[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 118 (Thursday, September 28, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8440-H8444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EDUCATION IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Quinn). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) 
is recognized for the remainder of the 60 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, today I want to talk about education. I 
want to talk about the Department of Education. I want to spend a 
little bit of time talking about our kids. And I want to spend a little 
bit of time talking about where we go from here.
  The fastest growing program on our college campuses today is not 
computers, it is not high tech, it is not science and math. It is not 
foreign language. It is not political science. The fastest growing 
program on college campuses today is remedial education. It means that 
our young people who are graduating from high school are entering 
college without the basic skills necessary to complete the work in 
their colleges.
  We have been embarked on a program where we have had the opportunity 
to go around the country and visit 20 States and talk to educational 
leaders. In some of these hearings, we have had the opportunity to 
listen to our college presidents and deans on our college campuses. 
They came in and they said, ``The most important thing you are doing 
for us, and make sure you don't decrease, as a matter of fact, make 
sure you increase funding for it, is increased funding for remedial 
education.'' After I heard this a few times, it is kind of like, you 
ask the question, you say what do you mean, what do you need remedial 
education dollars for on our college campuses? These are some of the 
best schools in America and you have got standards for the young people 
coming in. And they said, ``Yes, but we've got a lot of people who we 
are admitting who are not functionally literate at an eighth grade 
level in reading, writing or math.''
  So the comment then became, we need the money to bring these kids up 
to the basic levels, and we forgot to ask the first question, which is, 
why are you not engaged with the people at the K-12 level to solve the 
problem at the K-12 level rather than accepting that as a condition and 
saying, ``We're now going to see this as an opportunity for growth, to 
grow our programs on college campuses.'' But it is a symptom that says, 
we are not doing a good enough job at the K-12 level.
  Another symptom is outlined in a document that has been prepared, it 
is called America's Education Recession. It outlines a couple of things 
that we need to be concerned about. It says that our young people not 
only as they enter college do a number of them need remediation, but it 
also says that when you test our kids at the 4th grade, 8th grade and 
12th grade levels, they are not at grade proficiency, meaning they are 
not learning what we have expected them to learn by the time they are 
in the grade where we are testing them.
  In America's highest poverty schools, 68 percent of fourth graders 
could not read at basic level in 1998 as measured by the National 
Assessment of Educational Progress. Students scoring below the basic 
fourth grade level were unable to read a simple children's book. That 
is our fourth graders.
  The problem is that we see that in math as well as in reading. So we 
know that the fastest growing programs in our colleges are remediation. 
We know that our kids are not testing well when it comes to basic 
proficiencies. The question then comes up, how well do our kids perform 
when we compare them to international standards? Or how well do our 
kids measure up to kids in other industrialized countries? What we find 
is in study after study, our kids do not measure up. In the math and 
science area, the Third International Math and Science Study, we 
compared American students with other students in industrialized 
countries. In math and science, we score 18 out of 21.
  Who scores higher? The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, 
Iceland, Norway, France, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Austria, 
Slovenia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Russian Federation, Lithuania, 
the Czech Republic, and then we have the United States. We are seeing 
enough symptoms that are saying we do have an education recession in 
America. An education recession does not say that all of our kids are 
doing poorly. What it does say is that we are leaving too many of our 
young people behind and we are leaving them behind in an area where we 
cannot afford to leave any child behind.
  We have to have every young person in America developed to their 
fullest potential. We cannot afford to leave any child behind. Not only 
can we not afford it, but more importantly it is not the right thing to 
do. The right thing to do is to make sure that every one of our young 
people has the opportunity to succeed through the learning process.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for 
the Department of Education, we have had the opportunity to travel 
around the country to gather these statistics but also to take a look 
at educational programs that work and educational programs that do not. 
I will talk a little bit about those a little bit later, but going out 
into the grassroots and taking a look at our kids, our schools, our 
teachers and meeting with administrators and parents, we see lots of 
exciting things happening in education. But I am also tasked with 
taking a look at what is going on in the Department of Education, and 
is the Department of Education fostering innovation? Is the Department 
fostering excellence in our educational system?

