[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 169 (Thursday, October 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6794-S6798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ECONOMY
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I rise to talk about the economy;
that is, what is going on out there in terms of jobs and wage growth.
It is a positive story. I have seen it firsthand back home in Ohio.
Every weekend I go back to Ohio, and I meet with small business owners,
and they tell me the same thing, which is that things are good. Their
biggest concern is finding workers. They are growing and expanding. We
see this in the national numbers as well.
These small businesses tell me it is primarily because of the tax
reform and tax cuts legislation and, second, because of the regulatory
environment that makes it easier for them to be able to create more
jobs.
I want to start by talking about tax reform. We remember that before
this legislation was passed, going back really for several years, our
economy had been relatively weak. We had seen economic growth of
between 1.5 and 2.5 percent, and a lot of people were saying that 2
percent growth is kind of the new normal.
In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan
group here that tells us what our growth numbers are likely to look
like and then tells us what they actually are, said last year that they
believed economic growth this year--the calendar year 2018--would be 2
percent. That is pretty discouraging, really. With 2 percent growth, we
are not going to see the kind of growth in wages we all want to see,
and we are not going to see the job expansion we all want. That 2
percent growth was before the tax legislation was passed.
They also predicted that employment would increase by an average of
107,000 jobs per month; again, that is not bad, but not something to
write home about.
Now our economy is up and going, and it is moving toward its full
potential.
Shortly after tax reform passed, CBO changed its estimate. They said:
OK, with tax reform, this is our new estimate. We are going to say that
the growth is going to be, instead of 2 percent, 3.1 percent. That is
more than a 50-percent increase in growth. That is incredible. They
were pretty optimistic about what would happen. They said that it was
attributable to tax reform,
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which was a big part of this upward revision, as they called it.
They also changed their projection on monthly unemployment. They said
that instead of 107,000 jobs, we are likely to see 210,000 jobs per
month.
Well, what has happened? It turns out the Congressional Budget
Office, despite their optimistic projections, was wrong. We have seen
numbers even better than their optimistic projections. Economic growth
for the second quarter of 2018 was 4.2 percent, and a record 876,000
new businesses were created. The Federal Reserve now estimates that
growth in this quarter we are in is likely to be 4.1 percent. Wow. We
will see what the final numbers are, but if it is anywhere close to
that, that is extraordinary.
So we have gone from 2 percent to 3 percent to 4 percent. And with
4.2 percent, 4.1 percent growth, what else is happening? Unemployment
is going down. The unemployment rate was 3.7 percent last month. That
is the lowest it has been since December of 1969, so it is a big deal.
The pro-growth policies that some of us have been promoting here on
this side of the aisle, including tax reform and regulatory relief,
have made a difference. Small business optimism is at an all-time high,
according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses--NFIB.
Most important to me, wages are finally going up. Over the last 10
years, it isn't just that the economy has been relatively flat, it is
that wages have not increased.
In fact, if you take inflation into account, wages have been flat or
even declining, on average. That is why a lot of people feel the
middle-class squeeze: higher expenses, particularly healthcare costs,
but also everyday costs. Healthcare costs are driving it but also
housing costs, the cost of food, the cost of education.
By the same token, we had wages that were flat. That is a squeeze. So
your take-home pay is not going up, but your expenses are going up.
There was a lot of frustration around the country over the last several
years about that.
Now we see wages going up. So 2.8 percent was the wage growth last
month. That is the highest wage growth since mid-2009. So since mid-
2009, which is, remember, before the recession, we have not seen wage
growth like this.
This is great news. I hope we continue to see that solid wage growth
because that, ultimately, is what we ought to be looking for.
Since the first of last year, I have held over a dozen small business
roundtables around Ohio, where you bring small businesses in to talk
about the tax reform bill regulations and other issues they care about.
Every single one of the small businesses that comes to these
roundtables has a story to tell about how the tax reform helped them.
These companies are passthroughs, meaning they pay taxes
individually, which is the case for the vast majority of small
businesses. So they are seeing lower rates, but they are also seeing an
advantage to the new laws on investment. If you invest money in your
company, you can deduct it from your taxes now. You had bonus
depreciation before; now you have 100 percent depreciation, and you can
write things off immediately. That makes a huge difference, and it is
exciting.
