[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22929-22932]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        LABOR-HHS APPROPRIATIONS

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, what is most appalling to me is that we 
have left the Labor, Health, and Human Services bill to the very last. 
This bill is extremely important to every family in this country. It 
funds everything from health care to NIH research to education, key 
programs that we are responsible for at the Federal level, being a 
partner in making sure every child in this country gets an education so 
they can be successful.
  Last night, we referenced the Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and 
Human Services. We were unable to offer any amendments, and I was 
disappointed in that. I was pleased that the Republicans put forward a 
budget that does appear--and I use the word

[[Page 22930]]

``appear''--to fund education at much better levels than the House, and 
we are grateful for that. We have been out here on the floor 
innumerable times saying education is a top priority and in this budget 
we want to make sure that happens. Surely our colleagues have listened 
to this, and the numbers on the paper show they have. However, what is 
underneath those numbers is very disconcerting to me, and it should be 
very disconcerting to every parent and every family across this 
country.
  Let me talk for a minute about a very important initiative we passed 
last year to reduce class size in the first, second, and third grades.
  It was a bipartisan effort. We negotiated with our Republican 
colleagues. Every Member in the Senate and House voted for it and 
agreed with us that reducing class size would make tremendous gains in 
education across this country. In the budget that is put forward that 
the Labor Committee will be hearing this afternoon, I do not see any 
class-size money. This money has been taken away. The 30,000 new 
teachers who have been hired this year who are in our classrooms 
looking our children in the eyes as we speak will be fired if we pass 
this Labor bill as it now appears before us.
  I do see $1.2 billion for something called teacher assistance 
initiative. We have no idea what that is. Clearly, it is not class-size 
reduction. We do not have any idea what it is, and it is subject to 
authorization, meaning essentially those dollars will never come 
forward. If that is the case, this bill is terribly underfunded when it 
comes to education and the needs of families across our country. But I 
am very concerned that the class-size money has been taken out of this 
budget.
  I simply cannot support going out and firing 5,000 teachers across 
this country. These teachers are in place today. This was a commitment 
we made in the Senate 1 year ago when we told them we were going to 
work with them to reduce class size.
  Why did we say we wanted to reduce class size? Because we know that 
students from small classes enroll in more college-bound courses such 
as foreign languages, advanced math, and science. This has been proven. 
We know students in small class sizes in first, second, and third 
grades have higher grade point averages. We know they have fewer 
discipline problems. And we know they have lower drop-out rates.
  We knew that last year so we said as a Federal Government we were 
going to begin a process of hiring 100,000 new teachers across this 
country so students in the first, second, and third grade can have the 
attention they need and the teacher time they need to learn the basic 
skills of English, math, and science. We know those kids who come from 
those classes will do better.
  Smaller class sizes mean higher grades, more kids will be able to 
compete when they graduate from high school, more kids will be 
successful, and more students will less likely have discipline problems 
and, as we all know, turn to violence as a means of making their voices 
heard.
  We are going to fight for class size on this side of the aisle. We 
want those teachers who have been hired and those children in those 
classrooms to know what we said a year ago will not be taken away 
because it is a new year. We want them to know we are committed to 
education, we are committed to being the partner we are supposed to be, 
and it is not just for today, it is for tomorrow.
  Numbers and rhetoric on a piece of paper do not educate a child. 
Making sure our kids are in classes that are small enough and that we 
have the dollars and commitment is critical, and making sure school 
construction is part of what we do--and there is no money in this bill 
