[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14281-S14289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES, AND EDUCATION--CONFERENCE REPORT--Resumed
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, notwithstanding the previous order, I
ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of
the conference report to accompany H.R. 3010, that the conference
report be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the
table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the conference report by
title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A conference report to accompany H.R. 3010 making
appropriations for Departments of Labor, Health and Human
Services and Education, and for other purposes.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider
the conference report.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to call attention to a provision
contained in the conference report to H.R. 3010, the fiscal year 2006
appropriations bill for Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education. I am
pleased to see that House and Senate conferees were able to provide
$100 million for the Teacher Incentive Fund. The Teacher Incentive Fund
was first proposed in the President's fiscal year 2006 budget, and will
offer an appropriate incentive to States and local education agencies
to advance the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The No Child Left Behind Act, enacted 4 years ago, raised
expectations for students and teachers. Students are expected to raise
their achievement level, and teachers are accountable for reaching the
specific goals. The Teacher Incentive Fund is an appropriate follow up
to the No Child Left Behind
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Act. It is a pilot program for States and school districts to provide
additional compensation to teachers who make a measurable impact on
raising student achievement. Under this incentive program, Federal
funds would be available to States and local school districts for the
purpose of developing new compensation systems to reward teachers who
raise achievement and to provide an incentive to attract effective
teachers to what the Department of Education calls high-need schools.
These are schools with high poverty rates and poor performance on State
assessments. The Teacher Incentive Fund provides States and school
districts with another tool to raise teacher quality and, thus, close
the achievement gap, which, of course is the primary goal of the No
Child Left Behind Act.
In October, the Senate Republican Policy Committee, of which I am the
chairman, released a policy paper in support of merit pay for teachers
in general and the Teacher Incentive Fund specifically. The paper,
titled ``Teachers Are Key to Success of `No Child Left Behind' Act:
Better Pay for Better Teaching,'' discusses research in support of
merit pay for teachers, and the success merit pay programs have
achieved.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this paper be printed in
the Record following my remarks.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Teachers Are Key to Success of `No Child Left Behind' Act: Better Pay
for Better Teaching
Introduction
Enacted four years ago, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act
raised expectations for students and teachers. Students are
expected to raise their achievement level, and teachers are
accountable for reaching the specific goals. As such, it is
appropriate to reward and acknowledge those teachers who, by
working harder and smarter, have achieved measurable success
in their classrooms.
President Bush has proposed a pilot program for states and
school districts to provide additional compensation to
teachers who make a measurable impact on raising student
achievement. Under this incentive program, federal funds
would be available for the purpose of developing new
compensation systems to reward teachers who raise
achievement, and to provide an incentive to attract effective
teachers to what the Department of Education calls ``high-
need'' schools, which are schools with high poverty rates and
poor performance on state assessments.
In response to the President's proposal, the House of
Representatives included an incentive pay program for
teachers in its Fiscal Year 2006 appropriations bill that
funds the Department of Education (H.R. 3010). The House-
passed program, like the one proposed by the President, is a
voluntary pilot program available to interested states and
school districts. The Senate-reported bill does not contain
such a provision.
Some observers may be concerned that using federal dollars
for anything related to teacher pay is an inappropriate
intrusion of the federal government into an area that is
historically the jurisdiction of states and local school
districts. However, supporters of this concept view it in the
context of a natural follow-up to the four-year-old NCLB.
That law placed new accountability requirements upon schools;
thus, it is argued, it is now appropriate for the federal
government to make available financial incentives for
teachers who help meet those requirements. The concept of the
President's proposal and the House plan is to provide states
and school districts with another tool to raise teacher
quality and close the achievement gap, which stand as the
foundation of NCLB.
According to a November 2004 national survey, 80 percent of
the public supports salary increases for teachers who raise
student achievement. However, some observers suggest that
teachers' unions oppose anything that might be construed as
merit pay. At least one observer notes that union opposition
stands in the way of local districts implementing merit pay
systems on a larger scale. For example, in California, in
response to Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to introduce
merit pay for teachers, the state's largest teachers' union
sought to impose a dues hike on its members to help raise
``tens of millions of dollars'' to combat merit pay and other
budget initiatives. A federal pilot program, such as the one
proposed by the President, may be necessary to allow public
schools to overcome teachers' unions' opposition to
implementing a compensation program that links teacher
performance and student outcomes. The pilot program would
provide funds directly to state and local educational
agencies to allow this concept--one that has already proven
successful in other schools--the chance to prove itself and
build support within the community. This was the case in
Little Rock, Arkansas. Merit-pay bonuses were paid in the
first year by an anonymous donor; the next year, the school
district, pleased with the results of the first year, voted
to use its own funds to pay performance bonuses.
Background: An Antiquated Pay System
Today, the majority of teachers in the United States are
compensated through a ``single salary schedule,'' which bases
teachers' pay on their years of experience and their
education credits and degrees. According to the National
Center for Education Statistics, 96 percent of all public
school districts utilize a single-salary schedule for teacher
pay. The system was designed in the 1920s to ensure fairness
among elementary school teachers, who were mostly women, and
secondary teachers, who were mostly men. Critics contend that
this pay system fails teachers and students as it does
nothing to reward excellence. Indeed, it promotes equal pay
for unequal performance. Under the current system, an
increase for one teacher means an increase for all. The
following table shows the Denver Public Schools' salary
schedule as offered by Brad Jupp, education author and member
of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. According to
Jupp, it is an example of a ``typical single-salary
schedule'' used for paying teachers.
FIGURE 1.--DENVER'S SALARY SCHEDULE \1\
------------------------------------------------------------------------
B.A. M.A. Doctorate
------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Hire......................... $31,320 $31,779
Step 1........................... 32,971 33,454 $39,169
Step 2........................... 33,073 33,697 40,903
Step 3........................... 33,225 35,101 42,642
Step 4........................... 33,480 36,503 44,377
Step 5........................... 33,785 38,053 46,251
Step 6........................... 33,988 39,671 48,219
Step 7........................... 35,421 41,337 50,290
Step 8........................... 36,912 43,087 52,449
Step 9........................... 38,456 44,924 54,702
Step 10.......................... 40,092 46,860 57,057
Step 11.......................... 41,784 48,843 59,521
Step 12.......................... 43,566 50,944 62,082
Step 13.......................... 45,546 53,401 64,919
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ With relatively low starting salaries and guaranteed raises over
time, the current Denver Public Schools salary schedule is typical of
compensation schemes for teachers. Each step represents a year of
teaching.
