[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 126 (Wednesday, October 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H9809-H9816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         END-OF-SESSION ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tancredo). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                           Bankruptcy Reform

  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, we are nearing the end of the current session 
as everyone knows and it is very apparent that nerves are frayed and 
that tempers are short but that is to be expected. That is an 
occupational disease of being a Member of Congress or of being the 
member of any parliamentary body anywhere in the world. But we have a 
special affliction here in Washington because we indulge in this almost 
every single year with every single year's budget, with every single 
year's end incessant haggling over minutia and some grand themes in 
this end-of-the-session battle in which we find ourselves once again.
  Bankruptcy reform, which began some 3\1/2\ years ago in this very 
Chamber, is one of those grand items to which I refer as being 
includable in the end package of legislation which we will be 
considering in the next few days, perhaps after the new CR is passed 
even into next week. But there is a distinct difference in taking the 
bankruptcy reform measure and putting it at the end process for the 
purpose of yet one final vote on it. It is one that has been thoroughly 
debated. It is not like at the last minute some appropriator jams 
something into the omnibus bill at the end about which we know nothing 
and we are surprised months later to learn that there is a swimming 
pool now in the middle of the desert where never there was one before. 
Those kinds of special favor types of items continue to appear in the 
end product. We acknowledge that. Sometimes we wonder whether there is 
anything we can do about it except to adopt the proposal that I have 
proposed for 18 years, no, no, for many, many years now, that is, to 
have an automatic continuing resolution if we have not reached a budget 
by the end of the budget year.
  In any event, the bankruptcy reform bill is not like that swimming 
pool in the desert. Rather, it is a measure that has been well received 
by Members of the House, by Members of the other body, by the business 
community, by the credit unions of our Nation, by taxpayers groups, by 
taxing authorities like States and local governments, all manner of 
working entities in our country have testified before us, giving us 
ample evidence upon which to base this movement to make sure that 
everyone gets a new start, a fresh new start who deserves one but who, 
by the same token, will guarantee in that process that those who can 
repay some of their debt should be compelled to do so in a fair, 
proportionate way in which we have fashioned the mechanism for doing 
just that.
  So when we bring this massive bankruptcy reform bill to the end game, 
we are not shoving it into some omnibus bill hoping that nobody sees 
it. No, we are bringing it to the floor after I would say one of the 
most thorough continuing debates that any subject has received for 
many, many years. I know, because I and my staff have been involved in 
it from the very beginning, through many, many hearings, hundreds of 
documents, many private discussions and consultations with bankruptcy 
experts and with credit institutions and with bankrupts themselves, 
people who have filed for bankruptcy, women who are left in a home 
without a husband, without a provider, providers, people who deal in 
State government with the complex problems of support and support 
collection. You name it, we have heard from that kind of individual in 
our regular hearing process. That is what is so bountiful in the 
outcome of the bankruptcy reform movement, that indeed it is the 
product of every coloration in our society of people who have to do 
business with each other in order for this economy to continue to work 
as well as it has.
  By the way, in almost every set of remarks that I make back in my 
district about bankruptcy reform, I pride myself in reasserting that 
within the hearing process, it was not just a cameo appearance by 
people where we knew what their testimony was going to be and we ho-
hummed our way through those hearings, I have to maintain and I will to 
my dying day that the final product of bankruptcy reform reflected 
actual testimony recommendations and clarifications made by the 
witnesses from out there in the world of commerce and in the world of 
the bankruptcy courts themselves. So it was not as if we were prompted 
by a pre-prepared agenda with cooked legislation that we were just 
going through the motions in these hearings but, rather, an intense 
investigation into the entire process. We learned from it.
  I remember after the first hearing that someone testified on behalf 
of, I think, women, or single mothers or people who were devoid of 
support in their own household, but I was so struck by it that I 
instructed my staff to make sure that the next time there will be 
language in our next version of the bankruptcy reform that will cure 
the problem brought to us by that witness. As I say, this was 
legislative magic at its best, witnesses testifying, developing 
solutions to problems, and we who were charged with the responsibility 
of packaging all that in a reform measure succeeded in doing so.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.


                               Education

  Mr. SCHAFFER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to talk 
about education. Tonight there will be a debate between the two 
Presidential candidates and we of course all across the country are 
looking forward to that. Education is likely to be one of the issues 
raised. I say this because, politics being as it is, candidates tend to 
look to opinion polls to help identify those issues that are the most 
important to the people in the country. When they are inclined to do 
that in America today, they will find that education is the number one 
issue on the minds of most Americans. My point tonight is twofold, one, 
I want to talk about some of the work we have done here in the United 
States Congress as a Republican majority and as Republicans across the 
country to try to elevate the importance and prominence of education 
and to push forward a plan that is designed to improve the quality of 
education in America, and secondly I want to talk about what has been 
done over the last 8 years, because, without a doubt, the Clinton-Gore 
regime that has held the White House for the last 8 years has defined 
itself as an administration that has missed many opportunities and has 
failed to lead with respect to education.
  I will start out by quoting the Vice President. He published a report 
called Report of the National Performance Review. It was published in 
1993. In that report back in 1993, here is what the Vice President 
said, and I quote:

       The Department of Education has suffered from mistrust and 
     management neglect almost from the beginning. To overcome 
     this legacy and to lead the way in national education reform, 
     the Department of Education must refashion and revitalize its 
     programs, management and systems.

  My point being, Mr. Speaker, is that going all the way back to 1993, 
the Vice President of the United States fully understood the nature of 
the U.S. Department of Education, an agency that hemorrhages cash on 
virtually a day-by-day basis. This is an agency that we look to to try 
to get dollars to the classroom, to utilize the education expenditures 
of the American people in a way that will help children learn but, to 
our disappointment and even to the disappointment of the Vice President 
and others over at the White House, this Department of Education has 
failed in its noble mission.
  One does not have to look too far to find examples of that. Here is 
the reality of what has occurred since 1993. Just a few month ago, the 
General Accounting Office in reporting to the Committee on Education 
and Workforce of the House said the following, and I quote again:

       The Department is riddled with continued weaknesses in 
     information systems controls which increase the risk of 
     unauthorized access or disruption in services and make 
     Education's sensitive grant and loan data vulnerable to 
     inadvertent or deliberate misuse, fraudulent use, improper 
     disclosure or destruction which could occur without being 
     detected.

