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