Source: Denver Public Schools.
Proponents of changing teacher compensation argue that the
single-salary schedule deprives public school administrators
of the ability to adjust an individual teacher's pay to
reflect performance, attract sought-after skills, and assure
that teaching positions in low-income schools are filled by
high performers. For example, many school systems struggle to
fill teaching positions in fields that command high salaries
outside of education, such as math and science. The rigidity
of the single-salary schedule prevents them from addressing
this shortage in the obvious way--by raising pay in these
specialties. Likewise, few school systems provide extra
compensation to teachers who work with disadvantaged
students. Therefore, experienced teachers often use their
seniority to transfer to more attractive schools, leaving the
neediest students with more inexperienced teachers.
With such obvious flaws in this rigid pay system, why don't
states and local school districts reform their pay practices
for teachers? The short answer is teachers' unions. Unions
defend the single-salary schedule in the name of employee
equity and fairness, and oppose changes that rely on student
performance as a measure of a teacher's effectiveness.
Furthermore, teachers' unions, particularly the National
Education Association, have opposed merit pay systems because
they place the union in an awkward position: ``For every
teacher awarded merit pay, ten others will want the union to
file a grievance alleging that they deserved merit pay more
than the teacher who received it.''
Why Merit Pay Enhances NCLB Goals
The No Child Left Behind Act requires that all students
become proficient in reading and math, and that the
achievement gap between students of different socio-economic
backgrounds be closed. Schools that do not make progress must
provide supplemental services,
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such as free tutoring, and/or offering the option of choosing
another public school. They must also take corrective action
with regard to the way the school is run. The law,
recognizing that high-quality, effective teachers are a
necessary component to obtaining these results, established
certain teacher-quality requirements for states, including
the requirement that core academic subjects be taught by
``highly qualified teachers.'' And while federal funds
already are in place for professional training and
development to help states and school districts meet this
requirement, that program alone may be insufficient. The
General Accounting Office (GAO) reported in 2003 that state
and district officials are hindered in their ability to
obtain all highly qualified teachers for a number of reasons,
including ``the lack of incentive pay programs.''
In keeping with the rationale that teachers are the key to
the success of NCLB's goals, and so should be rewarded for
meeting them, the President proposed a $500 million Teacher
Incentive Fund as part of his FY 2006 budget request. This
formula grant program is for states and school districts that
choose to reward effective teachers--those who are closing
the achievement gap for students in schools most in need, and
those who otherwise are meeting NCLB annual targets for
student achievement. Under the President's proposal, states
would be authorized to create a statewide system to reward
these teachers, and to provide grant money to local school
districts in order to recruit highly qualified teachers to
high-need schools. Additionally, the President requested that
a portion of the funds be used for competitive grants for the
development and implementation of performance-based teacher
compensation systems in order to aid school districts that
choose to change to such a system.
H.R. 3010, the House-passed Fiscal Year 2006 appropriations
bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services,
and Education, and Related Agencies, included $100 million
for a pilot Teacher Incentive Fund program available to
states willing to develop and implement innovative ways to
provide financial incentives for teachers (and also
principals) who raise student achievement and close the
achievement gap. In the interest of ensuring that the states
remain in control of this issue--and are committed to it--the
bill requires states and schools to pay for an increasing
share of the total cost of the project in subsequent years
with non-federal funds. And, in order to assure that workable
plans can be implemented elsewhere, the bill requires the
Department of Education to assess each project through an
independent evaluator, and then share these assessments with
other interested parties.
It is important to note that the proposals of both the
President and the House allow state and local schools a great
deal of latitude in how they develop merit pay plans. For
example, they may include additional measures and goals,
combined with student performance, but the fundamental shift
would be that the merit pay systems consider outputs, such as
student achievement, rather than only inputs, such as the
number of courses a teacher takes.
The provisions in the House funding bill were applauded by
the chairman of the Department of Education's authorizing
committee who noted, ``The federal government is spending
tens of billions of dollars a year on K-12 education
programs. States and schools ought to be allowed to use at
least a fraction of that money to provide financial rewards
for highly qualified teachers and principals who are working
successfully to raise student achievement.'' Chairman John
Boehner (R-OH) also noted that the funds provided in the
House bill are not new, but are being diverted from existing
funds that were used for what he termed ``less effective
programs.'' Meanwhile, the Senate-reported appropriations
bill that funds the Department of Education (as reported on
July 14), does not include a similar provision.
Merit Pay is Soundly Supported
Support for the use of merit pay in public education has
not been limited to one political party. In addition to the
support of the President and House Republicans noted above,
the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry (D-
MA), voiced his support. In his policy plan, ``A Great
Teacher for Every Child,'' the candidate stated that
``teachers should be rewarded for demonstrating more skill or
better results.''
Another Democratic advocate is former Clinton
Administration official Joel Klein, now Chancellor of the New
York City public schools. According to Chancellor Klein,
``Our system is built on principles of non-meritocracy and
non-differentiation, and those two principles are killing us.
At the heart of the problem are the three pillars of civil
service: lock-step pay, seniority, and life tenure. Together,
they act as handcuffs and prevent us from making the changes
that will encourage excellence in our system.''
In addition to the bipartisan support it has garnered from
elected officials, merit pay for educators is supported by
teachers, parents, and education researchers. In November
2004, two national surveys were conducted for The Teaching
Commission, a private panelled by former IBM chairman Louis
Gerstner, Jr. The surveys found that 80 percent of those
surveyed support salary increases for ``teachers who improve
student achievement, raise teaching standards and increase
accountability for teachers.'' The surveys also found that
three out of four surveyed support paying higher salaries to
teachers willing to serve in high-poverty schools that
struggle to attract and retain good teachers. Furthermore, a
2003 survey conducted by the research group Public Agenda
found that 85 percent of teachers and 72 percent of
principals reported that providing financial incentives would
``help a lot'' when it comes to attracting and retaining
quality teachers. Similarly, 72 percent of the public
supported paying more for those who teach in subjects such as
math, science, and special education in order to attract
teachers with knowledge in these subjects.
Reasons to Support Merit Pay for Teachers: Merit Pay Has Proven Results
A number of school districts have explored merit pay as a
means to attract, motivate, and retain high-quality teachers.
Below are examples of merit pay systems that proponents point
to as promising models.