                              {time}  1500

  In some cases, it is a barrier.
  If we take a look at this chart right here, it does again give us 
some reason to be concerned. The title of the chart is ``Show me the 
money.'' The problem is that we in Congress allocate and appropriate 
money to the different agencies. One of those agencies is the 
Department of Education.
  The Department of Education, let me just scale it for you, is about a 
$40 billion agency. That is how much we give the Department roughly 
each and every year to help administer and to help our kids at a local 
level achieve their educational goals. In addition to that, they manage 
a loan portfolio of about $100 billion. So it is about a $140 billion 
agency.
  The disturbing thing is that for the last 2 years, this agency has 
not been able to get a clean audit from the independent auditors that 
come in and take a look at this agency, look at its numbers, look at 
its policies and procedures to determine whether how they report the 
money being spent is actually the way that the money is spent.
  They said, we looked at your books, we looked at what you said, we 
looked at your procedures, and, by taking a look at your procedures, we 
have reached the conclusion that we do not have a high degree of 
confidence that what you are reporting is actually the way that the 
money is being spent in the Department of Education. You have failed 
your audit.
  The disappointing thing is that the Department of Education is one of 
only

[[Page H8441]]

nine significant organizations in the Executive Branch that has been 
unable to get a clean audit. Other departments include the Department 
of Treasury, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the 
Department of Agriculture, EPA, HUD, OPM and AID. Nine agencies cannot 
get a clean audit.
  I came from the private sector, and I agree with something that the 
Vice President said in 1993, in a book that he prepared, he said 
creating a government that works better and costs less. It is a report 
of the National Performance Review, authored, or at least given credit 
to, by Vice President Gore. In this document he says, ``In other words, 
if a publicly traded corporation kept its books the way the Federal 
Government does, the Securities and Exchange Commission would close it 
down immediately.'' It would close it down immediately.
  Now, we are not going to do that with the Department of Education. We 
cannot do that with the Department of Education, and we do not want to 
do that with the Department of Education. But I do believe it is time 
for this Congress and I believe it is time for the American people to 
demand some accountability for the $40 billion, some of the most 
important money that we spend in Washington, to demand some 
accountability to the Department of Education and say where is that 
money going and how are you spending it?
  We do know that in an environment where the auditors say we cannot 
give you a clean audit, we do know that in the private sector, that 
sends off the red flags and sets off the alarm bells, and it says there 
is a reason to be concerned here, because if they do not have the 
proper procedures or they do not have the proper control mechanisms in 
place, what you have done is created an environment that is ripe for 
waste, fraud and abuse.
  So over the last year we have gone back, along with General 
Accounting Office and the Inspector General at the Department of 
Education, and said is there any waste or fraud within the Department 
of Education? Help us explore what is going on within the Department of 
Education, to let us know whether there are examples of waste, fraud 
and abuse.
  The disappointing thing is the answer has come back a resounding yes. 
Let me give you some examples.
  The first one is not a big example, except that it dramatically 
impacted the lives of 39 young people in America. Congratulations, you 
are not a winner. As taxpayers in America and as the Federal 
Government, we have decided we are going to reward young people who 
excel by giving them a Jacob Javits scholarship, which pays for 4 years 
of graduate school. It recognizes their achievement and it recognizes 
the achievement of their undergraduate schools in preparing them for 
graduate work.
  Earlier this year we notified 39 young people that they had won the 
Jacob Javits scholarship. Two days later, after these kids were 
excited, called home, called mom and dad and said, ``Hey, we won, isn't 
that great,'' I just dropped my daughter off at college this fall and I 
can tell you how excited I would be if I knew she had won a 4-year 
scholarship. Parents were excited, the undergraduate schools were 
excited because it recognized they had been successful and they were 
being recognized for their contributions and their success. The only 
problem was, 2 days later the Department of Education had to call them 
back and say, sorry, we called the wrong 39 young people.
  Failing proofreading. In September 1999, remember, this is an agency 
that has a $100 billion loan portfolio, they send their forms out where 
kids apply for additional financial aid. 3.5 million forms printed, 3.5 