The Presiding Officer was talking today at lunch about being at one
of the small businesses in Louisiana. It is the same story I have heard
all over our States. This was a distillery, as I recall. In Ohio, our
breweries and our distilleries are taking advantage of a specific part
of the new tax bill that helps them on their excise taxes but also just
the overall lowering of the rate, investing in their business,
investing in technology, increasing the productivity of their workers
as a result, which all economists say is the key to getting wages up.
We are beginning to see that, and it is exciting.
This is the first year I have also visited 22 businesses directly--
not a roundtable discussion as I have done with small businesses. But I
go to these businesses and talk to them about how they are using this
tax bill. Again, everyone has good stories to tell. Some have added
more jobs; some have increased wages and gone public about that. Fifth
Third Bank would be an example or the Kroger Company in my hometown of
Cincinnati--big businesses.
A lot of smaller businesses have done that as well, but they have
done other things too. Some have delivered bonuses, some have expanded
retirement benefits, and some have bought new equipment.
For a lot of small businesses, I will talk to them and say: What are
you doing with this?
They say: We are actually taking these older pieces of equipment we
have, these machines, and we are upgrading them, which, again, makes
workers more productive, makes the company more successful, and allows
wages to go up.
One small business I visited had a machine that was roughly 31 years
old. They got the machine in 1986. I thought it was an amazing
coincidence that this Tax Code, which hadn't been updated since 1986,
was updated, and they were using the tax savings they got from that to
take a machine that was bought that same year and upgrading it,
modernizing it. It was about a $1 million investment for them, which
they never could have made in a small business without the tax reform
and tax cuts legislation. So it is working.
Sometimes companies are doing a combination of these various things.
They might be increasing the 401(k) match and also adding more to their
entry-level pay. So it is doing what was intended.
In the first quarter, we have numbers already for the amount of money
that came back to our country--over $300 billion. Over $300 billion
came back to the United States from overseas. That is what they call
repatriation, money earned overseas that companies were keeping
overseas before because they had no incentive to bring it back. Now
they have an incentive to bring it back. What does that mean? It means
it gets invested here, sometimes in new equipment and new plants,
sometimes in people's wallets and pocketbooks back here. That money is
being used to help create this better economy we are talking about.
By the way, that $300 billion, when compared to last year in the
first quarter, is about 10 times more. This is because of the tax bill.
The lower tax rates for individuals mean that 90 percent of the
people in America got a statement from their employer saying: Guess
what. Uncle Sam is going to take less out of your paycheck. Their
withholding changed. So 90 percent of workers in America have gotten
something saying: You are going to have more of your hard-earned money
staying in your pocket. You are going to be able to take it home,
rather than have Uncle Sam take it out as part of your taxes.
As I said during the tax reform debate, when we had very spirited
debates, some on the other side were saying that there was no middle-
class tax relief in this legislation. I said that the proof is in the
paycheck. Lower rates, doubling the standard deduction, doubling the
child tax credit--those are tax cuts. They are real. Sure enough, 90
percent of Americans saw that in their paychecks. The proof is in their
paycheck.
It is not really a political debate; it is a real life situation for
people who are living paycheck to paycheck--most of the people I
represent. So it is a big deal. For the median-income family in Ohio,
that is $2,000 a year on average. That $2,000 a year means a vacation
they otherwise couldn't take. It means investing more in their
healthcare, investing more in their retirement, investing more in their
kids. So it is working.
I noted earlier that wages are rising at the fastest year-over-year
rate since mid-2009 and that wage growth is accelerating. Along with
these lower tax rates--along with the changes we talked about in terms
of doubling the standard deduction and doubling the child tax credit--
people are feeling more hope and opportunity and, due in part to this
lower business rate and more competitive international tax system,
companies are looking to hire more.
I mentioned that what I hear back in Ohio mostly now is this: We are
looking for more workers. We are willing to hire people. We need the
skills.
There was a Gallup Poll taken in May, and a record number of
Americans said, ``Now is the time to find a quality job''--a record
number of Americans because they see the help
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wanted signs. In fact, the number of Americans who are employed part-
time for economic reasons--who want to work full-time but can only find
part-time work--is now the lowest it has been since December of 2007.
So you have to go back more than 10 years to find the number of people
employed part-time who want full-time work. That is the lowest it has
been since December of 2007. That is good. We want people to work full-
time, not part-time.