Starting in 1999, the Denver Classroom Teachers Association
and the Denver Public Schools agreed to study the
relationship between student achievement and teacher
compensation. The initial study included a pilot project at
16 schools for four years. As a result of the initial pilot
program, it was determined that teacher compensation ``could
not be based on student achievement alone.'' Therefore, the
district and the teacher association formed a task force to
design a new comprehensive pay system for teachers. The task
force of teachers, school administrators, and local citizens
used private funds to develop a system dubbed ``ProComp,''
which linked teacher pay to the school district's
instructional mission.
Denver's ProComp system has four components that allow
teachers to earn additional pay. The first component is
``knowledge and skill,'' which allows teachers to earn
additional compensation by completing annual training. The
second component is ``professional evaluation,'' which allows
salary increases based on evaluation. The third, ``student
growth,'' rewards teachers based on the academic achievement
of their students. And the fourth is ``market incentives,''
which allows the district to offer additional pay for
difficult-to-fill positions.
The Denver Board of Education and the teachers' association
approved ProComp in 2004. Next, the program will be submitted
to Denver voters later this year in order to raise the $25
million needed to finance the system.
A second program proving successful is in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. In 2001, nine of Tennessee's twenty worst
performing schools were located in Chattanooga. The mayor and
the school district, with cooperation from the teacher
association (with funds provided by two private foundations),
devised a plan to address these nine elementary schools,
known as the ``Benwood schools.'' To attract highly qualified
teachers to teach in the Benwood schools, the group developed
a teacher-incentive package. The package included a $5,000
bonus for highly-qualified teachers as defined by student
achievement, and a $2,000 annual bonus for every teacher in a
school that significantly increased its test scores, among
other incentives.
The ``Benwood schools'' results are impressive. The
percentage of third graders reading at or above grade level
rose from 23 percent in 2001 to 36 percent in 2003. Across
all grades, the percentage of students at or above grade
level in reading/language arts rose from 57 percent in 2003
to 77 percent in 2005. Math achievement increased from 54
percent to 70 percent during the same period. In addition to
raising student achievement, the Benwood schools report that
filling their teacher positions has been easier, turnover has
been reduced, and teacher morale has improved.
Merit Pay Helps With Difficult-to-Fill Positions
The success of the NCLB depends particularly on raising
achievement at high-needs schools, but, as Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings describes it, the current system
detracts from that goal: ``We have a system that doesn't give
the teachers who want to help these students the support they
deserve. While most professions reward those willing to take
on the hardest assignments, the public school system often
does the opposite. Teachers with the skill and desire to
close the achievement gap find themselves drawn away from the
schools that need the most help. Many school systems even
offer de facto incentives for teachers to leave these
schools.'' That is, sometimes experienced teachers use their
seniority to transfer to more desirable schools.
To address this, a number of school districts have employed
merit pay to reward highly qualified teachers who work in
designated high-poverty schools. One such program is the
Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) developed by the Milken
Family Foundation. In addition to merit pay, the TAP system
rewards teachers who take on additional responsibilities with
additional pay. In Arizona, talented teachers have shown
their support for this program by taking jobs at some high-
need schools. Of the 61 teachers in one school district who
moved to high-need schools, 13 (or 21 percent) came from
schools in high socioeconomic areas, schools that are ``among
the best in the area.'' Additionally, school districts in
Florida, Alabama, Maryland, and Tennessee are offering
rewards to qualified teachers who work in designated high-
poverty schools. According to the superintendent of one such
school district, since the initiative began,
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``staffing the urban schools has become much easier.''
Merit Pay Raises Teacher Ouality and Treats Teachers as Professionals
Education research demonstrates that teacher quality is the
single most important factor affecting student achievement.
That said, one recent study documents a decline in teacher
quality--which its authors attribute to lack of financial
reward for quality work. Economists Carline Hoxby of Harvard
University and Andrew Leigh of Australian National University
found that salary distribution for U.S. public school
teachers ``has narrowed so dramatically that those with the
highest aptitude can expect to earn no more than those with
the lowest. This alone accounts for more than three-quarters
of the decline in teacher quality.'' According to their
research (which used mean SAT scores to define ``aptitude''
and was limited to women), 16 percent of American female
teachers in 1963 were of low aptitude, compared to 36 percent
in 2000. At the other end the spectrum, only one percent of
female teachers in 2000 were high-aptitude, compared to five
percent in 1963.
This study underscores the assertion that, especially in
this highly competitive economy, the single-salary schedule
that bases compensation solely on college credits, education
degrees, and years of experience does not attract the best
and brightest. Highly capable and competent people are more
likely to be attracted to a system that rewards individual
performance.
Teaching is a profession like none other. It is responsible
for educating, training, and preparing all others with the
skills needed to succeed. As such, it should be held to high
standards. Merit pay allows top teachers to be acknowledged
for their efforts, provides an incentive to other teachers,
and raises the bar of professionalism in teaching. It allows
teachers to be held more accountable and judged in relation
to their peers. Merit pay brings evaluation of outputs to
teaching, a standard used in most professions.
Merit Pay Is More Cost-Effective for the Taxpayers
Under the current single-salary teacher pay system, a
salary increase for one means a salary increase for all.
Based on survey data, a majority of the public (71 percent)
believes teachers deserve to earn more. However, ``just to
bring the salaries in the below-average states to the
national average would cost $8.5 billion--an amount that
is fiscally irrational.'' Proponents of merit pay note
that it would be less costly and would produce greater
results to target raises toward the most effective
teachers. According to the April 2005 Harris-Hart survey,
``public support for paying the costs of higher teacher
salaries is enhanced if higher pay is linked to teacher
performance and other accountability measures.''
Refuting Critics
Among the criticisms raised by opponents of merit pay is
that it inappropriately uses student performance as a measure
of a teacher's effectiveness. Yet, as the aforementioned
studies show, a merit pay system can be built around a
variety of objective and subjective measures, decided at the
local level. Successful pay systems can factor in a variety
of measures of excellence, including peer and principal
review, in addition to student achievement.
A parallel issue is outcome-based payments for physicians
under Medicare, which is currently under consideration by the
Senate Finance Committee. The aim of merit pay for teachers
is similar to that of outcome-based payments for physicians.
As expressed by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), that proposal
would ``reward better health-care quality with better
payment.''
