literally.
  I think it is incumbent upon us to provide the resources so that 
schools are modernized. Modernization and the President's program for 
modernization is not just bricks and mortar, it is also for the 
Internet and for the electronic and the technologically innovative 
things that the infrastructure for those kinds of things are included 
in that modernization program as well.
  As my colleague says, what good is it? We cannot expect kids to use 
the Internet if they do not have the computers. They are not going to 
be able to have the money to do it at home, so we

[[Page H22]]

need to make sure that it is available in the schools. The school 
modernization program deals with that as well as providing the funding 
so that the town can build it, put a new roof on the school as well.
  I was amazed. I went to a school district, a school a few years ago 
in New Brunswick, which is one of the urban towns that I represent. 
Their roof was leaking. The walls were crumbling. It was unbelievable. 
I think a lot of people think that the school buildings generally are 
in good shape. But if they take a look and they go to some of the 
schools where these kids are being educated, they would be surprised, 
even the parents sometimes, to learn how bad it is.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Madam Speaker, sometimes people do not realize, also, 
that the demographics have changed. Just like we needed a lot of 
construction, a lot of new schools in the 1950s and 1960s because of 
the baby boomers, now we are experiencing what we call, what I like to 
call, the baby echo. That baby echo is a larger number. So there is a 
need, also, for additional classrooms because of that large number of 
youngsters in our schools.
  So there is a real need for us to go back and do what these 
individuals did back in the 1950s and 1960s, and that was invest in our 
kids. We need to do the same. We need to invest in our future by 
investing in our kids and also investing in our adults. I really feel 
very strongly that we need to come up with new technological centers so 
that people in mid-management and people that are 40, 50 can go back to 
school and learn about computers and be able to go forward.
  I also wanted to take this opportunity, if possible, to talk to my 
colleague, and I know he is well aware of the issue of safety in our 
schools. We have experienced a lot of violence, and we have had some 
difficulty. There is a need for us to kind of look at the issue of 
safety. I know that when we look at the violence that is occurring, 
there is a need for us to reach out.
  The President does have a program that he is going to be looking at 
promoting safe schools. I recall when I did my town hall meeting with 
school safety I had someone stand up and say, ``Congressman Rodriguez, 
you cannot even control our prisons, and you expect to control our 
schools?'' There was a lot to be said when that was indicated.
  Our prison systems, the way they are run now, if one goes in there, 
unfortunately, if one is white, one better join one of the white 
supremacist groups there. If one is Mexican, one better be part of the 
Mexican Mafia.
  I recall the individual who committed that atrocity in Texas that 
dragged that African American. I remember people talking about that 
young man. They used to say, when he was in school, he never indicated 
or showed that he was that kind. But after he had come out of prison, 
he had come out worse. In so doing, we have got to make sure that our 
society does not even perpetuate more of that.
  So we need to reach out to those schools and do whatever we can to 
make sure that those youngsters feel safe, and part of that is through 
counseling, part of that is through having social workers reaching out, 
because I feel real strongly that schools are only a reflection of our 
community.
  If there are gangs or problems, those gangs exist in those 
communities. That is why we need to reach out and work, and those 
resources in our schools are drastically needed to making sure that we 
can provide that education. Because if the child is not safe, they are 
not going to learn.
  Again, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for allowing me 
this opportunity to be here with him.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, one of the things that I want to mention, 
because sometimes I think that when we talk about these national 
education initiatives, that some of our constituents worry and say, 
well, education traditionally has been locally based, and the Federal 
Government has not really taken that much of a role, and what does all 
this mean if the Federal Government gets involved.
  I just want to stress we are really not changing anything in terms of 
local control of education. I mean, we are not suggesting in any way 
that the Federal Government dictate what teachers are hired or what 
textbooks are used in the classroom or what their curriculum is. All we 
are really doing with this school modernization initiative, the school 
safety initiative, the gentleman from Texas mentioned the effort to 
provide more money to hire teachers so that class sizes can be reduced, 
all we are really doing is helping the local towns afford some of these 
things because they cannot afford them now.
  I am sure the gentleman has the same situation in Texas that I face 
in New Jersey, where the funding for education is primarily locally 
based. The towns just cannot afford these things anymore. Believe me, 
it does not matter if they are an urban area or if they are a suburban 
area. They cannot keep raising the local property taxes to put up the 
new school, to put in to hire people to monitor the hallways for safety 
reasons, to hire extra teachers, to reduce the class size.
  By providing funding for these types of things, which is what the 
Democrats want to do, all we are really doing is helping the local 
taxpayer. Because either they are going to have to bond for these 
things and will not have the money to do it or going to have to raise 
taxes, which is very difficult and creates more problems.
  So all we are really saying is we want to take some of the Federal 
dollars and send it back to the towns for these purposes. We are not 
dictating to them what they do. They have to apply for these things. 
But we are making it easier for them to fund it.
  I do not know a town, no matter how affluent in my district, that is 
not in favor of that. Every mayor, every board of education tells me 
that they would love to see some of this happen.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Madam Speaker, when I started politics, I started on 
the issue of school finance and the fact that the only money one has to 
build one's schools is from one's local community. So if one lives in a 
poor community, one is going to have less resources. If one lives in a 
rich community, there is going to be a lot more resources to educate 
one's child. That is why I got involved in politics, because I saw the 
disparity.
  The gentleman from New Jersey is right. Most Americans a lot of times 
do not realize that the construction of that campus comes from only 
local resources. Just in the last few years has the State of Texas 
decided to help out a little bit. Prior to that, every single building 
in the State of Texas was only through local resources.
  So it varies from district to district, from county to county in 
terms of how much they have and whether they can build more classrooms 
or not. Some decide to splurge and do things that they should not be 
doing.
  But the reality is, yes, a lot of communities throughout this country 
need assistance. They need new technology. They need new wiring. I 
think it is going to be important for us to be there in the forefront 
to provide that technology and that infrastructure that will pay for 
the next generation and our future for this country.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas. 
I think we are running out of time so I want to kind of summarize and 
say that and I see that some of our colleagues are getting ready 
already for the State of the Union Address here tonight. But the bottom 
line is, with the State of the Union, is there is a real opportunity 
for us to work on a bipartisan basis on some of these issues.
  I just hope that this year, unlike last year, we see the cooperation 
of the Republican majority in the Congress working with the President 
and with the Democrats to get some of these things done. Because if we 
do not, I think that the American people are going to be very 
disappointed.
  They clearly want HMO reform. They want a prescription drug benefit 
for Medicare. They want the Federal Government to do more to help those 
who do not have health insurance. They want us to work on some of these 
education initiatives.
  If we do not come through, we only have ourselves to blame. I am just 
really doing nothing more, as I am sure the President will do tonight, 
but to call on the Republicans and the majority in the Congress to work 
with us this year

[[Page H23]]

and not have the negative attitude towards the President's proposals 
that, unfortunately, we had in the last year.

                          ____________________