  That was in testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight and 
Investigations going back to March of this year.
  We have seen similar other kinds of characterizations of the 
Department of

[[Page H9810]]

Education as we in our efforts to try and be frugal with the taxpayers' 
money have asked hard questions about where does the money go. It is 
frustrating as a parent myself of five children, three of them in 
public schools today, to learn that of every dollar that we spend on 
education through our Federal budget, only about 60 percent of those 
dollars is actually spent in the classroom. In other words, there is 
upwards of 40 percent, and that is probably a generous estimate, that 
is wasted, squandered, lost, lost through fraud, lost through abuse, 
sometimes lost through crime. I will go through some of those examples 
here today because it underscores our Republican effort around the 
country to try to get dollars to the classroom.
  There is a difference of opinion here in Washington and a difference 
of opinion that will be expressed later on tonight by the two 
candidates for President of the United States.

                              {time}  2015

  Democrats have always been in favor of spending more money. Whether 
it comes to the Department of Education or any agency, spend and spend 
and spend has been their philosophy. While we are not necessarily 
always opposed to spending if it is for a good and just cause, our 
Republican philosophy is very different. It is one that says spend 
wisely, be accountable for how money is allocated and budgeted and 
spent. So we are the party, the Republican Party, that asks the tough 
questions about where do these dollars go? How is the money allocated? 
Has it actually reached children in classrooms? Has it been effective? 
As parents we are just kind of normal people who ask these questions as 
most normal people would when they come to Washington, D.C. We work 
hard as all taxpayers do to earn various livings and come from various 
professional and employment backgrounds. We pay taxes to the Federal 
Government. We do not like paying taxes, but we are willing to do that 
when it is right and when the cause is just; but we expect people here 
in Washington will follow the money and make sure that when we say we 
are going to spend a dollar on education we actually do it.
  It was not until the Republican Party took the majority of the 
Congress that these difficult questions were even asked in the first 
place. Here is what we found out: the U.S. Department of Education in 
1998 could not even audit its books. We set up a very rigorous 
evaluation process. We required every Federal agency to come up with a 
new standard of accountability to hire outside auditors to come in and 
examine their books, give an outside professional unbiased opinion of 
the finances of various Federal agencies, and the U.S. Department of 
Education came to us in the 1998 audit and the independent auditors 
actually said the books were so bad over there, so poorly managed, that 
they could not even audit the books, let alone tell us how the dollars 
were spent.
  In 1999, Mr. Speaker, things did not get much better. The Department 
was able to finally balance its books but it, of course, failed that 
audit. So we find these reports coming back to us from independent 
auditors, from government auditors, painting a very bleak picture when 
it comes to the accountability of the funds that are spent down the 
street at the United States Department of Education.
  Now we still want to have a powerful role and an important role in 
improving schools across the country, but we point these examples out 
to show that there really are two different approaches to how we 
improve schools in America. There is the Democrat approach, the Al Gore 
approach, that says just spend the money, never ask the tough 
questions, never mind whether the dollars really get in the classrooms; 
whether these dollars spent really improve student performance; whether 
they really improve our standing among international peers. Just spend 
the money and that is the right thing to do because, after all, we care 
about education, we care about kids; and if we just spend the money, 
things will sort of correct themselves.
  That is in stark contrast to what we will hear the governor of Texas 
speak about tonight and what Republicans stand for and have stood for 
here in Washington, which again says there is money to be spent; and we 
believe that the Federal Government has some role to play in trying to 
help local administrators, school board members, superintendents, and 
teachers teach children; but we really are about accountability. We 
want to make sure that we squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of 
every dollar that is spent, and we start by being honest about what is 
wasted, what has been abused, where fraud, where theft has occurred 
over in the Department, and we raise those important issues, not to 
embarrass anyone. We do want to cause a certain amount of alarm, I 
suppose, because these issues need to be addressed; they need to be 
fixed.
  That ultimately is our goal to fix these problems and create a 
Department of Education that actually is on the mark; that actually 
helps children learn; that really gets dollars to the classroom and 
creates, through a system of assistance with the various 50 States, a 
support system that allows those States to define their educational 
priorities and to ultimately meet them and help children, because that 
is what really matters in the end.
  It does not matter how much money we spend. It does not matter how 
many new programs we create. What matters more than anything else is 
results and what we can do here in Washington that helps children 
learn.
  Now we have a great record where this is concerned as a Republican 
majority. We have passed legislation over the last few years that is 
intended and designed to shrink the size of the U.S. Department of 
Education, to consolidate programs. There are some 760 education 
programs spread out throughout several different agencies. We want to 
consolidate those programs.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHAFFER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I noticed that at the exact moment when the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) was talking about the fact that 
the Federal dollars that are being spent could be better spent at the 
local level, in walked the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), 
who for years has been determined to make certain that we know that the 
best way to spend those dollars is at the local school board level.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I was waiting for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Goodling) to grab a microphone there so I could recognize him and yield 
some time to him as well, because it has been the Republican leadership 
on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, under the 
direction of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), and also 
the efforts being led by Republican governors throughout the country, 
that have shown a new way to reach out to children and to manage 
government programs in a way that helps kids far better than what we 
have seen come out of the White House over the last 8 years.
  We have focused on some key principles that I know the chairman cares 
deeply about, and principles that he has made the basis for the work 
that we have done and undertaken in the House Committee on Education 
and the Workforce, and those principles are all about recognizing the 
strengths of local communities, of States, of recognizing the autonomy 
of parents to play the primary role in helping drive the education of a 
child and local communities. And ultimately this message of 
accountability is something that we talk about every day.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHAFFER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
want to echo some of the things that he has already said. For the first 
20 years in the Congress of the United States all I ever heard was that 
if we just had another 100 programs from the Federal level, one-size-
fits-all, if we just had a few more billion dollars, if we just could 
participate more from the Federal level, that somehow or another we 
would close the achievement gap with the disadvantaged youngsters 
because that is our major role from the Federal level.
  Well, obviously it did not work, and every study showed that it did 
not