million forms printed incorrectly. The taxpayers in America, young 
people, lose $720,000.
  Dead and loving it. The Department of Education, when they give 
loans, they recognize if a young person becomes disabled or if they 
pass away, that it would be unrealistic for us to expect to collect on 
that loan. We forgave $77 million in student loans. That is good news 
for those young people. It is even better news when they recognize that 
they were not disabled and they had not died.
  A theft ring within the Department of Education. Because they did not 
have the proper controls in place, they had a purchasing agent who 
could order electronic equipment, including a 61-inch color TV, 
including Gateway computers, including VCRs, printers and the like, 
ordered $330,000 worth of equipment. She could certify that the 
materials had been received at the Department of Education, certify 
that they should be paid for. Only one problem, they were not delivered 
to the Department of Education, they were delivered around to 
individual homes around the Washington, D.C. area. All done through the 
phone guy. What was in it for the phone guy? The phone guy got paid 
$660,000 for overtime that he did not work.
  We provide one other program that says we are going to help school 
districts that have a big Federal installation that kind of eats up 
their tax base, we call it Impact Aid. Again, because we do not have 
the computer security in place, this summer, when a school district was 
supposed to receive its Impact Aid funds, we had someone, we are not 
quite sure because it is still under investigation, but what we do know 
is $1.9 million did not go to two schools on Indian reservations in 
South Dakota, but it went into personal accounts here in Washington, 
D.C., and in this case they were caught by the car guy.
  The car salesman caught this, because an individual went in to a 
Chevy dealer here in Maryland, and they wanted to buy a Corvette. The 
alarm bells went off for the car salesman, because he did a credit 
check on the person buying the Corvette. The credit check did not 
balance out. The guy called the FBI, and, rather than getting a 
Corvette, the person trying to buy the Corvette ended up with a date 
with the FBI. That is how we found out; not through the procedures at 
the Department of Education, but because the car guy called the FBI and 
said this does not check out.
  All of this is in a context today where we recognize we want to 
invest in our kids.
  I am glad to see my colleague from Wisconsin has joined us.
  Again, I am saying we do not want to not invest in our kids, but what 
we are saying is if we are going to invest in our kids, or if we are 
going to invest in other areas, whether it is in Treasury, Justice, 
Defense or Agriculture, let us make sure there is accountability. We 
need to make sure that when an American taxpayer sends their money to 
Washington, that we hold that money in trust for them and we spend the 
money wisely.
  I will yield to my colleague from Wisconsin to talk a little bit 
about where we are going with spending programs, and perhaps some areas 
where we have some concerns.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding. I notice the gentleman is here talking about how a lot of the 
money coming to Washington through our Federal tax dollars is getting 
wasted, it is getting misappropriated, there is actual fraud involved. 
So I thought that would be a fitting topic to discuss, what is the 
future?
  As we go into this coming election, it is very important, as we look 
at the waste, the fraud and the abuse, of how our taxpayer dollars are 
being spent here in Washington, it is important to take a look at what 
our two Presidential candidates are proposing with respect to spending 
the surplus from now for the next decade when they actually are in the 
oval office.
  I think it is important that we note, there is a huge surplus. It is 
not just a Social Security surplus. We have a giant non-Social Security 
surplus, almost over $5 trillion, coming into Washington over the next 
10 years. As we take a look at this surplus, we are going back to our 
districts, talking to our constituents. When I go home to Wisconsin, my 
constituents tell me, first pay off the national debt, stop raiding the 
Social Security trust fund, fix the problems we have with Medicare, and 
if we are still overpaying our taxes, make sure we can have some of our 
money back, rather than spending it on new money in Washington.
  These are the priorities that I am hearing as I am traveling back, 
and I think a lot of people are seeing this around the country.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will just yield, I think you are 
helping us get the language right. A lot of people in Washington are 
talking about this as a Washington surplus, meaning

[[Page H8442]]

that this is Washington's money. I think the gentleman has been very 
careful to point out this is not a Washington surplus, but this is a 
tax surplus. We are collecting more in taxes than what we need to run 
the Federal Government, so this is an overtaxation. This is not just 
Washington's money.

