[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19454]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          SCHOOL MODERNIZATION

  (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership can somehow find 
the time to pass a trillion dollar tax giveaway to the special 
interests who said this last weekend, We got the sun, the moon, the sky 
in the Republican tax bill. But that tax cut will add hundreds of 
billions of dollars to our national debt, debt for the very people who 
pay the taxes we are asking about. But they cannot find the time to 
address the needs of America's families.
  We already know they will not bring a patients' protection act to the 
floor because they will not stand up to the HMO industry, and now, 1 
month before the start of the school year, they will not even bring up 
a school modernization bill to the floor because they will not stand up 
and be counted for the Nation's children.
  So, this morning, we Democrats begin signing a discharge petition to 
force them to do so. Some of our children will be going back to schools 
where there is inadequate heating for the winter, and without the 
modern educational tools they deserve.
  Yes, this Republican Congress is a do-nothing Congress, but much 
worse than that, it has no values. The values of our children should be 
upheld today.

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