[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 25016-25022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IS NOT LISTENING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are, I hope, nearing the end of the first 
session of the 106th Congress, and there are some people who say that 
probably the end of October we might end the session; but from what I 
hear today, it may be close to Thanksgiving before we get out of here. 
Either way, it is a most regrettable session; it is a tragic comedy 
that ought to end as soon as possible.
  One of the most regretful parts of this session is that the 
Republican majority that is in charge of the Congress is not listening 
to the American people. We as politicians always are accused of holding 
our fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and shaping 
our actions and our policies in accordance with public opinion. It is 
very interesting that this is a year when, in very important areas, we 
are not listening to the people when we should be.
  I am not saying that we should always follow public opinion; I think 
a representative government means that they expect some judgment to be 
exercised by those who are elected and sometimes their conscience and 
their knowledge and their vision may conflict with the opinion of the 
masses; but in general, we should always be listening. And when there 
is a conflict, we should certainly try to work towards some kind of 
compromise, some kind of merging of our own opinions with those of the 
majority. We pay a lot of money for polls and both parties and 
individuals rely heavily on focus groups and all kinds of devices to 
find out what people are thinking.
  But we have a situation now where it is quite clear on several major 
issues exactly where people are, where the majority is, and this 
Republican majority refuses to listen. Of course I am told that if the 
Republican majority wants to shipwreck that first session of the 106th 
Congress, or maybe the next session too, and we come to a situation 
where their conflict with the majority of Americans is so great until 
the democratic process will go into action, and it will throw them out 
of office. We should not worry as Democrats; we should be happy that 
there is such confusion and such day-to-day trivializing of the 
processes of the Congress.
  Everyday we have stupid bills that really do not mean very much and 
are a waste of time. In our committees, instead of meeting issues head 
on, we are dancing around them and camouflaging the real intent of the 
majority on these bills. Currently we have a situation of that kind in 
the Committee on Education and the Workforce as we seek to reauthorize 
the Title I portion of the Elementary and Secondary Education 
Assistance Act. I am sure many other committees are finding the same 
tactics where we do not address reality, we trivialize the process by 
playing around the edges and we are proud of not doing anything. This 
is a no-commitment Congress.
  Some people have often used the joke that when Congress is out of 
session, the Republicans say it is good for us not to be around because 
we only do harm when we are here. Well, I think that worse than doing 
harm is to not address the issues at hand and to do nothing, sins of 
omission are the sins of the 106th Congress. It is a shipwreck Congress 
as we come closer to the close of this first year. It seems that 
matters are growing worse each day, not better.
  We might say that maybe we had a high point last week where we did 
vote on the HMO Patients' Bill of Rights, the Patients' Bill of Rights 
that would allow people to have some kind of leveraging as they deal 
with the health maintenance organizations. Well, we finally came to a 
point where we got a vote on the floor. We got a long debate, and there 
were attempts to poison the bill with substitutes and even now, there 
are attachments to the bill which place the HMO Patients' Bill of 
Rights bill in some jeopardy, but at least it has been accomplished, 
finally.
  But what took so long when so many Americans have made it quite clear 
that they wanted something done about reining in the HMOs. They wanted 
this Patients' Bill of Rights very badly. Do we always have to reach 
the point where 80 percent of the people are for something before we 
can get some action by the Republican majority here in the House? Why 
must it take 80 percent before they realize that there are political 
dangers in not doing anything, so finally they yielded and we were able 
to get a Patients' Bill of Rights, flawed as it may be, passed out of 
the House and it is now going into the conference process with the 
other body, and the other body has a bill which is quite different and 
weaker, and we must watch closely to see that the Patients' Bill of 
Rights, the heart of the matter, is not sabotaged and rendered 
impotent.
  It is very important that with all of the kinds of experiences that 
we now have, all of the anecdotes that can be told on either side, both 
Republicans and Democrats, if one is a Congressperson, one is 
constantly being assailed with stories of the HMOs and our failure to 
do anything to combat the abuses that HMOs are guilty of.
  So it is something that had to be done. The focus groups told us, the 
polls told us; but it took us a long time to get there. I am happy to 
see that in certain places there is movement ahead of the Congress and 
we will have to run to catch up, but I think that there is such a 
strong impetus to have justice in the area of health care that we are 
going to get it by and by. It just takes too long. The democratic 
process should not take so long.
  I understand that California, in California today or yesterday, the 
governor signed a bill where California now has a standard, a fixed 
standard for nurse and patient ratios. In nursing homes and hospitals, 
we have to have a certain number of nurses in ratio to the patients 
that is reasonable so that the patients will get a reasonable amount of 
care. Governor Gray Davis, Democratic governor of California signed 
that bill. I want to congratulate the people of California, 
congratulate the legislators out there for moving forward on correcting 
a major abuse that HMOs have caused as a pressure to bring down the 
cost of health care, the amount of money that they pay the hospitals 
for health care. They have forced hospitals into situations where they 
have cut back on personnel, often personnel that is vital to the health 
and safety of the patients.