  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. That is right. It is not Washington's money, 
it is America's money. As we take a look at this, let us take a look at 
the two different proposals being pushed right now by the two different 
Presidential candidates. I have here sort of an apples to apples 
comparison of the Gore budget and the Bush budget plan for America, 
should either of these two men become President of the United States.
  When you take a look at the Gore budget, and this chart shows the 
surplus dollar, how each candidate plans to divide up every dollar of 
surplus coming from taxpayers to Washington. Well, it is not a question 
of whether you cut taxes or pay down the national debt; it is now a 
question of whether you cut taxes or spend the money in Washington.
  Take a look at the pie over to my right, which is the Gore budget. Of 
every single surplus dollar, Vice President Gore is proposing to spend 
46 cents, 46 cents of every surplus dollar coming from income tax 
overpayments, to be spent in Washington on new government programs on 
these Federal agencies. That is compared to George Bush's plan to spend 
6 cents, 6 cents, of every surplus dollar in Washington on other 
programs here on Federal agencies.
  It is a huge difference. It is $2.1 trillion, about half of the 
surplus, the Vice President is proposing to keep in Washington and 
spend on government agencies, compared to Governor Bush's plan to spend 
$278 billion.
  But it goes beyond that. Mr. Bush has often been criticized for not 
paying down the debt. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you 
take a look Governor Bush's plan, he is actually dedicating 58 cents of 
the surplus dollar for the next 10 years towards shoring up Social 
Security and Medicare and paying off our national debt, to the tune of 
we will pay off the national debt in 12 years.
  Vice President Gore? He says not so much should go to debt reduction, 
Social Security and Medicare. He wants to dedicate 36 cents of the 
surplus dollar toward those goals.
  Where is the difference? Mr. Bush is proposing 29 cents of our 
surplus dollar to go back to the people it came from, the taxpayers; by 
eliminating the marriage tax penalty, by eliminating the death tax, by 
making health care more affordable through health care tax cuts, those 
kinds of things, making the tax code fairer for all Americans.
  The Vice President is proposing a net tax cut of 7 cents, meaning 
Americans are projected to send a lot of extra money over to pay their 
taxes for the next 10 years, to the tune of about $5 trillion. The Vice 
President is saying, let us give them 7 cents on the dollar back, and 
we will keep the money in Washington; 46 cents we will keep and spend, 
we will dedicate 36 cents to paying off the debt, shoring up Social 
Security and Medicare.
  It is a completely different vision than what Governor Bush is 
proposing. He is saying his number one priority in the budget, pay down 
the debt, shore up Social Security and Medicare. Then, if people are 
still overpaying their taxes, give them their money back by reducing 
their tax bite. Take less out of the paychecks in Washington, rather 
than spending the money in Washington, which is precisely what Vice 
President Gore is proposing.
  If you take a look the sum of the totals, as we examine these Federal 
agencies, the waste and the fraud and abuse that is occurring in these 
Federal agencies, Vice President Gore wants to fuel the flames. He 
wants to spend $2.1 trillion of the hard-earned surplus in Washington 
on new programs and other Federal agencies.

