[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 14, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H907-H908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SUPPORTING FULL FUNDING FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise here today to support full funding of 
special education, not next year, not the year after, not 10 years from 
now, but this year. I want to begin with a few comments that should be 
obvious.
  First, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act of 1975 
authorized Congress to cover 40 percent of the cost of special 
education in order to provide students with disabilities a free and 
appropriate education.

                              {time}  1300

  That was in 1975. It has been a long time, but we have not come close 
to fully funding special education.
  The points I want to make at the beginning are these:
  First, the mandate to provide a free and appropriate education to 
students with disabilities was a Federal mandate. It was passed by this 
Congress, and it required the States and local school districts to 
spend more than

[[Page H908]]

they had on students with disabilities. It was a Federal mandate that 
has never been matched by appropriate Federal funding.
  Second, the funds that pass through our special education program are 
not spent in Washington, D.C. They are spent in local school districts 
in local schools for teachers, for supplies, for all those things that 
help strengthen our local education programs.
  Third, this year the money is available. No one can say that we 
cannot find the money to fully fund special education this year because 
the size of the surpluses that are in front of us make it clear that if 
we do not fully fund special education it will only be because there 
are other priorities.
  Now, when I listen to some of the rhetoric from my Republican friends 
on the other side of the aisle, I sometimes wonder, for this reason. We 
learned in school that the thighbone is connected to the hipbone, and 
we learned as adults that expenditures are connected to revenues. What 
we have coming into our family, our business, our government is 
matched, is related to, what our family, our business or our government 
spends.
  But we hear our friends say that it is not the government's money, it 
is our money. They say things like, we do not want money spent in 
Washington. Well, special education funds are spent in local school 
districts. Our education systems belong to all of us. It is our 
education system, just as it is our national debt, our air traffic 
control system, our Medicare, our Social Security. These are the things 
that we own and we cherish in common.
  When I have been traveling around my district back in Maine holding 
meetings. The number one priority of educators in Maine, of people who 
care about improving our public schools, is full funding of special 
education: Get Federal funding up to that 40 percent level. Where is it 
right now? It is 14.9 percent, the highest level it has ever been since 
1975. It is today at 14.9 percent. That is after 3 successive years of 
billion-dollar increases.
  We have done more in the last 3 years for special education than ever 
before. But today, if the tax cut that the President has proposed goes 
through, we will not be able to fully fund special education. In all 
probability, if the projections hold, we will not be able to fund it 
this year or next year or any time in the next decade.
  So that is why we have a unique opportunity today to fully fund 
special education. If we do, it will help special education kids, it 
will help regular kids, because it will free up funding for 
improvements in our regular education programs; and it will provide 
real relief in the future for our property taxpayers, who right now, 
certainly in my State of Maine and around the country, are really under 
a great deal of pressure to fund students that they are required to 
fund and should be funding, but because of a mandate passed by 
Congress, by the Federal government, in 1975, we have never, we have 
never lived up to our responsibilities.
  The other two items that I hear a great deal about from people in 
Maine who care about education have to do with how we are going to find 
teachers, how we are going to find, hire, and retain teachers to teach 
these children and how we are going to renovate and build new schools 
when we need to do that. But, always, special ed is at the top of the 
list.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take this historic 
opportunity that may not come again to fully fund special education, 
not next year, not 10 years from now, but this year. We can do that 
with $11 billion; and $11 billion as compared to the $1.6 trillion tax 
cut, that is no comparison at all.
  There is no reason why we cannot fully fund special education this 
year. I urge my colleagues to do just that.

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