for school construction--and making sure each child knows we care about 
them is critical. The Senator from California has been out on the floor 
many times to talk about afterschool programs, which are funded in this 
bill but less than what the President requested.
  We are pleased the Republicans have brought us a budget with the 
numbers on a piece of paper, but we want to know that those commitments 
are real, that those teachers are not going to lose their jobs because 
of some rhetoric on the floor this year and smoke and mirrors and no 
funding, and we do not know how it is all going to happen in the end 
and, gee, 6 months from now, gosh, the program is gone. We want it 
real, we want language now, we want numbers now, and we want to tell 
our kids we care about them in a manner that is true. That is for what 
the Democrats are going to be fighting. I thank my colleagues on this 
side of the aisle.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will my colleague yield for a few questions?
  Mrs. MURRAY. I will be happy to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. First, I thank the Senator from Illinois for setting the 
stage for this conversation, and I thank him for yielding such time as 
she needed to the Senator from Washington because, as he has stated, 
she has been a leader in this whole area of education.
  Education, in my view, is the No. 1 issue in this country today. Why? 
Because we know that if we do not give our children a good education, a 
series of bad things happen: They will not be productive, they will 
drop out, they will get into trouble, and all the rest.
  We are now in the global marketplace. We all know this. I daresay 
everyone on both sides of the aisle says that education is important. I 
want to probe my friend a little bit because she sits on that all-
important appropriations subcommittee on education. I want to make sure 
I understand exactly what she has told the Senate.
  My understanding is that the Senate, on paper, is spending more than 
the House and even exceeds the President's number on paper; is that 
correct?
  Mrs. MURRAY. That is correct. If one looks at the numbers, that is 
what it looks like.
  Mrs. BOXER. But is it not true that out of that increase there is 
$1.2 billion for a program that does not exist and the funds will not 
be spent unless the program is authorized? And is it not true that $1.2 
billion is supposed to replace the lower classroom size initiative that 
my friend has been pushing in the Senate?
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from California is absolutely correct. They 
took the number of $1.2 billion, which we passed last year and were 
supposed to continue this year, to reduce class size, only our 
commitment was to increase that to $1.4 billion so we would add on to 
those 30,000 teachers until we reached our verbal commitment of having 
100,000 new teachers.
  On paper, they took the $1.2 billion and put it into something called 
teacher assistance initiative. I have never heard of that. I do not 
know what it is. I have seen no language about it. I can tell my 
colleague one thing: sitting on the education committee in the Senate, 
it is not a program anyone knows about, and the language in the bill 
says it is authorized, meaning we are going to have to go through 
hearings, pass a bill through the Senate and the House, and have it 
signed by the President before we leave in a few short weeks, and I 
just do not see that happening. Really it is smoke and mirrors.
  Mrs. BOXER. It seems as if there is a shell game being played with 
money that is not behind the piece of paper, and they have completely 
zeroed out this important class-size reduction plan which we began.
  Is my friend saying to me that unless we can change that, school 
districts are going to have to fire teachers? Can my friend elaborate 
on that? How many teachers is it, and is it all around the country?
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator is correct. If this bill passes as written 
and we go home, what will happen is next year, beginning in September, 
those 30,000--it is actually 29,000--teachers who have been hired will 
no longer be there.
  Mrs. BOXER. So this bill that purports to do something for our 
children, in essence, is a pink slip for 29,000 teachers across this 
country who were hired under the Clinton-Murray initiative to lower 
classroom size; is that correct?
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from California is correct. I was out in one 
of my school buildings last Monday, a school in Tacoma, where they have 
taken their class-size money for first,

