[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 85 (Thursday, June 29, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6103-S6104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, before the Senate are the appropriations 
bills which provide the funding for education, health, and training 
programs. As I have mentioned over the past few days, I respect the 
work by Senator Specter and Senator Harkin in trying to shape that 
proposal. We have some differences, even within the limited budget 
figures that were allocated, in areas we feel were shortchanged. We 
tried to bring some of those matters to the floor yesterday.
  On the issues of making sure we will reach out in the areas of 
recruiting teachers, providing professional development for teachers, 
and mentoring for teachers, we received a majority of the Members of 
the Senate. I believe it was 51 votes. A majority of the Members felt 
that should be a higher priority than designated. Even in the majority 
party, there is a clear indication, particularly against the backdrop 
of the announcements made in the past 2 days with these enormous 
surpluses, that one of the priorities of the American people is 
investing the surpluses in the children of this country.
  I think that is something that needs to be done. We are going to 
proceed during the course of this day on amendments which I think are 
very important. The next one, which will be offered by Senator Daschle 
to deal with issues of genetic discrimination and employment 
discrimination, is very important. We will go on, as has been agreed to 
by the leaders.
  But as we are going through this debate, I cannot remain silent on 
the allocating of resources. We are hopeful, as a result of the action 
of the President of the United States, there will be a different form 
and shape of this appropriations bill by the time it comes back from 
the conference, or by the time it is actually enacted in the fall. We 
are not giving the priorities in the areas of education, and I must say 
even in the health area, that I think the American people want and 
deserve. The principal reason for that is there is an assumption within 
the Republican leadership that there will be a tax break of some $792 
billion. So if you are going to write that into the budget, or parts of 
that into the budget, you are

[[Page S6104]]

going to squeeze other programs. That is really what has happened.
  I daresay that at a time when we are gaining increased awareness and 
understanding about what actually helps children expand their academic 
achievement and their accomplishments, as a result of some dramatic 
reports, which I find compelling--and actually self-evident--we find we 
are really not taking the benefits of those reports and using them in 
ways that can benefit the greatest number of children in this country.
  I think again of the excellent presentations of the Senator from 
Washington, Mrs. Murray, when she spoke time and time again about the 
importance of smaller class sizes. She referred again and again to the 
excellent studies done in Tennessee with thousands of children, going 
back to 1985, that resulted in smaller class sizes, and we find that 
children have made very significant progress.
  I remember Senator Murray mentioning the SAGE Program in Wisconsin, 
which has been enacted in recent years. I myself met these past weeks 
with members of the school board, parents and teachers out in Warsaw, 
WI, who participated in that program and commented about the importance 
of investing in children with smaller class sizes. So we know this is 
something that works. If we are going to have scarce resources, we 
ought to give focus and attention to something that works, as Senator 
Murray has pointed out. I think she brings credibility to this issue 
because she is a former school board member and a former first grade 
teacher herself. She has been in the classroom and knows what works. We 
have been very fortunate to have her presentation on this issue and her 
enthusiasm for it.
  We also know, looking over the recent history, that we have actually 
had bipartisan support for smaller class sizes. We saw yesterday her 
amendment was not successful, but it was very closely fought in a 
divided Senate, and I am hopeful, with the strong support of the 
Senate, we can finally persuade Congress, as we have in the past, to 
move ahead in that direction.
  We have to understand this legislation is going to go to the House of 
Representatives, which has seen a very sizable reduction in its 
commitment to the funding of these various programs. Whatever we do 
here is going to be knocked back significantly. That is why many of us 
were very hopeful we could go ahead and add some additional resources 
so at least coming out of the conference we would have something worthy 
of the children of this country. But we have been unable to do that. We 
have to look back over the years and see what has happened, ultimately, 
in allocating funding resources in the area of education when have had 
Republican leadership. We hear a great deal about the importance of 
investing in children, but the tragic fact is that it is not reflected 
in the requests by the Republicans either in the House or the Senate in 
recent years.
  I remember very clearly the 1995 rescission because I remember the 
debate in 1994, when we had a rather significant enhancement in our 
investment in children. The ink was hardly dry, the results were in, 
and the results of 1994 and 1995 were that we had a very vigorous 
debate on rescinding money that had already been appropriated and 
signed by the President. After the extraordinary efforts made by the 
Republican leadership to actually rescind those funds, we had those 
rescissions in 1995.
  Then the House bill in 1996 was $3.9 billion below what was actually 
enacted in 1995. Then in 1997, the Senate bill was $3.1 billion below 
the President's request; the House and Senate bill in 1998 was also 
below the President's request. This was a time when the Republicans 
were trying to abolish the Department of Education.
  I think most parents feel it is important to have a Cabinet Member 
sitting in the Cabinet room so that every time the President of the 
United States meets with the Cabinet to make decisions on priorities, 
there will be someone in there to say, ``What are we going to do on 
education, and particularly education that is going to affect the 
elementary and secondary schoolchildren of this country, particularly 
at a time when we have exploding numbers of children who are going into 
our classrooms?''
  Nonetheless, what we continue to see, in 1999, is the House was $2 
billion below the President's request; in 2000, $2.8 billion below the 
President's request; and in 2001, $2.9 billion below the President's 
request. This is what has happened.
  Members ask: ``Why do the Democrats try to force these issues? Why 
don't we just go ahead and accept what these appropriations committees 
have done?'' They try to defend their positions with all these facts 
about what is really happening out there in education, but when you add 
them all up, this is what you are finding: The Federal share of 
education funding has declined. If you look at higher education, from 
1980 to 1999, the federal share declined from 15.4 percent to 10.7 
percent.
  If you look at elementary-secondary education, from 1980 to 1999, we 
see a decline from 11.9 percent to 7.7 percent. Only 7.7 percent of 
every dollar spent locally is Federal money, and this is perhaps the 
lowest figure we have had in elementary-secondary education. In terms 
of the amount of our budget, which is $1.8 trillion, this is less than 
one percent. It is less than one penny per dollar. If you combine the 
elementary and higher education, you may be getting close to two 
pennies. That, I think, is what concerns many of us, particularly at a 
time when we are finding out the total number of children is 
increasing.
  We recognize there should be a partnership among the Federal, State, 
and local governments in enhancing academic achievement. We have 
learned important lessons: Smaller class sizes work and better trained 
teachers work. Take the two States that have invested in teachers: 
North Carolina and Connecticut. They are seeing dramatic results in 
academic achievement.
  We have been fighting to provide the resources to do that. That is 
what the debate is about. We have, I think, demonstrated to this body 
and, hopefully, the American people the seriousness of our purpose in 
allocating resources to what the American families want, and they want 
to invest in children and education. We believe that is quite 
preferable to the large tax breaks which have been included in the 
overall budget. We will continue this battle.
  I yield the floor.

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