                              {time}  1515

  Compared to Bush's proposal to spend $278 billion. So it is not a 
question of paying off the debt or cutting taxes. It is a question of 
paying off the debt, reducing taxes, or spending the money in 
Washington. And I think if our constituents were faced with a choice 
of, after we pay off the debt, do we want to keep the money in 
Washington or do we want to have it back in our pocket, we think the 
people want to have it back in their pocket, and that is what the Bush 
plan is.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have been joined by 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer). Put the chart back up that 
talks about the 6 cents in new spending that Governor Bush is talking 
about versus the 45 cents that the Vice President is talking about. The 
one thing that I think we have recognized, and the gentleman from 
Colorado served on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 
with me, we believe that there is tremendous leverage in the money that 
we are already spending, that there are ways to reform the way that we 
are spending the money.
  Again, as an example, the Department of Education could get much more 
of a bang for our buck. And maybe the gentleman from Colorado would 
care to comment on some of the reforms that we are proposing, besides 
just being able to audit the books. I would think that just by having a 
clean set of books and knowing where our money is going, we could 
leverage significantly. But also the programs and the plans that we 
have, Straight A's, Dollars to the Classroom, regulatory flexibility.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, spending the money that the taxpayers send 
to Washington more wisely is always a goal, and a goal to which 
Republicans seem to be more deeply devoted to than our friends on the 
Democrat side of the aisle. We can see that from the budget suggestions 
made by the two presidential candidates. Vice President Gore would 
propose to spend more money. We contend that we can meet many of the 
needs that the Vice President has in mind, but we can do it not by 
spending more of the people's money; we can do it by spending the money 
we currently do spend more wisely, and spend it in a way that is much 
smarter.
  Before I get to some of the specifics on how we can do that in 
education, I want to point out the overall impact, not just on how we 
divvy up these two equivalent pies of projected surplus revenue, but 
there is also a secondary impact we have to consider and that is the 
impact on the economy. Because spending more and more money in 
Washington, D.C., really is not the best way to stimulate positive 
economic growth. That is really the second part of the story.
  The point is the tax relief. If we really can reduce taxes on the 
American people by 29 cents, versus the measly 7 cents that the Vice 
President has proposed, what we know is that Americans do something 
better than government with money. They spend it wisely. They invest it 
wisely. They create more jobs. They create more wealth. And that is 
what we learned throughout economic history in America.
  Tax relief actually allows us to pay down debt more quickly and 
allows us to do it in a more powerful way where Americans enjoy more 
freedom. So we want to do what Americans do all the time with their 
family budgets, and that is count every penny.
  The gentleman mentioned the U.S. Department of Education.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I was going to mention, and neither one of 
my colleagues here today were here in 1993. I had the pleasure of 
serving my first year here in 1993, and other than that little blue 
sliver that is on the Gore plan of tax relief of 7 cents, the rest of 
it or the biggest chunk of it looks very much like the Clinton plan of 
1993.
  If my colleagues remember, if they were watching Washington, one of 
the most sought-after committees in 1993 was Committee on Public Works 
and Transportation, because the President came in and said we are in an 
economic crisis here. We have got to what? We have got to raise taxes 
so that there is more money here in Washington, and then we have to 
spend it because we can spend is more wisely.
  I think there is a quote to that effect in Buffalo.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I 
am very familiar with this quote because I think it goes to the 
different philosophies that are being represented here in Washington.

[[Page H8443]]