I believe we are going to continue to see this rising tide in our
economy. I think there are some newer provisions in the Tax Code that
are yet to be implemented that will help even more.
There is a provision in the tax bill called opportunity zones where,
if you invest in some of the neighborhoods in Ohio that have had the
highest, persistent, stubborn rates of poverty, then you get a tax
break. That is going to help increase investment in some of the poor
neighborhoods. Those opportunity zones are just getting started now,
and that is going to help ensure that people who have fallen behind
have a chance to catch up.
John F. Kennedy once famously said that a rising tide lifts all
boats. It can. But you have to be sure that you are going into those
kinds of neighborhoods and ensuring they have the opportunity to be
lifted too. I think opportunity zones will help there.
Despite the strong and growing economy, there does remain a weakness
in our workforce that will continue to hold us back; that is, a lot of
Americans are not looking for work. They are literally on the
sidelines. Labor economists call that a low labor force participation
rate. It means that the percentage of people in the workforce looking
for a job is relatively low.
So we have this strong economy, the lowest unemployment numbers we
have had in years, going back to 1969; yet we have a lot of people in
the shadows, on the sidelines, who aren't even looking for work, so
they don't show up in the unemployment numbers.
If you took the labor force participation rate--again, the percentage
of people in the workforce--and go back 10 years ago to just before the
great recession and compare it to today, use the same labor force
participation rate, what would you guess the unemployment rate would be
today? It is not 3.7 percent. It is more like 8.5 percent.
As strong as this economy is, as good as things are, as optimistic as
people are, the fact that wages are going up--all good things, and the
tax bill is hugely responsible for that. It is helpful. It has pulled a
lot of people back into work who had part-time work or were
underemployed. It hasn't pulled people back into work altogether; there
is still a big group of Americans, historically high numbers--probably
8 million men, as an example, between the ages of 25 and 55, able-
bodied men who aren't working. That is wrong, and it is wrong for them
because they are not getting the dignity and self-respect that comes
from work, helping them to be productive members of society. The
numbers for women are perhaps not quite as high--but also at relatively
high levels.
It is also bad for our economy. We need these workers. We want these
people in the workforce.
Why has that happened? I think there are a few reasons. I think one
reason is that Americans don't have the skills we would hope they would
have in order to meet the job requirements of today. What do I mean by
that? Today, if you don't have a technical skill--whether you are in
healthcare, whether you are in manufacturing, or whether you are in one
of the service industries--it is hard to find a job. So to our young
people here today: Get that skills training.
If you look at the unemployment in Ohio right now--OhioMeansJobs is a
website you can go on and see that there are a lot of jobs being
offered online right now, yet there are a lot of people unemployed. Why
is that? You see that a lot of these jobs being offered are for things
like a machinist or a welder or someone with IT skills--information
technology skills. Coding is an example. If you have coding skills, you
can get a job in Ohio. In healthcare, there are a lot of people who are
being hired who have those technical skills, including coding skills,
to provide for digitized healthcare records, as an example.
If you look at the jobs that are being offered and you look at this
high unemployment, you say it doesn't make sense. Part of it is because
the job skills aren't there.
There is a lot of exciting stuff going on in my State and in other
States where there are colleges--particularly some of our community
colleges--that are working closely with some of our businesses and also
with some of our high schools. High schools have career and technical
education now that is expanding in Ohio. I think we are doing a good
job of getting more and more young people interested in career and
technical education.
Senator Kaine, on the other side of the aisle, and I started a caucus
to promote CTE. We passed legislation recently to expand Federal
incentives for career and technical education and to improve the
standards. That is good. We are making progress, but we are not there
yet. There is still a lot of skills training that should and can go on
in order to provide people with the tools they need to ultimately be
successful in today's economy. So that is part of it.
Part of it I think is the dependency trap. What do I mean by that?
There is an issue when you are on government support, when you are
dependent on government, and you want to go to work. It is both the
fact that there is a cliff in terms of losing the benefits, and also
there is a mountain in terms of higher taxes.
One thing that some of us have worked on here--and we need to do
more--is to say: How do you work with the States to provide for that
transition? If someone wants to go to work and leave a government
program, how do you have some way to transition so that you don't have
this big cliff and this mountain ahead of you? That creates a
disincentive.
