[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 110 (Monday, September 18, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1517-E1518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         VERMONT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT CONGRESSIONAL TOWN MEETING

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 18, 2000

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done 
by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this 
summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students 
from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as 
teenagers, and about what they would like to see the government do 
regarding these concerns.
  I am asking that these statements be submitted into the Congressional 
Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit 
my colleagues.

          Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives


                     on behalf of SCOTT DOBROWOLSKI

                  Regarding GUN CONTROL--May 26, 2000

       SCOTT DOBROWOLSKI: I come here this morning to speak on gun 
     control, and as our schools have been noted, there is more 
     and more shootings in our schools. Now legislation has been 
     taking away handguns, assault rifles, many of the weapons 
     that have been used to kill our students.
       Now as I see it, I have been raised with firearms in my 
     home and as part of this I have had a lot of training with 
     them. I have been told right and wrong, whether or not to 
     shoot, what to shoot. I deer hunt. Really a matter of my 
     training as I have been told not to kill people.
       As we have learned there is more and more students killing 
     each other. A lot of these children have been decided and 
     acquitted for not knowing the difference between killing 
     their student and just merely playing around.
       As I see it, there should be more education in school as to 
     avoid the shooting of their classmates. If we started at a 
     younger age, I believe that we could severely delay the risk 
     of having all these shootings. I am not saying hand-on 
     experience with firearms, but more or less just education on 
     right and wrong in our schools because apparently as we have 
     seen, parents no longer care or they are not doing their job.
       My parents at a very young age taught me the difference 
     between right and wrong and responsibility and I feel this is 
     not being done anymore. Frankly, I went to France and instead 
     of fearing the fact that my plane would go down I have a 
     greater percentage of dying in my school because one of my 
     friends might get ticked off because I told him he looked 
     funny and he might shoot at me. I feel this is a great danger 
     and should be stopped at a more recent time where children 
     are more able to be influenced by what happens in their 
     lives.

                                  ____
                                  

          Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives


                      on behalf of NATHAN LOIZEAUX

               Regarding COLLEGE FINANCING--May 26, 2000

       NATHAN LOIZEAUX: Thank you very much. I would like to talk 
     to you about college financing. I am a Mt. Abraham senior

[[Page E1518]]

     right now. I will graduate this year, and I have been trying 
     to get together finances to go to college and I am just 
     realizing how hard it is. Yes, there are a lot of 
     scholarships out there today. I have actually a book about 
     this thick.
       Unfortunately, once you start whittling down parents, 
     grandparents, what activities you are involved in, your 
     heritage, all of a sudden you find out the white male does 
     not have to many scholarships out there, and then not only to 
     top that off, but he has got to compete with everybody else 
     in the state for the exact same scholarships.
       Also my parents and great grandparents started a college 
     account for me. They started saving up money for me. My 
     parents were severely penalized for having a college savings 
     account. I think that is totally wrong. You and people in 
     Congress, people in government want teenagers and high school 
     students to be able to go on to college to get a better 
     education, and in this day and age you need a better 
     education to get a good job. Yes, there are thousands of jobs 
     out there for $6 an hour.
       Unfortunately, you are never going to make it out of that 
     gene pool without a college education. Unfortunately, a 
     college education is very expensive. Take UVM here, for 
     instance. I work here as a temporary helper in the summer. 
     This college just recently raised its tuition. Colleges all 
     over the state are raising their tuition. It is harder and 
     harder to get into a college. You want us to get a better 
     education but are denying us the ability to do that by not 
     giving us the funds. And when colleges are constantly 
     bringing up their tuition to get in, it makes it all that 
     much harder. When parents are being penalized for having the 
     accounts for the children to set aside money to go to the 
     college it is even worse.
       In this day and age if you are on welfare you're better 
     off. You can get into a college, no problem on welfare 
     basically at this point because they will pay for everything 
     to go to college. A friend of mine is on welfare right now 
     and she got accepted to the university here, UVM, and she 
     basically does not have to pay a thing while she is here the 
     entire time. She has lower grades than I do, she is not 
     involved in the community nearly as much as I am. I applied 
     for the same place here, but I cannot get in even though I 
     have better academic grades and I am involved in more things. 
     That does not really matter to me, I do not care about their 
     selection process. It is the fact that people like me are 
     getting denied money for setting aside money for this time 
     and because just the raising of funds to get into a college 
     and the expenses. We need to get a better education but in 
     order to do it we need to have the funds. The problem is we 
     do not have the funds.

                                  ____
                                  

          Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives


on behalf of KATHY UNGER, MEREDITH BLESS, CULLEN BOUVIER and SCOTT WARD

                  Regarding CIVIL UNIONS--May 26, 2000

       KATIE UNGER: I am going to begin. Okay. We are here to 
     support the Civil Union Law that Vermont passed recently, but 
     we are of the opinion that it should have gone further, and 
     we think that--basically we think that everyone should have a 
     right to be joined in marriage. And when you define marriage 
     it is sort of a celebration of life and of loving another 
     person and it is just something that everyone should be able 
     to do whether or not their partner is male or female.
       MEREDITH BLESS: We also think that it should be forced on 
     the church to marry two people. It should be separate from 
     the church because it is kind of against the church for that. 
     But somebody who could do it like a justice of the peace.
       SCOTT WARD: As Katie said, we commend Vermont for taking 
     the steps that it has, but we feel that it is more of a 
     national issue and that other states need to be involved in 
     this also. So we really feel it does need to be taken further 
     and not just Vermont.
       CULLEN BOUVIER: I take the standpoint of Scott as well. I 
     think that Vermont is doing a great job taking the first 
     steps in the Civil Union Bill and doing great things for 
     people, but you see different things in the papers about--
     last week I can recall a man putting out a sign by his 
     driveway that was not very kind words toward homosexual 
     people, and you just realize that there is a lot more that 
     can be done.

                                  ____
                                  

          Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives


              on behalf of THALIA SPARLING and KATE EARLEY

                 Regarding BIOENGINEERING--May 26, 2000

       THALIA SPARLING: I wanted to raise the issue of genetically 
     modified food which the FDA has refused to label on products. 
     Genetically modified food has been on the market for six 
     years now and there is very little awareness from the common 
     people, the public about this issue. And there is a really 
     strong grass roots movement in Vermont right now over this 
     issue, and it is an issue that really needs to be addressed.
       KATE EARLEY: I feel that we do not know enough about this 
     issue that they should not be able to label it, because 
     basically they are just feeding us things we do not know 
     thinking about. And if they have to say how much of what is 
     in certain foods and they have to label food now, they should 
     not be able to not label this, because it does not give a 
     person a choice of what they are putting in their body. And 
     they do not know enough of what could happen 20 years from 
     now from doing this or 30 years from now or generations from 
     now how it could effect us physically or in the environment 
     or anything. We need to do a lot more testing before they can 
     be allowed to put this in the food, or label it, at least 
     label it.

     

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