  Two weeks after the President came right behind the gentleman there 
and gave the State of the Union address last year, where he talked 
about how we are going to use the government surplus, he went to 
Buffalo, New York, and talked to a packed crowd of tens of thousands of 
people. He said, with respect to the government surplus, the people's 
surplus, he said, quote, ``We could give you your money back, but we 
would not be sure that you would spend it right,'' end quote.
  Well, therein lies the philosophy. The people's money is spent right, 
so long as they spend their own money. The belief here in Washington, 
shared by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, is that we here in 
Washington know how to spend the people's money better than they do. 
There is a different school of thought; there is a different philosophy 
which we share that people know how to spend their own money better. 
People know how to take care of their children, their grandparents, 
their parents much better than some distant bureaucrats in Washington 
do.
  So these two pie charts here, the visions, the blueprints about how 
to divvy up the surplus, they are more than just numbers, more than 
just budgets. They are twin visions. They are two different visions.
  The Gore vision here on how to treat the surplus is to spend the bulk 
of the money in Washington. Spend the bulk of our families' budgets in 
Washington on more programs, on more agencies so that Washington can 
try and come up with a solution to solve the problems in our lives.
  The different vision, the Bush vision proposed in the Bush plan is to 
pay down our debts so our children and grandchildren can inherit a 
debt-free Nation from our efforts. And as people are still overpaying 
their taxes, here is the critical part, do not think that Washington 
can spend money better than people can. Give people their money back 
and make the Tax Code much more fair and simpler so that they can move 
on and live and grow businesses and raise their families.
  So the vision here is very stark. It is very different. The Gore 
vision: spend the money in Washington, keep it in Washington, pay off 
the debt at a slower pace. If we actually add these numbers up, this 
$2.1 trillion spending increase that the Vice President is proposing, 
it is the largest proposed spending increase in the Federal Government 
in 30 years. Not since Lyndon Johnson has a spending increase been 
proposed. It is so large that if we add it all up, it forces the Vice 
President to go and raid the Social Security trust fund by $906 
billion. He spends so much money, it is over $906 billion.
  The answer then is either dip into Social Security or raise taxes if 
we want to satisfy all of the Vice President's spending desires. That 
is not what the Bush plan is doing. That is not what we are trying to 
get done. Pay off the debt, shore up Social Security and Medicare, and 
as people are continuing to overpay their taxes, give them their money 
back rather than spend it on new programs in Washington. That is the 
difference in visions that these two alternatives present.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, again reclaiming my time, I think my 
colleague from Colorado is going to talk a little bit about the 
difference in vision on education, which I think is very much the same 
thing. What we see here in front of us is one that is a Washington-
based plan versus one that says we are going to take care of business 
here in Washington, which is paying down the debt.
  But other than that, we are going to give the money back to the 
American people who sent it here in the first place. We are going to 
trust them. I think it is very similar to the differences that we have 
here envisioned in where we are going to go with education.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Start with our Dollars to the Classroom philosophy and 
the legislation that we have pushed as one of our top education 
priorities and let us use that example by comparing how an American 
taxpayer would spend their money versus how Washington currently spends 
its money on education today.
  If a taxpayer, who is represented by the blue sections of the chart, 
and where we think surplus money ought to go, versus the Vice 
President, which is next to nothing, let us suppose that taxpayer would 
want to budget that tax savings for a new washing machine. That family 
would expect that 100 percent of the money they budget for the washing 
machine would go to the actual purchase of the washing machine.
  But in Washington when we say education is a high priority, somehow 
people in Washington are just content to see only 60 percent of the 
money budgeted for education actually ever make it to a classroom. Now 
that is a huge distinction in how Americans view fiscal responsibility 
versus how government views fiscal responsibility. Republicans have a 
different way.
  Clinton and Gore, they have been in the White House now for 8 years. 
They have had their opportunity to try to use the money that the 
Americans have sent here and spend it wisely, and we share their 
sincerity that we want to help children. But we are not for all the 
waste that for 8 years they have been willing to endure and sustain.
  Sixty percent out of every education dollar is all that makes it to a 
child's classroom. Our goal is to tell the Department of Education, 
``We do not care how difficult it is. We do not care about your silly 
rules, your silly regulations, your old ways of doing business, the 
status quo over there in that nice office building. We demand that 95 
percent of every dollar spent on education get to a child, get to a 
classroom. We will give you the 5 percent for overhead and 
administrative costs.'' That is what most other charities spend for 
overhead. The Federal Government ought to be held to the same standard 
that Americans insist on on a day-by-day basis.