Critics also contend that it is unfair to grade teachers
and that grading could be subject to favoritism. One only
needs to be reminded that testing is a reality in education.
If gauging performance is inappropriate, then why do we give
grades to students? The typical response, as noted in the
Christian Science Monitor, is, ``We give grades because they
help us understand which areas need improvement and because
they acknowledge superb effort and ability.'' Also, grading
based on student performance is not subject to favoritism;
grading is simply a reflection of the numbers. A carefully
crafted merit pay program with clearly defined measures and
expectations should alleviate this concern.
Another criticism by opponents is that merit pay plans have
not proven successful. A number of merit pay experiments
tried in the 1980s are no longer in place. Critics argue that
the decline of such programs was due to the difficulties of
accurately identifying effective teachers and rewarding good
teaching practices. These difficulties have been erased
following annual testing of grades three through eight as
required by NCLB, which provides objective measures to
identify effective teachers. Proponents of change insist the
experiments in the 1980s were too limited in scope, and were
destined to fail due to the stiff resistance from teachers
and unions. The programs running in Denver and Chattanooga
are two examples of programs that are yielding positive
results. Furthermore, now that NCLB gives parents the choice
to transfer out of low-performing public schools, a new sense
of competition among schools has emerged that has forced
changes in how parents and teachers view public schools.
Critics also raise concerns that teachers will ``cherry
pick'' the best students to be in their class. Supporters of
merit pay note that this concern can largely be addressed by
measuring student achievement using ``value-added
standards,'' which look at student improvement or gain over
the course of the year instead of students' level of
achievement at the end of a year. Furthermore, when value-
added standards are used, merit pay remains available to
teachers of all students. That is, it likely is easier to get
a 25-percentile gain from a student starting in the 30th
percentile than a 15-percentile gain from a student already
at the 80th percentile.
Critics of merit pay argue that it damages the school
culture when ``superior teachers'' are singled out and given
special awards. They note that in competitive industries,
both employers and employees must consider the possibility
that competing companies will provide better products or
services at a lower price, and these incentives ``are not
present in public education.'' In response, supporters of
merit pay point to its wide and successful use in private
schools, which suggests that it is neither infeasible nor
unattractive. Private schools note they use merit pay to
recruit and retain the quality teachers demanded by tuition-
paying parents. This broad use of merit pay by private
schools, of course, highlights a critical distinction between
public and private schools: such initiatives are ``easier in
the private sector because administrators are seldom subject
to the constraints imposed by a collective bargaining
process.'' Even so, the successes seen in the private schools
could point to the direction public schools might take if
teachers were rewarded for student achievements.
Along the same lines, some critics assert that rewarding
some teachers and not others harms teacher collaboration
within a school. Yet, this did not prove true in the Denver
program. When Denver teachers were asked whether their pilot
program had an impact on ``cooperation among teachers,'' the
results were that 53 percent of the participating teachers
said the impact was positive, and only 2 percent said the
impact was negative. According to Brad Jupp, the teacher
representative to the ProComp taskforce, the Denver teachers'
survey response ``flies in the face of preconceptions that
teachers fear pay for performance based on student growth
because it will harm collegial relations.'' Furthermore,
schools need to reward the best teachers to attract and
retain them in the schools that need them the most. According
to education researchers Caroline Hoxby and Andrew Leigh, in
order to attract high-aptitude individuals back into
teaching, ``school districts need to reward teachers in the
same way that college graduates are paid in other
professions--that is, according to their performance.''
The National Education Association argues that, rather than
pay increases for some, all teachers should be paid more.
However, history shows that there is no direct connection
between spending more money on education and increased
student achievement. According to the most recent analysis by
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) of its member countries' spending on education as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product, the United States
spends the second-highest amount. And yet, U.S. student
achievement does not match the higher-than-average
expenditure. While the proportion of individuals completing
high school has been rising in all OECD countries, the rates
of students graduating from high school in most OECD
countries are now higher than those in the United States.
Another study shows a similar lack of correlation. According
to the National Center for Education Statistics, the United
States outspends the other G-8 countries in per-student
expenditures. And yet, fourth-grade students in the United
States ranked in the middle of the list of countries in
mathematics, and eighth-grade students ranked 15th among the
45 countries in mathematics.
Conclusion
Expectations are greater now for teachers because the No
Child Left Behind Act holds schools accountable for student
achievement. Merit pay is a positive way to reward those who
are effective in raising student achievement. Congress needs
to help states to implement alternatives to the traditional,
single-salary schedule used by the majority of public schools
to pay teachers if it wants to assure that schools nationwide
meet the NCLB's important goals. Merit pay increases schools'
ability to attract and retain highly qualified teachers,
especially in fields that command high salaries outside of
education, such as math and sciences, and it encourages
teachers to work in high-needs schools. A carefully developed
merit pay plan, with clearly defined measures and
expectations, should be able to address any legitimate
concerns raised by teachers and their unions. Eighty percent
of parents and teachers support salary increases for teachers
who improve student achievement. The Teacher Incentive Fund
proposed by the President and passed by the House will permit
many more schools to implement public-supported reforms, and
will provide a major incentive for needed changes in teacher
compensation nationally.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support
for the extension of a program that has provided vital support to our
Nation's
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dairy farmers, helped to maintain the milk supply, and perhaps more
importantly has helped to preserve an important way of life in rural
America. The program I speak of is the Milk Income Loss Contract, MILC,
Program, which since its inception in the 2002 farm bill has provided a
crucial buffer between our Nation's hard-working dairy farmers and the
rollercoaster ups and downs of the milk market.
America's farmers are the backbone of its rural communities, and as
markets, weather, and other challenges become more daunting we must
make every effort to support them when they are in need. It is not just
for the benefit of our farmers, who work hard year-round, often in the
face of unforgiving circumstances, and their families, but for the
towns that they help to support and for the health of the land that
they steward. Small farms are the big business of rural America, and if
it becomes too hard for them to survive, the communities where they are
lost will suffer, both economically and culturally. Likewise, as the
economic pressure to develop grows, more and more open space will be
lost to suburban sprawl if small farms disappear. Allowing these farms
to go under by failing to extend sensible supports like the MILC
Program would be bad for the economy, bad for our environment, and bad
for consumers.
In very few places across the country are the stakes of the MILC
Program's survival more starkly apparent than in my State of New York.