I do think there is work to be done there, but I will tell you, I
think the biggest single issue in terms of these relatively high
numbers of people who are out of work altogether--the people who are on
the sidelines--is actually the opioid crisis and the drug issue. Why do
I say that? One, I see it back home. I go around my State; I spend a
lot of time talking to people at treatment centers. I talk to people
who are in recovery. I talk to people who are addicted. I talk to
people who are experts in providing treatment for that longer term
recovery. I talk to first responders. There are a lot of people in my
State; we are probably in the top five in the country in terms of the
percentage of people addicted, the number of overdoses per capita, the
number of deaths per capita.
In America as a whole, we lost 72,000 people last year to drug
overdoses. These are historically high numbers. These are record
numbers, grim statistics. More people died last year of drug overdoses
than we lost in the entire Vietnam conflict. Think about that.
A lot of these people are addicted, but they aren't part of the
statistics you read about--the overdoses and deaths, as tragic as they
are. There is another part of the statistic, which is the people who
are not productive in life because they are not engaged anymore with
their friends, their family, or their work. The drugs have become
everything.
I can give you a couple of statistics that I think are shocking. One
is from the U.S. Department of Labor. They did a study of men between
25 and 55 who are out of the workforce, asking: How could this be--over
8 million men out of the workforce altogether--particularly with low
unemployment, the opportunities out there, the jobs that are being
offered? They found that almost half of those men acknowledged taking
pain medication on a daily basis--on a daily basis.
What does that mean? There was another study by the Brookings
Institute. Brookings said that almost half of the people they surveyed
said that they were taking pain medication on a regular basis. One said
the day before; one said on a daily basis.
They also asked another question: How many of you are taking
prescription drugs? Two-thirds of the people acknowledged taking
prescription drugs, pain medication.
These are shocking statistics. By the way, I do not believe this is
overreported; I believe it is underreported. Who is going to say that
they are addicted to pain medication? That is one
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reason within the legal system not to do that, but there are also other
reasons not to do it. A lot of people still feel it is something they
can't talk about. We have changed that to a certain extent. The stigma
has been removed to a certain extent. In this body, I think we have
helped by talking about drug addiction as a disease, which I believe it
is. You need to treat a disease as you would other diseases. It is not
a moral failing; it is a disease that has to be medically treated. But
there are people who are not coming forward who feel that stigma, there
is no question about it. Probably 8 out of the 10 people in my State
who are addicted are not getting any kind of treatment.
I think this is another issue we have to face for all the right
reasons--to help these people get their lives back on track, to help
these people be able to achieve what God's purpose is for them, which
certainly is not to be an addict and not to be actively using and not
to be causing all the pain and destruction it causes all through our
society.
The No. 1 cause of crime in my State of Ohio, in pretty much every
county I represent, is this issue. It is not necessarily the drug use;
it is the crime that goes along with it--the property crimes, theft,
fraud, and so forth--to pay for the drug habit.
If you go to the emergency room in Ohio, it is a normal issue they
talk about. In our neonatal units--sad but true--more and more babies
are being born with what is called neonatal abstinence syndrome, which
means their moms were addicted. These kids have to be taken through
withdrawal as babies, provided morphine and other drugs just to get
them through withdrawal. It is incredibly sad. We don't know what the
long-term impact will be on these kids, but it is a huge problem. It is
the No. 1 problem I see back home in our hospitals in taking care of
our babies.
If you go to our prisons, our jails, go to our courtrooms, what is
the No. 1 issue? Drugs, primarily opioids. Of the 72,000 people who
died of overdoses last year, the biggest single killer was not just
opioids, it was fentanyl--this new synthetic opioid that has come in
mostly from China, mostly through the Postal Service. It is outrageous
that that continues to happen. We are taking steps to address it.
My point is, all of us are affected by this. You may not think you
are, although more and more people see it directly because their
friends or family or they themselves are caught up in this, but all of
us are affected, including our economy.
As good as the economic numbers are, I am so glad we passed the tax
reform legislation because I really think it has helped spur this
economic growth, and there is opportunity for so many people. It is
increasing wages. It is doing so many good things.
The next step is, as I see it, to say: OK, how do we take these
people who are not in a position to get on that first rung of the
economic ladder, much less the second and third, and climb up because
of their addiction--how do we get them back on track, get them to face
up to their addiction and get into treatment, get them into that longer
term recovery, which we know works better to get them off of their
addiction and get them back into a productive life where they can
reconnect not just with work but with their families, friends, their
community, and their faith? The drugs become everything, as I have
heard from so many addicts and recovering addicts.