  Wasting cash, hemorrhaging money, maybe that is the way the Clinton-
Gore regime is inclined to spend money and they feel comfortable with 
that. We have a different way, and we are fortunate that we have a 
governor in Texas that has shown real leadership and he will join us, 
given the opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think we know how and why we lose 45 to 
60 cents when we create a program here in Washington. There have been 
hundreds since we have been here. They were here when we got here, but 
there are hundreds of programs.
  We have to tell a local school district that, hey, we have a program 
for this to buy computers, a technology program. So we pass a program. 
The Education Department has to notify these school districts. These 
school districts then have to apply for the money. So they have to go 
through the process of filling out these forms. We then have the people 
within the Department of Education who sort these applications out and 
say this group over here gets them and, sorry, you do not. So we send a 
check to this local school district.
  That local school district then has to track that money. So if it is 
coming in for technology, they have to segregate that money, they have 
got to make sure that it is spent on computers and nothing else, 
technology. They then send the forms back to the Department of 
Education and say, yes, we spent it on exactly what this program was 
for. And then the Department of Education knows that they cannot trust 
those people at the local level, so they send their auditors in to make 
sure that the way the money was reported spent is actually the way the 
money was spent.
  It is kind of interesting, I have talked to some of my school 
districts who have gone through an audit by the Department of 
Education. They say it is absolutely brutal. They have to document 
every penny, every dime, and all of this. And these are the people that 
know our kids' names. And they are going through this process when we 
have a Department of Education that cannot keep its own books here in 
Washington.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, it is an unfortunate tragedy that in 1998, 
the U.S. Department of Education could not audit its books. We are 
concerned now about the inability of the Department to pass an audit of 
their Department. But in 1998, the books were so poorly managed, the 
finances were so badly mismanaged, that they could not even audit the 
books. The documents were not even in an

[[Page H8444]]

auditable state, let alone letting us get to the point of finding out 
where the money really went.
  We have managed to improve things slightly, only so that we know now 
that the U.S. Department of Education fails those audits when we can 
actually sit down and add the money up.
  So our goal is for financial accountability and responsibility. We 
want to manage the funds that are spent today. If we can get that 40 
cents back that today is squandered and wasted and misdirected away 
from children's classrooms, we do not need the new spending. We can 
actually increase the amount of money spent on children without 
increasing one dime, the amount of money budgeted for education, just 
by cutting out the waste fraud and abuse in the Department of 
Education.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I have an education advisory 
board which consists of parents, teachers, school board members, 
administrators, superintendents from all around southern Wisconsin; and 
I am always asking them for ideas, asking them what kinds of reforms do 
they think Washington needs to make their job better, to help them 
improve the quality of education in southern Wisconsin.
  Does my colleague know what they always say? Get off of our backs. 
The fact that Washington only sends 6 cents of the education dollar 
that is spent on education in all of our school districts, but 
promulgates over 50 percent of the regulations is astounding. Six cents 
on the dollar come from Washington; 94 cents on average are coming from 
local property taxes and local and State money. Yet over half of the 
unfunded mandates are imposed from Washington on our local school 
districts.
  What astounds me is that just in my area of Wisconsin that I come 
from, we have school districts that have very interesting and unique 
problems. Racine, Wisconsin, has school district problems that are so 
unique to those in Beloit, Wisconsin, or those in Janesville, 
Wisconsin, but let alone the problems that may exist in Harlem or in 
Los Angeles or in New Mexico. In this kind of country, in a vast and 
differing Nation, to subject our school districts to one-size-fits-all, 
cookie-cutter solutions where we give them a little bit of the money, 
but all of the mandates. It is strangling our schools and strangling 
innovation.
  I see that we are running out of time, but I think it is very 
important to point out they do not have all the answers in Washington. 
And in fact when we try to inflict these answers on our local school 
districts, we are doing more harm than good in many cases.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) and the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) for joining me this afternoon. I 
mean there are two different visions here; there is a Washington-based 
vision and there is a local vision. We are focused on the local vision.

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