[[Page H9811]]

work. One-size-fits-all from Washington does not work. So we wasted a 
lot of money, but worse than that a lot of time because what happened 
is we cheated children, pre-school children particularly in Head Start, 
for the first 10 years because nobody ever talked about quality. The 
only thing we talked about was if we could just cover more children 
that somehow or another that would work. What they forgot was that it 
was supposed to be a reading readiness program and a school readiness 
program; but what it turned out to be was, as a matter of fact, a 
poverty jobs program and a baby-sitting program.
  We finally got it turned around.
  So when we became the majority, we said, gee, we have to change. The 
taxpayer is not getting very much for the money but, more importantly, 
the children who are to benefit from all of these wonderful programs, 
one-size-fits-all from Washington, were not getting any help. So the 
achievement gap, of course, never closed.
  We said we are going to have, first of all, seven key principles that 
Republicans are going to push every time we talk about any legislation 
from Washington, D.C. Number one, if it is not a quality program, then 
do not bother with the program. Get rid of the program. We need to have 
better teaching. We need to have local control. We need to have 
accountability. We need to make sure that we get the dollars to the 
classroom, where they can really help the children. We need to make 
sure that we return to basic academics and parent involvement but not 
only parent involvement, parent responsibility. The reason public 
charter schools work, one of the major reasons, is because of the 
parent responsibility. They are responsible to enforce the dress code. 
They are responsible to enforce the homework code. They are responsible 
to get the children to school and get them home from school. They 
assume that responsibility. Now what does that do? That attracts the 
best teachers. That attracts the best administrators, the best 
supervisors, because they want to teach. They want to be in an 
environment where they can teach. So one of the very first things we 
talked about, even before we became the majority, was we need to give 
flexibility to the local school districts to design these programs 
rather than say here is one-size-fits-all, take it or like it, even 
though you do not benefit from it.

  So we got a token before we became the majority. We said here we will 
give you six States for flexibility and they said we will give you 12 
now the next time. Two of those States that did very, very well with 
the flexibility they got were Maryland and, above all, Texas. Governor 
Bush reached across the aisle, working with a Democrat majority in the 
House and the Democrat majority in the Senate, and said we have to do 
something about improving education for all children in this State. So 
they got about 4,000 waivers from the Federal Government. They could 
commingle money. They could make programs work. They could design them 
the way they believed they will benefit their children. The result is 
that their Black and Hispanic students are achieving above the overall 
average of all of their students. Now, that is giving you flexibility 
with accountability, and accountability is the big word.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Goodling) has been on the front line in the negotiations and in the 
real fight that has taken place here in Washington between the 
Republican-oriented solutions with respect to education and the 
Democrat-oriented approaches to education that come out of the White 
House. This key philosophy of flexibility is so important. There are 
many of our colleagues and many people around the country who think 
these are just nebulous terms and some kind of nebulous debate on the 
point of flexibility; but those of us who are in the well on a day-to-
day basis fighting over the concept of flexibility see the real 
difference that takes place based on who the leadership is down at the 
White House.
  So I am wondering if the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) 
would perhaps take a little more time and maybe describe for our 
colleagues what takes place at some of these meetings when there is a 
Republican philosophy of flexibility sitting across the table from the 
Democrat philosophy as proposed by Al Gore of a centralized, 
Washington-knows-best attitude. It is a real clash but one that I 
believe we need to win on the side of flexibility. I think it is 
critical and important for our children, and I was hoping the gentleman 
would elaborate a little further on that point.
  Mr. GOODLING. I think that it has been a slow learning process for 
the minority, because I think they are at the point now where they 
realize these programs did not work. Well intended, no question well 
intended, but they now begin to realize, and we hear the word 
flexibility mentioned now on the other side of the aisle. We hear 
different things mentioned that we never would have heard for years 
because the programs did not work. So now they are saying, hey, it 
looks like Texas, for instance, was very, very successful with that 
flexibility.
  What does it mean to a State? Well, first of all, before we allowed 
any kind of flexibility, the only purpose for the Federal auditor to go 
out into that school district was to see whether the money was spent on 
the right student.