The American Action Forum released a report earlier this month that
found that Ohio lost about 86,000 workers and about $72 billion in
economic growth from 1999 to 2015 due to opioid addiction. This affects
all of us, and it certainly affects our economy. That is the next step
we must make.
In 2016, Congress started to get much more engaged in this issue. We
passed two great bills, one called the Comprehensive Addiction and
Recovery Act. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and I were the coauthors. This
is broad, comprehensive legislation. Today, we were able to announce a
number of grants to Ohio that are working to expand treatment to ensure
that some of these gaps are filled where people get addicted, overdose,
Narcan is supplied--the miracle drug that reverses the effects of that
overdose--and yet they go right back into the community. We don't want
that. We want to get them back into treatment. These grants will help.
We also passed legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act, which
provides funding directly back to the States. CARA goes to these
nonprofits and other programs that are working, evidence-based programs
to help with treatment and recovery and prevention. Cures goes to the
States directly and allows the States to spread out that funding where
it will help. Every State is a little different and has different kinds
of needs.
We started to see progress on the ground. Again, the fentanyl has
come in and overwhelmed a lot of the progress I have seen. On the
fentanyl side, we passed legislation just last week that finally says
to our post office: You must screen these packages coming in from
overseas because we know this poison is the No. 1 killer. There has
been a 4,000-percent increase in fentanyl overdose deaths in my State
of Ohio in the last 5 years. It is the No. 1 killer now. We know it is
coming from the post office. It is coming to your P.O. box. It is
coming to an abandoned warehouse from our post office. We finally said
to them: You have to close this loophole because if there is a
loophole, they don't have to provide law enforcement the data on these
packages that they need to find the needle in the haystack, which is
too hard to find without that data. Private carriers have to provide
that data to law enforcement; the post office does not. That is all
going to change when the President signs this legislation next week. We
are going to start to push back to keep some poison out of our
communities, but we need to do much more.
The legislation we passed this week also provides more funding for
treatment. It gets rid of an outdated rule that says there can be only
16 beds in a treatment center if it gets Medicaid reimbursement. That
is a vestige of years past during the deinstitutionalization of folks
who had mental health issues, behavioral health issues, but it doesn't
work today because we want these good treatment centers that are doing
a good job to be able to expand the number of beds they have for
residential treatment because that is what works for some people.
Unbelievably, today they have to turn people away, even though they
are there, they are ready, and they can take these people, because
there is a 16-bed limit. There are too many cases. I know of people in
Ohio who have told me that when they were ready--in one case, a father
told me that when his daughter was finally ready to go to a treatment
center, he walked her down there. They went to the treatment center.
She was ready to enter. She had come to that point in her life where
she realized she needed to do this. They told her there was no room--no
room at the inn--because of the 16-bed limit. In the next 2 weeks,
while she was waiting to get into that treatment center, you know what
happened--she used again. She was addicted. She overdosed, and she died
in her parents' home. That father is very happy about this legislation.
It also includes language to help with regard to these moms and kids
we talked about earlier. That is important as well. It helps to ensure
that there is a safe plan for these mothers who are addicted to taper
off from their use of drugs so that their babies are born in a healthy
state and don't have to go through what I talked about earlier, which
is incredibly sad to see, tragically, where literally these babies born
with neonatal abstinence syndrome have to be taken through withdrawal.
It also includes the CRIB Act legislation, which is bipartisan, as
were all these bills I am talking about. Senator Dick Durbin and I have
worked on the IMD exclusion--the issue with the 16 beds--for many
years. We finally got it done. The CRIB Act is one that provides
support for these babies we talked about because often the babies can't
go back to their folks. Their parents are addicted. Where are they
going to go?
There are nonprofits that have sprung up that provide help for these
babies, help to get them into the right foster care, perhaps to get
them with a grandparent or a great-grandparent, which is happening more
and more in my State because the parents are not
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capable or able to take care of these kids. The parents need to focus,
one would hope, on their own treatment and recovery. Sometimes they do,
and sometimes they don't. The point is, the baby can't be with them,
and these organizations are in a position to help. These organizations,
like Brigid's Path in Dayton, OH, have volunteers who come in just to
hold the babies, just to show the babies the love they need so
desperately. They couldn't get reimbursement from the Federal
Government. Now they can under the CRIB Act that we just passed. This
will help the babies, the moms, with treatment, and keeping the poison
out. It is helpful.