[[Page 22931]]

second, and third grades and put it all into the first grade, and the 
first grade teachers have 15 students.
  Each one of those kids in those 57 classrooms will read at the end of 
this year. You can see it in 10 days of classroom instruction. These 
kids were moving ahead rapidly, and they were going to be reading. 
Contrast that with a class of 30 kids where maybe part will be able to 
read at the end of the year and, obviously, some will not. They move on 
to second grade, and the second grade teacher starts all the way back 
at the beginning with the kids who are at the bottom.
  These 57 classrooms and those 15 kids in each of those classrooms 
will know how to read, and that second grade teacher next year can move 
them on from there. It is going to make a tremendous difference.
  Those teachers pleaded with me not to lose funds so they can continue 
to do the job they have been trained to do.
  Mrs. BOXER. If we do not make changes and if the President does not 
prevail with the Republicans and this bill passes as it is, we will not 
only lose 29,000 teachers out of the classrooms, but next year a lot of 
those kids who were in classroom sizes of 15 will now find themselves 
in classroom sizes of 30, and we are back to where we were and we have 
wiped out this advantage we have given some of our children.
  I have two more other questions.
  Mrs. MURRAY. That will take away the promise we have given to 
students across this country, and their families, that we are going to 
invest in education. Essentially, this $1.2 billion put in there as a 
teacher assistance initiative will never go out to districts, never be 
seen, and everyone will lose.
  Mrs. BOXER. I think it gets back to what our colleague from Illinois 
said: There is a lot of chaos. Imagine the chaos. Last year we passed 
this school reduction effort, and then we turn around--the Republicans 
do--and walk away from it. Talk about chaos--chaos on Capitol Hill 
because we do not know what we are doing, chaos in the classrooms--a 
terrible message.
  I have two other areas I want to ask the Senator about. One that she 
mentioned is very near and dear to my heart, which is afterschool care. 
We know it works. We know that juvenile crime peaks at 3 o'clock and 
starts to go down at 6 or 7 in the evening when the kids go home. We 
know if they do not have a place to go after school, they get in 
trouble.
  All of these things are so obvious. The smaller class sizes--it does 
not take a degree in sociology or education or psychology to understand 
if a teacher can give you one-on-one help, you are going to do better. 
If you have a safe place to go after school, you are not going to get 
in trouble. Again, we can track academic performance.
  In this bill, the Republicans did put more money into afterschool 
care, but they underfunded it by $200 million less than the President's 
request. The President requested $600 million; they came in with $400 
million. That $200 million affects thousands and thousands and 
thousands of children.
  I know my friend taught in the classroom. I know how she supports 
afterschool care. Is it not a fact, I say to my friend, that she was 
unable to offer an amendment on afterschool care or school construction 
or smaller class sizes, that she was prohibited by the Republicans 
under the rules of their markup?
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from California is correct. We did not even 
vote. We are moving to full committee this afternoon, and I intend to 
offer my amendments. I hope my colleagues will support us. If they 
don't, we are going to be debating this again and again and again.
  Mrs. BOXER. Exactly.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Because the investments we make in our children, as the 
Senator from California knows, pay dividends far into the future. 
Putting down numbers on a piece of paper--that is not reality, that 
does not provide teachers, that does not provide classroom space, that 
does not provide afterschool care--does not mean anything to anybody.
  We want to make sure the budgets we pass are real, that they are 
funded in reality, that those programs are there, and that this country 
makes sure that our kids get the education we ought to be providing in 
our schools.
  Mrs. BOXER. The last question I have for my friend is in regard to 
school construction. I read in the paper today that the President was 
in a school in Louisiana. It was a school that was built before the 
turn of the century. The school is falling down. The tiles are falling 
down from the ceiling. When it rains, the rain comes into the 
classrooms.
  It reminded me of a school I visited in Sacramento where the same 
thing was happening. I could not believe it. We were in the gym, I say 
to my friend from Washington, and I looked at the ceiling. Tiles were 
gone. I said to a construction worker: What has happened to the tiles 
on the ceiling? He said: They fell down. I said: Do they ever hit a 
student? He said: Yes.
  I have to ask my friend, what kind of message are we sending to our 
kids when, on the one hand, we say to them as parents that education is 
crucial to them in this incredibly important global marketplace where 
they are in competition with students from Europe and Asia and all over 
the world, and then we send them to a school where the tiles are 
falling on their heads? Can my friend tell me again, how much do the 
Republicans have in their education bill for this important and worthy 
project of school construction and fixing up our schools? How much do 
they put in?
  Mrs. MURRAY. The Senator from California is correct. There is zero 
for school construction. What kind of message is that for our young 
kids, who are sitting in public schools, to show that we care about 
them, and that we are paying attention to them, and that we believe 
their education is important.
  It is hard to pass that message along when you are sitting in 
classrooms with a leaky roof, with no new desks, with materials that 
are inappropriate, that are not good for education. A child goes home 
and says: The adults in my world don't care about me.
  We all know the results of that. There is not a dime in this bill for 
school construction.
  Mrs. BOXER. So in my sum up, from what I get from the Senator from 
Washington, there is no money for school construction, there is no 
money for class size reduction, and there is $200 million less for 
afterschool care.
  I say to my friend, please, when you are in that committee this 
afternoon, do what you did on the floor; lay out the situation. I hope 
all of America is going to learn that despite the moving of the numbers 
and the smoke and mirrors and all the rest of it, the things that need 
to be done are not done in this bill.
  I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Senator from California and urge all of our 
colleagues to look at this and past rhetoric and put the numbers in 
reality for our children in our country.
  I yield my time back to the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair for that information.
  Four years ago, we had a Government shutdown. Congress failed so 
miserably in its responsibilities to fund the agencies of Government, 
we actually shut down agencies. We sent Federal employees home. They 
were paid later on even for the time they missed. We barred the door 
when they wanted to come back to work, and the Republican leaders in 
Congress said: We're going to prove a point.
  They certainly did. They proved they could not pass the spending 
bills on time; they could not maintain the orderly flow of Government 
services to the people of America. That was 4 years ago.
  You would think that over time the Republican leadership in the House 
and Senate would have learned from that experience. Last year, we had a 
little different experience. In the closing minutes of the session, we 
were presented with a 4,000-page budget bill, an appropriations bill, 
which literally no