                              {time}  2030

  They were not sent out to see whether the students were benefiting 
from what is being spent. They were just sent out to see, is the money 
going to the right children?
  Obviously, it was going to the right children, but it was not helping 
those children. So this is the battle we go through every time, the 
philosophical battle of another Federal program, one-size-fits-all from 
Washington, D.C. will solve these problems; another $1 billion will 
solve these problems. It has not worked.
  So we have now taken a different approach. As I indicated, we have 
these seven key principles, but beyond those seven key principles, of 
course, is what is happening with the flexibility that is going back.
  Governors, local school boards, are so far ahead of us on the Federal 
level when it comes to reforming schools. They are on the front line 
all the time. They understand it. So that is why 50 Governors said, 
Hey, 12 States have flexibility; how about all 50 States? When we get 
50 Governors on our side of the aisle say, hey, it is working, we all 
want it, and obviously the President then had to agree. We sent him 
legislation and he signed it.
  The important thing is that as we brought the legislation then to the 
floor, every piece of legislation was based on these seven key 
principles. So when we did the Individuals with Disabilities Education 
Act, we said, let us talk about the seven principles here when we 
redesign that program, and we did it.
  IDEA full funding, again, in those first 20 years I kept saying over 
and over again, if we really want to help the local school district, I 
will say the best way we can do that is to step up to the plate with 
the 40 percent that we coaxed them into this program, guaranteeing them 
25 years ago. When we became the majority, we were only up to 6 
percent. We are now up to about 15 percent.
  What that means is every low-income school district has to take their 
local funds to support the IDEA mandates from Washington, D.C., which 
means they must take it away from every other program. That is why I 
would tell them, if we want to reduce class size, send them the money. 
They will reduce class size. If we want them to repair a building, send 
the IDEA money, they will repair buildings.
  But no, we need a new program from Washington. That is what we have 
heard the last couple of years, with our battle over 1,200,000 
teachers; our battles over school construction.
  We passed the Reading Excellence Act, again saying, on the local 
level, they know how to do that. But above that we say, use the 
scientific knowledge that we have on how to teach reading. Do not get 
into the fad businesses that so many districts unfortunately fell into.
  Our charter school expansion, in my estimation, probably the only 
hope for many center city children is the charter school program, again 
because the parents are very much involved. The parents are demanding 
excellence from their children, excellence from their schools, and the 
best teachers went there. It may be their only hope of getting a piece 
of the American dream.

[[Page H9812]]

  As I mentioned, Head Start, how did it take us so long when every 
study told us we were failing? How did it take us so long to really do 
something to make it an effective preschool program?
  Promulgating the new Federal tests, we were going to spend $100 
hundred million. First of all, the Department of Education was going to 
design the tests. That would be the last group that I would want to 
design some tests. But unless we know what the new higher standards 
are, unless we prepared the teacher to teach the new higher standard, 
unless we then test the teacher to say they are ready to teach the new 
higher standard, why would we spend $100 hundred million to design some 
national test to tell 50 percent of the children one more time they are 
not doing very well?
  The Dollars to the Classroom Act, again, that is where the money 
counts, down where that teacher is, down where that building principal 
is. The Vocational Technical Education Act, again the whole thing was 
based on those seven principles. The Teacher Empowerment Act, we say if 
they are not getting the proper in-service program, they could take a 
voucher and get their own in-service program. They know where they can 
get the best in-service program.
  The Students Results Act, again, all we have to do out there in the 
State and in the local district is show that all of the students 
improve academically, and then they have the freedom to do what they 
believe is necessary to bring that about.
  We are moving in the right direction. We have to keep moving in that 
direction. We cannot stop now, or what we will get back to again is, 
okay, if we just have a new 100 programs that will do the job; if we 
just spend another $100 billion, that certainly will do the job. Yet, 
we will repeat the same failures over and over again because Washington 
does not have the answers. The local area has the answers.

  So I thank the gentleman for taking this hour this evening to again 
remind the American people what our approach is and why it is 
different, and why it is taking hold and why it is working, and why the 
Governor was successful in Texas after we gave them the opportunity for 
the flexibility.
  So I appreciate the gentleman's taking this opportunity to remind the 
American people once again the direction we are trying to move this 
whole education issue in.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining me here 
on the floor.
  I want to go back to the top of the chart here in a moment, but there 
really is a remarkable difference between the two individuals who the 
American people will watch later on tonight, and will choose among in 
deciding who our next president will be in just a few weeks.
  The Texas example is almost miraculous on how far students improved 
in academic achievement in the State of Texas under Governor Bush's 
leadership versus what we have seen here in Washington for the last 8 
years of a White House where President Clinton and Vice President Gore 
have fully understood, and they even wrote books about the poor 
management in the Department and the reality that there was not enough 
flexibility, where we are not getting enough dollars to the classroom. 
Yet, they have done nothing.
  This is an administration that for 8 years has squandered their 
opportunity to help improve schools, and to look to the real examples 
and the real bright spots around the country where Republican Governors 
like George Bush have led the way in academic success and achievement 
for students.
  This Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act is I think one of 
the most important things we can focus on here in Washington. Just by 
way of background for our colleagues and those who are monitoring 
tonight's proceedings here on the floor, the Individuals with 
Disabilities in Education Act was really initiated by the Supreme Court 
under civil rights legislation.
  Congress took the ball from there, but it was the Supreme Court that 
drove the legislation underlying the Individuals with Disabilities in 
Education Act, thereby making it one of the few really legitimate roles 
that the Federal government plays in reaching out to some of the 
neediest children and trying to equalize the playing field so those 
children can have an opportunity to learn.
  What Congress has done over the years is created this huge program 
which has become a mandate on local States. In other words, the Federal 
government created the rules, and we have told 50 States they must 
implement this IDEA program the way the Federal government says they 
will.
  In exchange for that, the Federal government initially promised to 
pay 40 percent of the expenses associated with implementing that 
mandate. Many people around the country really rely and children with 
disabilities really rely on this program and this mandate, and they are 
counting not only on the program to be implemented accurately and 
effectively, but they are also counting on the program to be funded.
  So we have actually had to fight with the White House, Republicans 
had to fight with the White House, to try to get us to a point where we 
are increasing appropriations for the Individuals with Disabilities in 
Education Act. We do not get a lot of help from Al Gore and President 
Clinton down there at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Mr. GOODLING. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, two budgets submitted 
by the White House in a row had a decrease in funding for special 
education, 2 years in a row.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. It just defies logic, but again it points out my point 
that these folks have had 8 years to try to help, to try to help local 
schools. They have really blown the opportunity. Even when they have 
Republicans, and we are conservatives and we like to spend less when we 
can, but here is a program where we believe we ought to pay for what 
the government promised, and we have no assistance from the White 
House.  Al Gore, Bill Clinton, had other things they wanted to spend 
money on, not children with disabilities in education.
  It is important not only for those children, but it is important 
because even when Congress does not fund the program to the extent that 
it promised, the responsibility for carrying out the program still 
exists.
  Every principal of every school in this country has to continue to 
unfold and provide these services under the Individuals with 
Disabilities in Education Act, just as the law says, and it does not 
matter whether we provide the money.
  That is the real hardship, because what a principal has to do is 
steal funds from other places in his or her budget. They have to take 
money from the pay raises for teachers. They have to take money from 
the staffing budget, providing perhaps more teachers for classrooms. 
They might have to take the money from the transportation budget, or 
maybe the technology budget.