As we discussed this afternoon, in combination with a stronger
economy that comes from the kinds of fiscal and economic policies we
have pursued here, especially the tax reform and regulatory relief--
that combination can lead to great things because it can provide an
opportunity, if people are ready to get on that next rung of the
ladder, for them to find an opportunity for themselves and their family
because they have dealt with their addiction. A rising tide can lift
all boats, and this growing economy gives us an opportunity to bring
people out of the shadows and into a productive life of work, family,
and faith.
In the midst of the opioid epidemic, we have to do more to catch
those who fall through the cracks and help those who are gripped by
addiction find more meaning and purpose in their lives, and we now have
that opportunity. That is what is exciting about it.
I am pleased that our new opioid legislation is going to be signed
into law by the President next week. I am pleased to see the progress
with the economy based on the policies we have passed here, to provide
people with a little more take-home pay, to be able to give companies
more incentive to invest, and to level the playing field
internationally for American workers who are being disadvantaged. It is
coming together, and it is working. Let's combine that with an equal
focus on dealing with the opioid crisis, and we will see so many other
people take advantage of their American dream.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Ohio Blue Ribbon Schools
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, each year the Department of Education
honors schools around the country that have a clear record of serving
students of all backgrounds and helping all students excel.
This year, 16 Ohio schools were among 349 National Blue Ribbon
Schools, honoring the hard work of students, teachers, parents, and
everyone in the community who works to make these schools a success--
from cafeteria workers to principals, to students, to parents, to
neighbors.
These schools represent the great diversity in our State--rural and
small-town schools, urban and suburban schools, all designated as
``exemplary high performing schools.''
I would like to read the names of these 16 schools in Ohio: Bath
Elementary School, Bluffton Elementary School, Brecksville-Broadview
Heights Middle School, Central Elementary School, Hazel Harvey
Elementary School, Indian Riffle Elementary School, John Foster Dulles
Elementary School, Maplewood Elementary School, Mariemont Elementary
School, Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School, Notre Dame-Cathedral
Latin School, Oakwood Elementary School, Saint Andrew-Saint Elizabeth
Ann Seton Catholic School, Stadium Drive Elementary School, and Twin
Oak Elementary School.
The other school, in addition to these 16, is particularly close to
my heart. It is called the Mansfield Spanish Immersion School. It sits
on Euclid Avenue. It is the new school in the building where I went to
elementary school, then called Brinkerhoff Elementary. It has since
become a Spanish immersion school. Brinkerhoff was built, I believe, in
the 1950s. I attended there and both of my brothers attended there from
kindergarten through the sixth grade.
The school reopened as a public magnet school a decade ago, with a
class of 11 kindergartners, under the leadership of our neighbor Jody
Nash.
Over the past 10 years, under Principal Nash, and now under the
current principal, Gabe Costa, the school has grown to more than 250
students across 9 grades.
Last year the school expanded to add seventh and eighth grade for the
first time and had a third section of kindergartners.
Core subjects are taught in Spanish, helping Richland County students
learn a second language from a young age. These students don't just
excel in Spanish. The school is consistently ranked a top school in the
State and has gotten high marks for serving students from diverse
backgrounds.
I would add that there are not a huge number of people in Mansfield,
OH, my hometown, whose parents are speaking Spanish at home. Most of
these students are learning Spanish for the first time in their
families.
Two years ago, the Brinkerhoff School, or the Mansfield Spanish
Immersion School, was 1 of 2 schools in Ohio and 100 across the Nation
to receive a National Title I Distinguished Schools Award for making
progress in closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students
and their peers.
Awards like this mean so much to a community. They are a reminder
that academic excellence isn't limited to exclusive private schools or
wealthy communities on the coasts.
Too many people in this town of Washington want to refer to us as the
Rust Belt--that outdated, offensive term that demeans our workers and
devalues who we are. It devalues the incredible work schools like this
are doing in our State, preparing our students for the global economy
of the future. These schools are not rusty. They are thriving.
Congratulations to all 16 of this year's Ohio Blue Ribbon Schools--
all examples to our State and to our country and why we are so proud of
them.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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