Agriculture is a dominant industry in New York, and dairy farmers are
the bulwark of New York's agricultural economy. In light of dramatic
price swings and development pressures that are more severe than almost
anywhere else in the country, the dairy farmers of my State need the
type of support provided by the MILC Program when prices hit rock
bottom. New York's farmers have received millions of dollars under the
program, and I can tell you that that money has made a real difference
in helping small family farms pull back from the brink and stay in
business.
Let me be clear about one thing. While this program provides crucial
and timely support, it is not simply a big-dollar bonanza for America's
dairy farmers. Payments under the program only kick in when prices dip
below the trigger price of $16.94 per hundredweight, when they are most
needed. In fact, in the almost 4 years covered by the program, there
were only 26 months in which USDA had to issue payments. There was an
entire year, from May of 2004 to May of 2005, where prices were
fortunately high enough that support was not necessary. I raise these
facts simply to say that anyone who would oppose this program, which
provides crucial, targeted assistance to small dairy farms, on the
grounds that it is a budget buster or boondoggle is way off the mark.
The MILC Program expired at the end of September, so the need to
extend it is pressing and vital. As we enter the New Year, milk prices
may once again drop below the trigger price, and we need to make sure
that the MILC Program is in place to do its job should our dairy
farmers find themselves in need. The MILC Program is very important to
New York, but not just to New York. The fact that the extension of this
program has drawn strong support from Democrats and Republicans from
multiple regions demonstrates its importance to our entire Nation.
While I have serious misgivings with other provisions contained in
this budget reconciliation conference report, the 2-year extension of
the MILC Program is one item that I am glad to see is included. The
MILC Program has shown itself to be an effective and vital part of our
Government's commitment to support America's farmers, and I strongly
support its extension.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, this evening the Senate passed the
conference report to the fiscal year 2006 Department of Labor, Health
and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill. I want to
express my concerns with this conference report. Not only does this
legislation shortchange important priorities compared to the Senate
version of this bill, which passed on a near unanimous vote of 94 to 3,
it is not the only affront to these programs since an additional
across-the-board cut to discretionary spending is included in the
Department of Defense appropriations conference report.
I am disappointed that this conference report fails to provide our
children with the resources they need to compete in today's world.
Children of all ages will be affected by the decisions we make today.
This conference report decreases funding to programs that help
students succeed at every stage. Indeed, it cuts education funding for
the first time in 10 years. Despite rising tuition costs, college
students will not see an increase in financial aid. The supplemental
educational opportunity grant, SEOG, program will receive $26 million
less than the Senate bill we passed in October. The maximum Pell grant
award will be frozen at $4,050 for the fourth year in a row, making it
more difficult for students to keep up with tuition and the cost of
attending college.
Funding for No Child Left Behind Act programs are reduced by 3
percent, for a total that is $13.1 billion below the authorized level.
Elementary and secondary school children will experience a decrease in
services funded through the School Improvement Programs, the
educational technology State grants, and the Javits Gifted and Talented
Program, which all received less funding than in the Senate bill.
Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act will see its smallest
increase in 8 years, for a total of $12.8 billion. This is $9.9 billion
less than the $22.75 billion authorized in the No Child Left Behind
Act. This funding is critical to improve education in this country. In
2001, members of this chamber made a commitment with the No Child Left
Behind Act to give every child an opportunity at an excellent
education. The President and our colleagues from across the aisle
should join us in seeking to uphold that commitment.
Infants and toddlers will also receive fewer services. The
President's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal, the House bill, and the
Senate bill all included increases in funding for Head Start. However,
this conference report ignores those increases and instead includes
less than 1 percent increase for this important early childhood
program. Head Start centers across the country are cutting back
on comprehensive services, the core of this program's success, because
funding has been minimal year after year and has not kept pace with
inflation. In a time when we should be increasing our investment in
early childhood development, this conference report moves us in the
wrong direction.
The conference report also reduces health funding by a total of $466
million. It will set back critical research at the National Institutes
of Health, unravel already fragile health care safety net programs,
undermine essential health professions training programs, and leave our
Nation completely unprepared to respond to a looming avian influenza
pandemic.
In this conference report, the National Institutes of Health, NIH,
after seeing its budget doubled only a few years ago, will face the
smallest percentage increase--less than 1 percent--in more than three
decades. Withdrawing our support for revolutionary basic and clinical
research at such a crucial time will undoubtedly set back our efforts
in the war against cancer, as well as impede our quest to learn about
the causes of and find effective methods to diagnose and treat
debilitating conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, and autism.
These diseases are not only devastating to those who are afflicted and
the families who care for them, they continue to be a significant drain
on our health care system and our economy.
This bill also deals a devastating blow to essential safety net
programs. First, it essentially stops cold the President's initiative
to create 1,200 new or expanded health center sites to serve an
additional 6.1 million people by 2006. The Senate-passed bill provided
$105 million over the fiscal year 2005 level for community health
centers while this bill contains an increase of only $66 million, in
essence freezing any new competition for community health center funds.
Second, the report slashes funding for programs that train health care
providers who serve in health centers and other safety net sites.
Title VII health professions programs have a long tradition of
responding to
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the needs of medically underserved communities as well as providing
support to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of our health care
workforce. Under this bill, a broad array of small but essential
programs pertaining to trauma care systems, geriatrics training and
education, and emergency medical services will be eliminated. Over the
past several years, Senator Roberts and I have led a strong bipartisan
effort in support of these essential education and training programs.
Gutting these programs is penny-wise and pound-foolish. It will cripple
our ability as a nation to be better prepared for the inevitable
emergencies and tragedies that happen every day and the demographic
tidal wave that will soon be hitting our health care system.
The bill also neglected to include a Senate amendment allocating
nearly $8 billion in emergency funds to combat the avian flu. Instead,
the conference report actually diverts millions from the annual
influenza program budget to pay for rural health programs, with a
promise that funding for avian flu would be included in the pending
Defense appropriations bill but at a much lower amount than the Senate
originally provided.
This conference report fails to provide sufficient funding for the
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP. Rising energy prices
threaten to financially overwhelm low-income families and seniors. This
winter, the average family will face a $1,000 natural gas bill, an
increase of 38 percent from just last year. For families using heating
oil, prices are projected to hit $1,400, an increase of 21 percent over
last year. These price increases are overcoming workers' salaries and
seniors' Social Security checks. American families need economic relief
from high energy prices. They need the security to know they will not
have to decide between heating their homes or feeding their families
and paying the energy bill or buying lifesaving medicines. With a sharp
increase in energy prices this year, it is obvious that level funding
for the LIHEAP program is inadequate. A majority of the Senate supports
$5.1 billion in funding for LIHEAP, but this conference report does not
reflect the will of my colleagues.