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Member of Congress was able to read, and we were told: Take it or leave 
it. We either pass this and go home or sit around here for weeks, if 
not months.
  The bill passed. A lot of us, with regret, voted for it saying: What 
is the alternative?
  This year, we are going into a new phase, a new chapter in the 
Republican congressional leadership when it comes to budgetary 
responsibility. October 1--this week on Friday--is the new fiscal year. 
It is, in fact, Republican Responsibility Day. As leaders in Congress, 
they are responsible for passing spending bills or at least charting 
out a course so we can see an orderly process to result in spending and 
budget bills that do serve America.
  As I stand here today, we do not have it. We will pass a continuing 
resolution which says we will continue Government for another 3 weeks, 
with no end in sight. Neither the leaders on Capitol Hill nor anyone on 
the Republican side have suggested how we are going to end this.
  Instead, to quote a friend of mine with whom I served in the House, 
Congressman Dave Obey of Wisconsin, we hear the Republican leadership 
posing for holy pictures as they stand and say: We will not breach the 
caps on spending which led to the balanced budget. And we certainly 
will never touch the Social Security trust fund.
  The facts do not back that up. What we find is they have broken the 
caps already. They have already reached deep into the Social Security 
trust fund to fund their favorite projects, and we still have no end in 
sight.
  It is one thing to beat your chest and say you are going to stand up 
for certain principles, but it is hollow rhetoric when you cannot 
produce the spending bills.
  You heard the Senator from Washington and the Senator from 
California. Imagine, if you will, in this time of prosperity, when the 
Republicans have said we are so awash in money in Washington that we 
can offer a $792 billion tax cut--and thank goodness the President did 
not sign that and explained it to the American people--at the same time 
the Republicans are calling for a massive tax cut, primarily for 
wealthy people, they cannot fund education, sending 29,000 teachers 
home.
  Imagine families across America that get a note from the school 
saying: Mrs. Smith will not be here next year. She may not be here next 
month because Congress failed to continue a program to provide teachers 
in our school, teachers to make sure that class sizes are smaller.
  Is that what this is all about, that we have gone on for month after 
weary month with all of this rhetoric in Washington, and at the end of 
the day we are going to send 29,000 teachers home and say to the 
schools: You have no choice but to increase the enrollment in each one 
of your classrooms.
  That is as good as we can do for all the billions of dollars that we 
have to spend. I don't think so. I certainly hope the Republican 
leadership will sit down with the Democrats and the President and work 
out something that is good for the Nation and good for families across 
our country that are concerned about quality schools and quality health 
care.
  I visited St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, IL, yesterday, a wonderful 
hospital that has faced Medicare cuts that, frankly, threaten this 
teaching hospital, this safety-net hospital, another item we have to 
address and should address before we go home.
  I didn't run for the House and for the Senate to come here and punch 
the clock on my pension. I came here to work on the issues that are 
important to people in Illinois and across the Nation. To date, this 
Congress has failed miserably when it comes to addressing those issues, 
whether it is education or health care, the basic things we expect.
  We had the Columbine School massacre a few months ago; it shocked the 
Nation. We passed a juvenile justice bill because Vice President Gore 
came and broke the tie. We said we need sensible gun control, 
background checks, to make sure fugitives, felons, and stalkers don't 
get their hands on guns. We passed that bill over to the House, and it 
disappeared, never seen again.
  We are now in another school year. We still want safe schools. We 
still want sensible gun control. This Congress has failed miserably 
when it comes to bringing that issue through, passing a law, and 
sending it to the President. It hasn't happened.
  Time and again we have made the speeches; we have punched the clock; 
we have gone home without meeting our responsibilities. If last year's 
Congress was a do-nothing Congress, this Congress has done less, less 
to meet the challenges the American people have given to us, challenges 
which include a responsible budget, education, and health care, 
challenges which include, of course, a Patients' Bill of Rights so 
those who have health insurance through managed care companies have a 
decision made by a doctor and not by an insurance bureaucrat.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Under the previous order, the time until 11 a.m. shall be in the 
control of the Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe, or her designee.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes of my time to the 
distinguished Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl, at the conclusion of my 25 
minutes.
  I further ask unanimous consent that following the expiration of my 
control of the time, Senator Roberts be recognized for up to 15 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE. Will the Chair inform me when I have consumed 10 minutes?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will do so.

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