                              {time}  2130

  We should not tolerate that. There are elements in the Norwood-
Dingell bill which deal with standards, deal with protection, access to 
services, emergency care; a number of very direct approaches which rein 
in abuses that are known to have been practiced by the health 
maintenance organizations.
  Most important in the Norwood-Dingell bill is the provision for the 
suing of HMOs. We can take an HMO to court and sue, which nobody is 
recommending a large number of court suits. But if the power to sue is 
there, then it establishes a whole different environment that patients 
operate in, and it is very important to keep that provision in there.

[[Page 25017]]

  So we can applaud that finally, after begging, after pleading, after 
pushing, after the public opinion polls kept rising, we were able to 
get some action on the floor. We have a bill that is going through a 
process now which has to be watched closely, but I hope it is 
progressing.
  The fact that the House and Senate now have to go into conference and 
come out with a bill that both Houses can live with and the President 
will sign is a good sign. We are much further along than we were, I 
assure the Members, before we passed that bill last Thursday.
  Prescription drug benefits are not dealt with in this bill. This is 
to deal with reining in HMOs. There are some items in there related to 
prescriptions and how HMOs must handle prescriptions. There are some 
efforts to cut abuses by health maintenance organizations in the case 
of prescriptions, but we have not addressed the issue of providing 
prescription drug benefits for people who are on Medicare.
  There is a need to be able to let every American share the benefits 
of modern science. There is a need to be able to make certain that no 
person goes sick or is in pain unnecessarily. If we have the drugs, if 
we have the medication which can ease pain, can improve health, then 
the fact that a person has no money should not be a barrier to the use 
of those modern miracle drugs.
  I think that there are some situations where various ailments or 
diseases are quite rare and unusual, and the production of the drugs 
and medications necessary to treat them is very costly. They deserve 
special treatment. But there are a large number of drugs which are 
designed to deal with commonplace ailments.
  Diabetes is an ailment which afflicts millions of Americans. There 
are medications for diabetes which everybody should be able to have 
access to. Some of them are a bit expensive, and expensive is a 
relative term. If a widow is on a small pension and social security and 
has to pay her rent and food, et cetera, what is expensive to that 
widow might seem rather inexpensive to some others of us who are 
healthy and still working and have good salaries.
  But why should the person who needs it most and the people who are 
most frail, who are the eldest people, the people who have declining 
incomes, in many cases, or no incomes, do without? In too many 
instances, I have had people tell me, I could not keep taking my 
medication. I could not maintain the drugs that I needed because I just 
did not have the money. It was a matter of either I eat or I take my 
medications, and I had to stay alive.
  Some of those same people, we do not find them around after a few 
months because the drugs they take are vital to their health, or they 
become much sicker as a result of not being able to take drugs that are 
beneficial to the prevention or the retardation of certain kinds of 
advancing ailments, so they get very sick, they go the hospitals and 
they are charity cases. They must be taken care of in a much more 
expensive setting than would be the case if they were allowed to have 
prescription drugs.
  I am on several prescription drug bills. I am happy to say that we 
have colleagues who have proposed remedies, and the President has 
certainly proposed an initiative that will begin to deal with the 
problem of the denial of prescription drugs to persons who are in need 
of these drugs.
  I am on a bill that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) has 
to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit to 
Congress a plan to include as a benefit under the Medicare program 
coverage of outpatient prescription drugs, and to provide funding for 
that benefit.
  I am on another bill that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) 
has, which is a bill to amend title 18 of the Social Security Act to 
provide for the coverage of outpatient prescription drugs under Part B 
of the Medicare program.
  The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) has a bill. I am certainly 
on a bill with our colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
McDermott). In his bill, of course, he covers all prescription drugs, 
because that is a single-payer bill, H.R. 1200.
  I just want to take this opportunity to say that H.R. 1200, the 
single-payer bill sponsored by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
McDermott), is still very much alive as a piece of legislation. We 
continue to reintroduce it. I am on that bill.
  I am on a bill with the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy), 
with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), a bill to require 
persons who undertake federally-funded research in developmental drugs 
to enter into reasonable pricing agreements with the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services, and for other purposes.
  Some might have seen some of these exposes that have appeared on 
television in the last few months of what the drug situation is with 
respect to the United States as a principal creator and manufacturer of 
modern drugs. We have a situation where we are charging our citizens 
far more for those drugs that are created in this country than citizens 
of other countries are being charged.
  We do not have to go all the way to Europe, just go next door to 
Canada or next door to Mexico, and we will see tremendous price 
differences between the drugs, important prescription drugs, that are 
being sold in Canada and in Mexico versus the price we pay here.
  Many of these same drugs have been developed as a result of basic 
biology and chemistry, research that has been done in American 
universities financed by the taxpayers of the country, and have been 
done in our institutes of health. There are studies and all kinds of 
things we do to enhance the production of important, modern drugs. But 
we are, as citizens, forced to pay enormous prices, far more than 
people in other countries.
  This is unacceptable. This is a reason to get angry. We cannot dawdle 
here in the Congress and let this continue to go on. We need to come to 
grips with the fact that our people, our citizens who in many cases 
have financed, partially financed, the development of important, modern 
drugs, are being charged enormously excessive rates for the use of 
those drugs. That is more unfinished business.
  The public says they want something done about this. The polls say we 
need to do something about it. The people have spoken, but nobody is 
listening. The Republican majority is not listening to the American 
people.
  Some folks in New York State, for example, have made a joke out of 
the fact that the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, is considering running, 
exploring a possible run for the Senate. She has announced for several 
months now that she is on a listening tour. She is not running, she is 
on a listening tour. They made fun of that and thought it was very 
funny, that it is a new twist, and people like to play with it. But I 
think it is a very good idea, to have every American elected official 
start out by listening.
  It is a very important part of our activity. We pay a lot to get to 
the point where people are talking to us through our polling, through 
our focus groups. It is a vital part of the operation. No political 
campaign goes forward without polls and without attempting to measure 
the opinion of the public.
  So we know that they want prescription drug benefits. We know they 
want a bill of rights for health maintenance organization patients. We 
know this very well, so why is the Republican majority refusing to 
listen to the American people?
  We have some areas where the public has no opinion or no particular 
concern where there is a great deal of activity here in Washington to 
spend their money, to spend the taxpayers' money. The other side likes 
to talk about taxpayers' money being wasted on food stamps and WIC 
programs and Medicare and programs that benefit people, but they are 
very much involved in the effort to revive the F-22.
  The F-22 is an airplane that may be a miracle airplane. It may be 
able to do all the things, one day, when they get through with the 
research and testing. The F-22 may be a miracle airplane able to do 
wonders, but it costs billions of dollars to manufacture F-22s. They 
are trying to work out a situation