This conference report fails the American people in a number of very
important ways. It fails to maintain our promise to give children the
opportunity to achieve their full potential. It fails to preserve our
commitment to groundbreaking and potentially lifesaving advancements in
medicine. And it fails to sustain support for essential programs that
help vulnerable Americans.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, American families are ready for a change.
They take a look at the priorities of this Republican Congress and the
record of the Republican Party and say: it is time for a new direction
for our country.
You need to look no further than the Labor-HHS conference report. It
is a low point of a Republican Congress that is disengaged from the
real needs of American families. This bill is a crowning achievement of
a Republican agenda out of touch with voters.
Republicans are ignoring the problems that matter most to families in
Illinois and all across the country health care, education, and jobs.
What we have is a bill that cuts education funding for the first the
first time in a decade, slashes health funding by more than $300
million, and eliminates funding for trauma care.
This bill pulls the rug out from under America's working families.
Many working families have children in public schools. I have been in
a lot of public schools in Illinois that serve lower income kids. No
matter how successful those schools are, I can tell you--they don't
have money to spare. This bill actually spends less Federal money on
schools and education than any federal budget in the last 10 years.
How can we in good conscience reduce our commitment to education for
low-income kids in public schools?
But perhaps one of the more striking failures of the reconferenced
version of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill is the utter lack of
concern over preparing for the avian flu.
Never mind that this bill eliminates the $7.9 billion added to this
bill on the Senate floor to help local hospitals and health departments
get ready for what pandemic flu.
This conference report goes so far as to take an additional $120
million out of already underfunded accounts at the CDC-money
specifically designated to prepare for pandemic flu.
``We'll take care of that later,'' we were told.
Meanwhile, my understanding is that the Defense appropriations bill
includes half of the funding the Senate approved--half of the funding
the President requested--to prepare for avian flu.
What is driving these cuts is a tax reconciliation that benefits
corporations and the wealthiest among us. Those benefits come at the
expense of basic guarantees for working American families--that they
can have decent public schools; that they can see a doctor; that they
have a chance to getting back into the workforce when they are out; and
that if a killer flu pandemic breaks out in this country we will have
the capacity, the drugs, and the organization to beat it back.
As a member of the conference committee, I did not sign the
conference report and strongly oppose it.
Together, America can do better.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, tonight the Senate adopted the fiscal year
2006 Labor-HHS-Education conference report by a voice vote. I would
like to note for the Record that I do not support this legislation.
This bill reflects the misguided priorities of the Republican
Congress and will shortchange vital health care, education, and labor
programs in order to cut taxes.
At a time when the need for a well-educated, well-trained workforce
is more critical than ever, Republican conferees provided education,
health care, and job training programs $1.4 billion below last year's
level.
This bill cuts education funding for the first time in a decade. It
cuts funding for No Child Left Behind Act programs, and the maximum
Pell grant is frozen for the fourth year in a row, even as college
costs are skyrocketing. And, for the first time 10 years, the Federal
Government will slide backward on its commitment to students with
disabilities because this bill cuts the Federal share of the costs of
special education.
At a time when most Americans cite health care as their top priority,
Republican conferees provided health care programs $466 million below
last year's level, including a $137 million in cuts to rural health
programs and a $185 million cut to the Bureau of Health Professions.
Cutting these programs will make it even harder to recruit qualified
professionals in many parts of the country.
Moreover, Republican conferees eliminated nine vital health care
programs altogether, including trauma care, rural emergency medical
services, the geriatric education centers, health education training
centers, and the healthy community access program. As a result of these
cuts, not one new community health center will be created next year.
At a time when we are the verge of major new breakthroughs in disease
prevention and treatment, the conference agreement also includes the
smallest percentage increase for the National Institutes of Health,
NIH, since 1970, which will hinder promising medical research and
disease prevention initiatives.
These are just a few examples of the unconscionable cuts to crucial
programs in this bill. Unfortunately, these cuts will be even deeper
because the Republicans imposed an across-the-board cut against all
nondefense and homeland security programs in the Defense appropriations
bill.
In summary, Mr. President this bill is bad for our children, bad for
workers, bad for seniors, and bad for this nation. America can do
better.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the conference
report to accompany the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and
Related Agencies Appropriations bill. This bill does not reflect our
Nation's shared priorities and is a far cry from representing Wisconsin
values. The people of Wisconsin value quality education for their
children, affordable and decent health care for their families, and
sound job training for workers. This bill falls short on all three
accounts.
For the first time in a decade, the LHHS bill cuts total Federal
education
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funding. Funding for No Child Left Behind programs would be cut by $779
million bringing it to its lowest level since 2002. Funding for Title
I, which serves low-income, disadvantaged students and schools across
the nation, would receive $9.9 billion below the authorized level, its
smallest increase in 8 years. And again, Congress fails to live up to
its promise to provide 40 percent of the costs of educating students
with disabilities: the bill cuts the Federal share of special education
spending from 18.6 percent to 18.0 percent, just as our school
districts are struggling to keep up with rising costs. Funding for Pell
grant awards, which help make higher education affordable for many
students, is frozen at $4,050 for the fourth year in a row, funding for
Even Start and Education Technology is slashed, and funding for the
National Youth Sports Program is eliminated, leaving almost 1,500
Wisconsin young people without summer enrichment programs they have
come to count on. The list goes on and on.
And education is not the only investment shortchanged. Some of the
largest cuts in the LHHS bill are in programs that help shore up the
health care safety net for people lacking other access to care and that
address shortages of healthcare providers in underserved urban and
rural areas. The conference report cuts funding for community health
centers, which serve the uninsured and underinsured, to a lower level
than provided in either the House or Senate versions of the bill. This
amount would not allow a single new community health center to open in
the coming year. Funding for the Bureau of Health Professions, which
helps recruit qualified health professions throughout the country,
would be cut by $185 million, including the elimination of geriatric
education centers and health education training centers. Rural health
programs would be cut by $137 million, including the elimination of the
healthy community access program and rural emergency medical services.
