[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 18, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5547-H5548]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1815
                         PRESERVING HEAD START

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Franks of Arizona). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, to a number of people around the 
country it is approximately 15 minutes after 6 in the East, about a 
quarter after 5 in my neck of the woods in central Alabama; and a lot 
of people are coming home right now from working on the assembly lines, 
a lot of people are coming from working in the nursing homes and the 
places where hard work is done in this country, and a lot of them 
picked up their children from Head Start.
  A lot of them are coming home now, and they are watching this debate, 
and they are asking a very basic question: Why is this House even 
assessing the question of Head Start? Why is this House even talking 
about dismantling Head Start, when in their own lives they see this 
program has been so enormously successful?
  There is an old maxim that if something is not broke, you do not fix 
it; and the perspective of a large number of people I represent in 
Birmingham, Alabama, and Selma and Tuscaloosa and in all of the rural 
counties in my State is that this has been a part of the War on Poverty 
that has endured. This program, which was launched in the 1960s, has 
endured, it has survived, and it has notably commanded bipartisan 
support.
  As I talk to friends of mine on the other side of the aisle, 
particularly friends of mine who have served in State legislatures, a 
good many of them away from this floor will express that this is a 
program that has been successful.
  So many people wonder why, as we talk about reform, as we talk about 
changing the educational system in this country, why we are targeting 
this particular program; and I will make three basic points to follow 
up on what my very able colleagues from Maryland and California said 
earlier.
  The first one is that this program has been an enormously effective 
holistic program. It has been a program that has helped not simply make 
children more literate, but has frankly helped to make children better 
young men and women, better equipped to participate in school, better 
equipped to live in their communities.
  It is not simply a reading program, it is not simply a literacy 
program, and to try to limit it or to cabinet it to just those areas 
deprives the program of some of its potential.
  Another very basic point, as we talk about block granting this 
program even for just eight states, we know the reality of block grants 
has been that as the programs devolved to the States, the States are 
often unconstrained in how they spend the money. They are often 
unconstrained in their vision of how the money should be spent.
  I know in my State of Alabama we are facing enormous budget 
consequences now, and in the States most of us represent our States are 
fiscally struggling. They are not asking for more programs to be put on 
their plate from an administrative or financing standpoint. If 
anything, they want

[[Page H5548]]

more help from Washington, D.C., not more requirement that they 
administer particular programs that are being transferred from 
Washington.
  A third point: we often talk about representing the interests of 
people whose voices are not heard in our society. It is crystal clear 
to me that among the most unrepresented people that we have are the 
children who are living in poverty and the children who are living in 
families that are standing at the edge of economic security.
  Just one week ago, this House failed to pass a child tax credit, a 
manageable child tax credit bill that would have helped a lot of those 
families. It would be a shame if next week or in the weeks to come that 
we decided that we were going to attack those families in just one more 
little way, by changing this program that has benefited so many of 
them.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, when this issue comes on the floor, when 
we begin to talk as a body about Head Start, I hope that we understand 
it has been a success, and I hope we understand that so many families 
in districts like mine around this country look to this program; and we 
ought to be finding a way to preserve it, we ought to be finding a way 
to help connect with these children, because if we lose them, as the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) said so well a few minutes ago, 
we are losing a potential talent base that we have not discovered. We 
are losing people that have the chance to do an enormous amount in 
their lives.
  We need to be nurturing them, helping them; and this program has been 
an example of what government can do at its best. There are some of us 
in this body, Mr. Speaker, who still believe that government has a high 
and noble purpose. Not that it is the only answer, but that it can do 
something to touch and connect with the lives of people who have been 
left behind.

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