  Mr. GOODLING. The maintenance.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Maybe fixing the leaky roof is something that has to 
wait a couple of years because the Vice President has not been willing 
to help us in our effort to fully fund IDEA.
  That I think is probably the most graphic and dramatic statement of 
how this philosophy of ours towards flexibility has very real 
implications on every single classroom in America. That is precisely 
what we heard as we have traveled around the country.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania has helped today unveil his 
Crossroads 2000 Report, called ``Education at a Crossroads.'' This is 
really a report that one of the gentleman's subcommittees, the 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, had put together as a 
result of traveling all across America visiting with education 
professionals, students, parents, teachers, and all the rest.
  What they tell us more often than not is this. They tell us, and we 
can read it right in the report, and for our colleagues, I would urge 
them to get hold of the Committee on Education and the Workforce for a 
copy of this report, or my office or the chairman's office, and we will 
make the report available to anyone who wants it.
  But what we are told as we travel around the country is this: Do not 
create new programs. In fact, do not spend a dime on creating more 
government, more Department of Education bureaucracy. Do the basics 
first: Fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, 
and that frees up

[[Page H9813]]

local schools to pay for the priorities that are truly important in 
various locations, because the priorities in New York are not the same 
as they are in Pennsylvania or as they are in Colorado or California. 
They vary from State to State.
  Mr. GOODLING. New York City would get an extra $190 million if we 
were fully funding the 40 percent, and Los Angeles would get another 
$90 million.
  When we talk about class size reduction, when we talk about school 
maintenance, think what they could do with that kind of money if they 
did not have to spend it on our mandate.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Perhaps we can talk about that for a moment, because we 
have been to New York, to California, and around the country. Even in a 
big city like Los Angeles, $90 million is not pocket change. That is 
real money.
  Mr. GOODLING. Over 25 years, $90 million a year for 25 years, that 
sounds like big money to me.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. We have heard through the course of the presidential 
campaign that Congress and that the Federal government should do 
something other than fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities in 
Education Act.
  We have heard the Vice President talk about his goals for trying to 
manage local schools from here in Washington. Our answer is very 
different. Ours says, let us fully fund the mandates that are there 
first.
  Let us give Los Angeles, for example, the $90 million a year to spend 
on whatever they want. If they want to fix the roof, that would be 
their prerogative. If they want to buy new computers, they could do 
that. California just had a class size reduction program that the 
voters voted for.
  It makes no sense for the Vice President, in the case of California, 
to now say, no, I am going to invent a new program for class size 
reduction, and the fact that you have already accomplished this goal is 
irrelevant. We are going to give you more money to do things you do not 
need.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, in that area, of course, last year when I 
was negotiating this 100,000 teacher business, at the end of the year I 
made it very, very clear, the gentleman mentioned that the 
administration, the President and the Vice President have had a great 
opportunity in the 8 years.
  I pleaded with the President, and I said, he can talk about class 
size reduction, but if he does not have a quality teacher to put in 
that new classroom, I will guarantee it does not matter whether the 
teacher-to-pupil ratio is 12 to 1, 20 to 1, 30 to 1, it is not going to 
make a difference.
  Of course, what was the first 33 percent we allowed him to have? More 
than 30 percent of those had no qualifications whatsoever.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. It comes right back to the rallying cry that the 
gentleman has espoused over and over again, focus on quality, not 
quantity. We see that not only with this effort toward hiring more 
employees in schools, but we hear it when it comes to even school 
construction, that it is just that the White House is intent on just 
spending the money, and really has no plans to focus on the quality. 
They never have. In the 8 years they have held the White House, their 
own reports verify they have never ever focused on quality.
  Mr. GOODLING. When we were doing that negotiating last year, it was a 
perfect time. The New York News newspaper had total front page coverage 
which said, Parents, do you recognize in New York City, 50 percent of 
your teachers are not qualified? And I would hold that up every time 
they would talk, and remind them again, if we cannot put a quality 
teacher in the classroom, we are not going to help the child.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. I am wondering if the gentleman would also be able to 
tell us about his experiences with the vast numbers of education 
leaders we have met with from throughout the country who have testified 
before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, reiterated the 
kinds of things we have heard in the Crossroads Report that fully 
funding the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act really 
represents the ultimate in flexibility. We hear this routinely. I know 
the gentleman has, as well.