In addition, funding levels have not kept pace with our need for
investment in lifesaving biomedical research. The National Institutes
of Health's budget would receive a funding increase of less than 1
percent, the smallest percentage increase to NIH since 1970. NIH will
have to reduce the numbers of research grants awarded by 355. The bill
would provide no increase in Federal funding for Alzheimer's research
threatening the progress of promising research on that devastating
disease. Less money would be available to support new research grants,
attract talented, young researchers to the promising field of
Alzheimer's research and fund clinical trials to test new drugs to
treat the disease--and this is just one example of the damage to vital
research that the LHHS conference report would do.
Labor programs are not immune from the slash and burn approach to
appropriations embodied in the conference report before us. They are
cut by $430 million. At a time when five percent of Americans, and four
and a half percent of people from my State of Wisconsin, are
unemployed, this bill wrongly reduces adult job training by $31 million
and youth job training by $36 million. Instead of helping the
unemployed find work and providing training to upgrade the skills of
those who have jobs, this conference report turns its back to them.
I know we can do better for our children and families. I supported
the Senate version of this bill, which was bipartisan and passed by a
vote of 94-3. Unfortunately, this conference report falls far short; it
is neither bipartisan nor bicameral, and actually provides $1.4 billion
less than last year's level. In fact, LHHS is the only fiscal year 2006
appropriations bill to receive an overall cut in funding from last
year.
I want to thank Senators Specter and Harkin for working tirelessly to
improve this bill. I also want to thank them for the modest increases
they provided in the CMS Survey and Certification program, the
ombudsman program, as well as their work to restore Perkins funding.
However, I cannot support a bill that forces our schools, our health
care system, and our workforce to do more with less. I urge my
colleagues to join me in rejecting this conference report.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the Christmas spirit was nowhere to be
found tonight on the floor of the United States Senate as Republicans
rushed through unconscionable cuts to the programs that American
families deserve. This conference report affects the lives of every
single American, and it lets them down. It fails our commitments to the
education of our children, to our health care, to the poor, and to our
jobs. At a time when we should be moving forward, and helping families
meet the challenges of higher costs, this conference report moves us
backward.
Education
Parents know that education is a critical factor in making the
American dream a reality for their children. An educated citizenry also
makes a strong Nation possible. We cannot compete in the world without
skilled workers. We cannot maintain a strong defense without a skilled
and educated military.
Once again, the United States has been presented with a global
challenge, as we were when the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1958. In
order to face this challenge with confidence, we should invest in the
transforming power of education. That's not what this conference report
says. This conference report says that education is not a priority. It
says global competitiveness is not a priority. It says basic fairness
is not a priority. It says the American dream is not a priority.
In the face of this global challenge, this conference report does not
invest more in education. In fact, for the first time in a decade, this
conference report cuts the education budget. As we learn more about the
critical importance of early education, as our elementary and secondary
schools struggle to help our children meet higher standards, as a
college degree is becoming an imperative, and as the cost of that
degree is skyrocketing, the Federal budget for education is actually
going down.
If our country is to remain strong in this rapidly changing world,
our economy must work for everyone, and every American must have an
equal opportunity to succeed. No Child Left Behind is not just a
political slogan. It's a solemn pledge to every parent and every child
in America.
At a time when requirements under the law are more demanding than
ever, this conference report cuts funding overall for No Child Left
Behind programs by $1 billion, for a total that is $13.4 billion less
than promised in the law. Over 3.2 million children will be left
behind. Next year, schools have to raise the bar for adequate yearly
progress, administer tests in reading and math on an annual basis, and
ensure that all teachers are highly qualified. This conference report
tells them they're on their own.
Title I--the key NCLB program, which targets disadvantaged students--
is cut for the first time in 13 years. Title I funds will be $28
million lower than last year, and 160,000 fewer children will be
served. Funding to Massachusetts schools will be cut more than $4.3
million.
The conference report cuts Head Start funds by $68.5 million, leaving
750,000 eligible preschoolers without services, and dropping from the
program 9,500 children who are currently enrolled in Head Start
classrooms. It slashes the Even Start family literacy program, taking
services away from nearly 35,000 children.
The conference report cuts funds for after-school programs, denying
after-school programs to 13,000 children currently enrolled. The
conference report also cuts funds to keep our schools safe and drug-
free.
With the first cut to special education funding in a decade, this
conference report moves backwards on our commitment to disabled
students. The Federal share of the cost of educating students with
disabilities actually drops from 18.6 percent last year to 17.8 percent
this year. The funding in the report is more than $4 billion short of
the amount promised just 1 year ago when we passed the IDEA Improvement
Act.
At a time when American students are performing below the
international average in math and science, the conference report cuts
$13 million in funds for the Math and Science Partnerships at the
Department of Education, leaving funding well below half of the amount
promised in No Child Left Behind.
At a time when technology is more and more prevalent in our lives and
in
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our economy, this conference report continues the bewildering downward
trend in educational technology funding. In fiscal year 2004, the
program was funded at almost $700 million. This conference report
includes $248 million, a 50 percent cut since last year and just over a
third of the 2004 funding.
At a time when college costs have skyrocketed 46 percent since 2001,
and almost 400,000 college-ready students do not go to a 4-year college
because of financial need, this conference report provides no increase
in student aid. It leaves Pell grants frozen in place for the fourth
year in a row.
Jobs
Just as this conference report leaves millions of children behind, it
also leaves millions of American workers behind.
Close to 8 million Americans are unemployed, and most remain
unemployed for 18 weeks or more. The picture is so bleak that many
workers have given up hope of finding work altogether. The real
unemployment rate is almost 9 percent when these discouraged workers
are counted.
Workers affected by the recent storms in the gulf are particularly at
risk. Hundreds of thousands of gulf coast workers continue to struggle
to find work in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Twenty-five
percent of Katrina evacuees are unemployed, including 30 percent of
those evacuees that have been relocated across the country. African-
American and Hispanic evacuees fare even worse, with an overall
unemployment rate of about 43 percent. Thus far, a total of 502,000
initial claims for unemployment benefits can be traced to the two
storms.
Yet, the conference report would cut funding for unemployment
insurance and employment services offices that help jobless workers
around the country. The conference report also cuts job training, as
many workers struggle to improve their skills in order to secure good
jobs. These illogical steps are an insult to those struggling to
recover from our Nation's greatest national disaster and those
struggling to meet the challenges of a global economy.
