[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 57 (Wednesday, May 8, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2213-H2214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     PAYING TRIBUTE ON MOTHER'S DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I too rise on this occasion of Mother's Day 
weekend to pay tribute to those who bring to life and nurture and 
educate the children, the families of our communities and our world, 
and as my dear colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) so 
eloquently stated in the prior Special Order, when we think about it, 
mothers have the most important role in the world because they create 
the love that holds, the center that holds their families together. I 
think that their idealism helps inspire the world every day, not in big 
measures always, but in smaller signs of love and affection.

[[Page H2214]]

  There is no more important person in a child's life than the mother 
and father. But as this is Mother's Day weekend, I think it is 
important to point out that for children learning in schools, the most 
important factor in their success is their mother reading to them at 
home.

                              {time}  1630

  As we think about education, which is on the minds of all the people 
in our country, because education is so important to the preservation 
and the advancement of our democratic way of life, having an 
enlightened republic, it is important to think about the role of women 
and education and the role of this Federal Government in helping our 
families educate their children.
  We have heard a lot from this administration about compassionate 
conservatism. I have really tried to understand what that term means. 
But in speaking about education, maybe it is important to put on the 
record, it is important to have individuals going to schools and 
reading to children. I do it myself. It is important to have mothers 
reading to children. It is the most important act that they can perform 
for that child in the home other than feeding them.
  But if you look at this Federal Government and this particular Bush 
administration, though the compassionate side comes out when we see 
pictures in the paper of the President coming to Michigan, which he 
just did this week just north of where I live in Ohio, or wherever he 
might go, and then you look at the bills that come on this floor such 
as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act this year, it provides no 
additional assistance for education of our children around the country. 
In fact, the bill that passed here authorized an expenditure of over 
$24 billion for education at the elementary and secondary levels, but 2 
weeks later when the President's budget arrived, it was $4 billion 
short. In other words, they might be compassionate, but the 
conservative side actually does not allow them to fulfill their 
promises.
  Broken promises, that is what compassionate conservatism is all 
about. Frankly, it is all about nothing. Ask any of our college 
students across this country. They graduate on average today with a 
debt of nearly $17,000. Our physicians, when our medical school 
students graduate from college, on average we force them to have a debt 
load of over $100,000. How can a young physician going into practice 
manage to have a practice that is profitable while he or she has to pay 
that debt at the same time as they have to buy all this medical 
liability insurance, pay for the building, pay for all of their 
instruments and the medicines, and so forth. Think about the burden 
that we continue to place on the future of this country, on our young 
people.
  So as a woman of our country, as a Congresswoman, as someone who I 
think has some mothering instincts of her own, let me just say probably 
the most important thing I can do is to support the future, and that is 
to support our young people at the elementary and secondary level and 
at the college level and to say to the Bush administration, compassion 
is not enough. Conservatism is not enough. You have to do something 
with the power you have to help nurture and grow the next generation. 
And burdening them with debt that they do not get out from under until 
they are 40 years old is not the way to build this country.
  Frankly, we ought to have a program that allows any student, any 
young adult in this country that has that kind of debt to work it off 
through national service on the military side or the civilian side at a 
rate of $20,000 a year. We ought to get them out from under that debt 
and take care of some of the needs of this country, whether it is in 
our nursing homes, whether it is in our forests, whether it is in our 
inner city schools, whether it is in our medical clinics, wherever it 
might be, that we take this burden off the next generation so that they 
can move into this 21st century and new millennium in a way that helps 
advance America's cause.
  Happy Mother's Day.

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