                              {time}  2045

  I am wondering if the gentleman could share some of his experiences.
  I might also point out, Mr. Speaker, as many of our colleagues know, 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) prior to coming to 
Congress was a school superintendent and one who understands full well 
how fully funding Federal mandates frees up local leaders to focus on 
the real priorities, which is ultimately helping kids far better than 
anybody here in Washington can do.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, in IDEA, as we indicated, for instance, 
they were promised 40 percent of the average expenditure for students 
all over this country. Now, 2 years ago, that average expenditure per 
pupil was about $6300. If they were getting their 40 percent, we can 
see they would be getting $2500, $2600 for each child. Instead, when we 
started, they were getting about $400. We are now up to about $600 or 
$700. We will get to about $800. That is a long way from that $2600 
that we promised.
  If they have that extra money, as I indicated before, they then can 
take care of pupil-teacher ratios. Again, this is why we negotiated for 
100,000 teachers. If we need money to improve the teachers that we 
presently have, use it for that purpose. That is very, very important. 
We need to make sure they have the best quality programs they can have 
to become better teachers, and that is so important.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. The White House has also fought us on this notion of 
expanding Ed-Flex to all of the 50 States. There were 12 States that 
piloted this flexibility act where some achieved great things.
  The State of Texas as we mentioned as raised dramatically achievement 
for minority students, for black students and Hispanic students. In 
fact, the rate of improvement for school children in those categories 
was far higher than anywhere else around the country. And that is 
dramatic testimony to the power of flexibility and choice by governors.
  We wanted to expand that same kind of liberty to all 50 States. We 
have received opposition from the White House from the moment we 
started talking about flexibility for all.
  Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the gentleman might spend a little bit 
of time talking about that experience.
  Mr. GOODLING. No question about. The minority and the former majority 
and the President were very much opposed to flexibility. As I 
indicated, when it became that successful for those who undertook that 
opportunity or took advantage of that opportunity, the President then, 
of course, got all sorts of heat from 50 governors, and then we were 
able to move that.
  What we also said from our side is not that we even want to do that, 
but we want to also give them the Student Results Act so they have no 
trouble commingling money to make programs work. When we have a 
thousand programs, in this case, 700 and some programs, the amount of 
money each program gets is so small that we cannot do anything 
worthwhile with it, but if we try to commingle any of it, as I said 
earlier, we are in trouble with the auditors.
  So we say in the Straight As, we can commingle those dollars, all you 
have to do is prove to us that you can make sure every child improves 
academically.
  Now, I have been told by some States, well, we have enough 
flexibility. We know what they are saying. They are basically saying we 
are just happy to take your money. You do not ask us for anything in 
return. We just take your money, and we do the same thing over and over 
again.
  We do not have a new idea or a creative idea in our heads, so we will 
just go on taking the money from the taxpayers, from the Federal 
Government, because we do not require quality. We do not require 
anything.
  It is catching on, because as I said, Texas is a great success story. 
Maryland has done well. So my hope is that as I retire, we do not 
forget what the gentleman said what he hears in his sleep every night, 
quality not quantity, results not process.
  Let us get them to stop spending hours and hours and hours of 
paperwork. In IDEA alone, we use teacher after teacher after teacher in 
IDEA, because they spend so much time on paperwork that they cannot do 
what they are trained to do, which is to teach

[[Page H9814]]

children, which is what they want to do.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. That is the real hardship, I might add, that we see 
with all of these Federal programs is the paperwork, the red tape, the 
rules that go along with what amounts to pretty small amount of funds.
  The gentleman is right that with so many Federal programs, we spend a 
lot of money in Washington, about $40 billion a year just on the 
program costs for the U.S. Department of Education, and that is not 
even mentioning the other $80 billion that is managed through student 
loans by the U.S. Department.
  We just need to focus on the $40 billion that we budgeted and 
allocated towards education, each dollar is sent out from Washington to 
various States and school districts with all kinds of requirements 
attached to it, much of which has nothing to do with the quality of 
education. Some governors frankly do not understand that.

  This is an easy process for some of them. As the gentleman said, they 
just get the money from Washington, and they turn around and spend it, 
and it appears to their constituents that they are accomplishing 
something with nothing.
  Again, where the real hardship is realized is at the street level, at 
the schoolroom level, the classroom level, where these principals, 
administrators, secretaries, teachers have to deal with these 
monotonous rules and these monotonous regulations.
  Only about 6 percent to 7 percent, maybe sometimes 8 percent of a 
classroom budget is Federal funds. The rest comes from your State or it 
comes from local property taxes. So a tiny portion is all we are 
talking about when we are talking the amount of dollars that goes into 
a classroom.
  The tragedy is for the 6 percent, 7 percent or 8 percent of Federal 
funds that makes it into a classroom, probably 50 percent to 60 percent 
of the paperwork requirements are attached to that small amount of 
Federal dollars. That is what we want to eliminate.
  We want to allow flexibility so that we can actually increase the 
power of the money that is already spent. We do not need to really 
spend more, if we just spend it more wisely. We can be more effective.
  Mr. GOODLING. When we were negotiating the 100,000 teachers last 
year, the first thing the administration said is we have to take about 
10 percent off the top, I think they wanted 15 percent, to keep on the 
Federal level. I said, wait a minute, you are not hiring the teachers. 
The local school board is hiring the teachers. Then they called back 
and said we certainly need 10 percent for the States off the top.
  I said, wait a minute. The State is not hiring the teachers. The 
local school districts are hiring the teachers; that is where the money 
should go. Of course, we won that argument because it makes sense.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. That is the educational empire which the gentleman just 
described, which is so hard to understand. There is such momentum, and 
all of these people that are employed, and not only at the U.S. 
Department of Education, but the State Departments of Education, they 
make careers out of this paperwork and these rules. Somebody reads all 
of this stuff.
  Somebody actually opens up the mail when the superintendent fills out 
the paperwork and sends it to Washington. There is a person here in 
Washington whose job it is to open up all of these forms and compile 
them and collate them and make reports on them.
  When we start talking about getting rid of the rules and regulations, 
consolidating programs and increasing flexibility, our goal is to help 
children. Unfortunately, some people in Washington feel threatened by 
our objective to help kids.
  There is a huge bureaucratic empire that is sustained through all of 
the monotony, and that is the objective of the Vice President and 
President. They have worked tirelessly to preserve this large 
bureaucracy to preserve all of these rules, to preserve these 
regulations, and make decisions here in Washington D.C.
  Our message, our Republican message, is very different, one that the 
Governor of Texas tonight and every time he speaks articulates for us 
so well; that is, we should not be trusting of the bureaucrats in 
Washington. We should be trusting of the teachers who actually know the 
name of the children.
  We should be trusting of the principals who knows the name of the 
teachers. We should be trusting of the superintendents who can name all 
of the principals and many of the players in a school district. We 
should also be trusting the school board members who make the policy 
decisions who are elected by local communities, by our friends and our 
neighbors.
  The farther away we get from the classroom in terms of decision-
making, accountability, the poorer the decisions are made, and the 
greater the opportunity for mismanagement. My goodness, the President 
and the President's own agencies have documented this repeatedly, they 
have written books on the matter of waste, fraud and abuse in their own 
agency, which are replete with examples and there are real 
opportunities to fix these problems and get the money to the classroom.
  After 8 years, the Vice President has done nothing. He has not lifted 
a finger to help us in our efforts to streamline this bureaucracy and 
get the money, get the flexibility, get the decision-making to the 
people who deserve it.
  Mr. GOODLING. I am reminded each time that we were negotiating that 
both the President and the Secretaries were governors. Think in terms 
of being a governor, rather than being a Washington bureaucrat, and you 
will be offering far better solutions to problems, than being a 
bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Of course, Governor Bush understands the perspective of 
being a governor. He has worked in partnership, not always Republicans; 
this has not been solely a Republican success, although, it is a 
Republican philosophy. He has had to work with Democrats here in 
Congress as well, Democrats of the Texas delegation, Democrats in the 
Texas State House and the State Senate.
  He understands working across the aisle, and that is a real sign of 
leadership when somebody can, as Governor Bush has done, raise the 
priority of children over and above everything else, over and above the 
bureaucracy, over and above the politics and state as a public goal, 
the number 1 objective for education is to raise the achievement of all 
children. We are going to start with the ones who are suffering the 
most.
  We have seen the Governor of Texas accomplish that in his State. It 
has just been remarkable how that kind of leadership has brought all of 
us together toward that goal. What I am afraid of is that many 
Americans may not realize the conflict in vision between these two men 
running for President of the United States.
  We have the Bush model from the perspective of a governor that we 
support that says children should be the number 1 objective of our 
education reform efforts; that is in stark contrast to the 8-year 
record of the Vice President, which has been to preserve bureaucracy, 
to preserve waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, to write books on 
how bad it is, and spend 8 years doing nothing about it. That is a huge 
conflict in vision and an important choice that I think we all need to 
think about very seriously.
  After this election, the gentleman and I and all of our colleagues 
here in Washington are going to have to deal with the attitude of the 
White House.
  Mr. Speaker, I am hoping the Bush attitude of putting children first 
is something that we all will be celebrating and rallying around. I 
know many people around the country will learn more about that tonight.
  I am fearful that not enough share our enthusiasm for putting 
children ahead of bureaucracy and may be persuaded by this simple, 
unimaginable message that we hear coming out of the White House and 
from the Vice President that just says spend more, spend more, spend 
more. There is nothing else to say, just spend more.
  Mr. GOODLING. Again, there is no question that we are moving in the 
right direction as a new majority, because we are putting children 
first. Everybody should be thinking about putting children first. They 
are our future. The tragedy is that 50 percent of our children today 
are not going to be ready to get a piece of the American dream in the 
21st Century, the high-tech century. What a tragedy.