In addition, as we continue the long process of rebuilding the gulf
coast, thousands of relief and recovery workers are facing toxic
working conditions. Workers cleaning up in the aftermath of the storms
are being exposed to hazardous chemicals, oil and sewage contaminated
waters, mold, and other hazardous substances. Even outside of the gulf
coast region, death rates among Hispanic and immigrant workers continue
to be alarmingly high. Yet, our Government will be doing less to
protect the lives and health of our workers. The small, 1.8 percent
increase that the conference report provides for funding the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration is more than eaten up by
inflation and won't be enough to maintain current levels of enforcement
and training.
The conference report also short-sightedly ignores the future needs
of health care workers. We are facing a looming threat of a pandemic
flu epidemic, yet the conference report prohibits the Department of
Labor from enforcing key safety standards to protect health care
workers from tuberculosis. These are very basic measures that would
help protect healthcare workers from all deadly infectious diseases,
and it is unconscionable to bow to special interests at the expense of
those who will be on the front lines of our battle against this public
health crisis.
In addition to threatening the safety of American workers, the
conference report also threatens their job security. It is hardly news
to any of us that globalization is rapidly creating a single global
workforce. Now more than ever, the jobs of American workers are at risk
due to the poor wages and working conditions in other parts of the
world. It's critical that we invest in efforts to improve working
conditions around the world, for the sake of all workers, including our
own. Yet, the conference report slashes the budget for the
International Labor Affairs Bureau, ILAB, by 22 percent--from $93
million to $72.5 million--threatening our ability to protect American
jobs and protect the basic rights of workers and children across the
globe.
Health
The conference report also fails to protect American families from
public health catastrophes.
Congress has few higher priorities than protecting the American
people from the deadly strain of influenza that is threatening the
world and could take the lives of millions of Americans and damage the
health of millions more.
The threat from this deadly new disease has been compounded by our
inattention and failure to prepare. For years, public health experts
sounded warning after warning about the devastation that a flu pandemic
would bring, but year after year, we failed to respond to this deadly
threat in its earliest stages.
Canada, Australia, Britain, Japan, and other nations released plans
long ago. They're implementing their plans now, but the Bush
administration has put out a plan for only one Federal agency. A
response plan for the Department of Health and Human Services is a
critical first step, but even that plan is incomplete. It's missing the
actual operational plans for responding to a pandemic.
The President has called, however, for a significant investment in
preparedness. I attended his speech at NIH, where he urged that $7
billion be appropriated immediately for preparedness.
We still have time to avert the serious consequences that a pandemic
would bring, but only if we act now to begin improving our readiness.
The Senate heeded the call to action by unanimously approving an
amendment for $8 billion in preparedness funding offered by Senator
Harkin.
But the Republican leadership isn't on board. They stripped the $8
billion amendment out of this conference report, and provided only half
that amount in the Defense Appropriations conference report. These
irresponsible cuts will mean that critical programs will have to be
delayed. Which parts of our response do our Republican colleagues think
we should delay? Production of new vaccines? Stockpiling of flu
medicine? Support for hospitals and health agencies preparing for the
pandemic? I'd like to hear them explain to the American people which of
these activities they think are unimportant, which of these priorities
can wait, and which are not needed if disaster strikes.
This conference report also means that we will fail to capitalize on
the promise of this century of the life sciences. With the 1 percent
across the board cut, funding for NIH will decrease. This has happened
only four other times in NIH history. This is woefully inadequate to
maintain our tradition of research excellence and breakthrough medical
science. This is the lowest NIH funding level in 35 years and the
research and development budget fails to keep up with inflation. These
budget cuts will mean that four of five innovative new ideas will be
ignored. Over 500 new research grants will fall by the wayside. It's
unbelievable that with the threat of a pandemic looming over America,
the Republican Congress is denying the resources we need to discover
new, life-saving treatments and cures.
Not only does the conference report not include funding for the avian
flu preparedness, funding that would help to improve State and local
preparedness against bioterrorist attacks was cut by over $96 million.
As we know, maintaining the health of our Nation is not limited to
emergency preparedness. Providing basic health services to the most
vulnerable Americans and health promotion, and disease prevention are
also vitally important. But this conference report cuts critical health
promotion and prevention programs at the CDC will be cut by $307
million and HRSA programs are slashed by $754 million.
This conference report funds community health centers, that serve as
a safety net of care for the most vulnerable, at less than half of the
increase passed by the Senate, while eliminating the Healthy
Communities Access Program which provides funds for health care
providers, community-based organizations and local government to
coordinate and strengthen health services for the poor and uninsured
members of their communities. Funding is also cut for critical health
professions training programs that address the shortages of providers
and train them to deliver care in underserved areas and to serve the 46
million Americans who lack health insurance--often in community health
centers. Funding for critical health professions
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training programs that encourage diversity in the health professions
and train health care providers that will deliver care in underserved
areas are cut 52 percent and training for geriatric medicine was cut by
100 percent.
With a 1 percent across the board cut, several programs, including
family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention programs, will now receive a
decrease in funding, despite the growing need for these services.
LIHEAP
The conference report leaves our poorest Americans out in the cold in
a time of soaring energy prices. Households heating primarily with
natural gas will pay an average of $281 more this winter for heat--an
increase of an incredible 38 percent over last year. Those relying
primarily on oil for heat will pay $255 more--an increase of 21
percent.
This fall, the Senate voted against fully funding LIHEAP four times,
and this conference report only provides flat funds. This is
unacceptable.
We know that heating costs are at record levels this year.
Big oil profits are fatter than ever. Exxon-Mobil--the largest oil
company in the United States--reported 3rd quarter profits of almost
$10 billion, a 75 percent increase over last year.
Exxon-Mobil alone made $10 billion in the last quarter--yet the
Republican leadership refuses to fund LIHEAP at its authorized level of
$5.1 billion. The Republican leadership is Robin Hood in reverse--
robbing the poor to pay the rich.
So this conference report leaves our children behind, American
workers behind, and American families behind. It leaves America behind.
It's unfortunate that Christmas comes this week, because this
conference report is the Grinch that steals Christmas for so many.
While the neediest Americans are struggling to find some hope this
season, the special interests are sledding away with all the presents.
Bah humbug.
We should embrace the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans--not
abandon them, as this conference report does. All parents want their
children to have lives of fulfillment and opportunity; to raise strong
and healthy families and afford to live comfortably in safe
neighborhoods. Our actions in Congress should strengthen, not weaken
America.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the conference report is
agreed to, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.
____________________