[[Page H9815]]

  We are going to vote again to bring another 200,000 people from other 
countries to do our high-tech jobs, our $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a 
year jobs because we do not have our own ready to take those jobs.
  We cannot survive as a great society if we continue to do that. We 
must tackle the problem.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. The contrast again could not be clearer. The Texas 
record is one of improving test scores. This is a graph of the Texas 
4th graders when it comes to reading skills. Back in 1994, when 
Governor Bush took over the governorship in Texas, only 75 percent of 
Texas 4th graders could read at grade level, and that has increased to 
almost 90 percent in 1999.
  That is a remarkable improvement. This is a huge contrast to what has 
been created by the Clinton-Gore administration. If we take, for 
example, the third international math study, math-science study 
comparison, which ranked American students Nationwide against their 
peers with 21 other industrial countries, we come in 19th.
  This is something we have known about for 8 years that the Clinton 
and Gore regime have occupied the White House, and our test scores have 
not improved. They have gotten worse. So I guess the question that 
Americans need to decide in the next few days is whether we want to see 
the Texas style rates of improvement of dramatic increases in academic 
performance or whether we want to see the Clinton-Gore kinds of trends, 
which is declining performance when compared to international peers in 
the case of math and science.

                              {time}  2100

  I love Colorado. It is a great State. But nobody from Colorado is 
running for President of the United States. Of the two models, the bad 
Washington, D.C. model versus the good Texas model, I will choose the 
Texas model every time. I prefer that for my kids. I know most of my 
friends and neighborhoods around my district would far prefer to see 
improving test scores for their children, not declining test course. 
All of this is critically important to maintaining strength and 
solvency of our Republic.
  It is going to be an interesting evening tonight as that debate gets 
under way in just a minute. I am really hopeful that Americans will 
remember the difference in opportunity, the opportunity that the White 
House has had, that Al Gore has had as Vice President of the United 
States, which he has squandered, he has done nothing about some of the 
problems that he has known to exist through the Department of 
Education, versus dramatic improvements that real leadership in Texas 
have achieved for real children with real parents in real communities 
in a State that has enjoyed great leadership. Now, that kind of 
leadership is something that we can have for the whole country.
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, the Governor Bush model, of course, is the 
model I have tried to follow for 26 years, and that is to put people 
before politics but put children before politics. That is what he has 
done in Texas. That is why we have seen the kind of improvement that we 
see in Texas. Those children most in need in Texas are receiving the 
benefits that all of these programs that were created in Washington 
wanted to see happen, but it did not happen. It has happened with his 
leadership and leading a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to be 
recognized tonight.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan and the 
gentleman from Colorado for allowing me the opportunity to express my 
thoughts on the education reform debate that is sure to consume much of 
our time in the remaining days of the 106th Congress. For all the sound 
and fury generated by the argument over education, the truth is that 
the differences between the congressional leadership and the 
administration are not significant; both wish to strengthen the 
unconstitutional system of centralized education. I trust I need not go 
into the flaws with President Clinton's command-and-control approach to 
education. However, this Congress has failed to present a true, 
constitutional alternative to President Clinton's proposal to further 
nationalize education.
  It is becoming increasingly clear that the experiment in centralized 
control of education has failed, and that the best means of improving 
education is to put parents back in charge. According to a recent 
Manhattan Institute study of the effects of state policies promoting 
parental control over education, a minimal increase in parental control 
boosts students' average SAT verbal score by 21 points and students' 
SAT math score by 22 points! The Manhattan Institute study also found 
that increasing parental control of education is the best way to 
improve student performance on the National Assessment of Education 
Progress (NAEP) tests. Clearly, the drafters of the Constitution knew 
what they were doing when they forbade the Federal Government from 
meddling in education.
  American children deserve nothing less than the best educational 
opportunities, not warmed-over versions of the disastrous educational 
policies of the past. That is why I introduced H.R. 935, the Family 
Education Freedom Act. This bill would give parents an inflation-
adjusted $3,000 per annum tax credit, per child for educational 
expenses. The credit applies to those in public, private, parochial, or 
home schooling.
  This bill creates the largest tax credit for K-12 education in the 
history of our great Republic and it returns the fundamental principle 
of a truly free economy to America's education system: what the great 
economist Ludwig von Mises called ``consumer sovereignty.'' Consumer 
sovereignty simply means consumers decide who succeeds or fails in the 
market. Businesses that best satisfy consumer demand will be the most 
successful. Consumer sovereignty is the means by which the free market 
maximizes human happiness.

  Currently, consumers are less than sovereign in the education 
``market.'' Funding decisions are increasingly controlled by the 
federal government. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' 
public, and even private schools, are paying greater attention to the 
dictates of federal ``educrats'' while ignoring the wishes of the 
parents to an ever-greater degree. As such, the lack of consumer 
sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education 
and replacing it with state control. Restoring parental control is the 
key to improving education.
  Of course, I applaud all efforts which move in the right direction 
such as the Education Savings Accounts legislation (H.R. 7). President 
Clinton's college tax credits are also good first steps in the right 
direction. However, Congress must act boldly--we can ill afford to 
waste another year without a revolutionary change in our policy. I 
believe my bill sparks this revolution and I am disappointed that the 
leadership of this Congress chose to ignore this fundamental reform and 
instead focused on reauthorizing great society programs and promoting 
the pseudo-federalism of block grants.
  One area where this Congress has so far been successful in fighting 
for a constitutional education policy was in resisting President 
Clinton's drive for national testing. I do wish to express my support 
for the provisions banning the development of national testing 
contained in the Education Appropriations bill, and thank Mr. Goodling 
for his leadership in this struggle.
  Certain of my colleagues champion proposals to relieve schools of 
certain mandates so long as states and localities agree to be held 
``accountable'' to the federal government for the quality of their 
schools. I have supported certain of these proposals because they do 
provide states and localities the option of escaping certain federal 
mandates.
  However, there are a number of both practical and philosophical 
concerns regarding these proposals. The primary objection to this 
approach, from a constitutional viewpoint, is embedded in the very 
mantra of ``accountability'' stressed by the plans' proponents. Talk of 
accountability begs the question: accountable to whom? Under these type 
of plans, schools remain accountable to federal bureaucrats and those 
who develop the state tests upon which a schools' performance is 
judged. Should the schools not live up to their bureaucratically-
determined ``performance goals,'' they will lose their limited freedom 
from federal mandates. So federal and state bureaucrats will determine 
if the schools are to be allowed to participate in these programs and 
bureaucrats will judge whether the states are living up to the 
standards set in the state's education plan--yet this is supposed to 
debureaucratize and decentralize education!
  Even absent the ``accountability'' provisions spending billions of 
taxpayer dollars on block grants is a poor way of restoring control 
over education to local educators and parents. Some members claim that 
the expenditure levels for not matter, it is the way the money is spent 
which is important. Contrary to the view of the well-meaning but 
misguided members who promote block grants, the amount of taxpayer 
dollars spent on federal education does matter.
  First of all, the federal government lacks constitutional authority 
to redistribute monies between states and taxpayers for the purpose of 
education, regardless of whether the monies are redistributed through 
federal programs

[[Page H9816]]

or through grants. There is no ``block grant exception'' to the 
principles of federalism embodied in the U.S. Constitution.
  Furthermore, the federal government's power to treat state 
governments as their administrative subordinates stems from an abuse of 
Congress' taxing-and-spending power. Submitting to federal control is 
the only way state and local officials can recapture any part of the 
monies of the federal government has illegitimately taken from a 
state's citizens. Of course, this is also the only way state officials 
can tax citizens of other states to support their education programs. 
It is the rare official who can afford not to bow to federal dictates 
in exchange for federal funding!
  As long as the federal government controls education dollars, states 
and local schools will obey Federal mandates; the core program is not 
that federal monies are given with the inevitable strings attached, the 
real problem is the existence of federal taxation and funding.
  Since federal spending is the root of federal control, by increasing 
federal spending this Congress is laying the groundwork for future 
Congresses to fasten more and more mandates on the states. Because 
state and even local officials, not federal bureaucrats, will be 
carrying out these mandates, this system could complete the 
transformation of the state governments into mere agents of the federal 
government.
  While it is true that lower levels of intervention are not as bad as 
micro-management at the federal level, Congress' constitutional and 
moral responsibility is not to make the federal education bureaucracy 
``less bad.'' Rather, we must act now to put parents back in charge of 
education and thus make American education once again the envy of the 
world.
  Hopefully the next Congress will be more reverent toward their duty 
to the U.S. Constitution and America's children. The price of 
Congress's failure to return to the Constitution in the area of 
education will be paid by the next generation of American children. In 
short, we cannot afford to continue on the policy read we have been 
going down. The cost of inaction to our future generations is simply 
too great.

                          ____________________