[[Page 25018]]

where they can get it through the testing stage and we will build $50 
to $60 billion worth of F-22s.
  Why do we need $50 to $60 billion worth of F-22 fighter planes when 
we have very good planes that are far superior to any planes 
manufactured anywhere in the world? Why do we need another super super 
fighter plane? But there is a great deal of discussion underway about 
what can be done to save the F-22, how can we develop a rationale to 
spend billions of dollars to develop this plane that is manufactured 
mostly in Marietta, Georgia, the home district of our former Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, Mr. Gingrich? What can we do to revive 
the F-22?
  The public is not asking for the F-22. In no poll, no focus groups 
will we hear people crying for more F-22s. I marvel at the way the 
majority, the Republican majority, gets stuck and stays in one rut.
  I was looking through my records and found that on March 14 of 1995, 
that is 4 years ago, more than 4 years ago, I commented on the F-22 and 
the folly of pursuing money for the F-22 at a time when the Republican 
majority was proposing to save money by cutting back on school lunches. 
I think about a month later in April I talked about, the Nation needs 
your lunch, where the Republican majority was saying to schoolkids, we 
have a budget crunch. We need your lunch. We have to cut back on school 
lunches in order to make certain that we balance the budget.
  That same Republican majority was at that time very much pushing the 
F-22. I am going to go back and read from March 14, 1995, what I said:

       Mr. Speaker, I would like to make one more plea for 
     justice. I want to again beg the leadership of this Congress 
     to abandon its reckless demolition of the programs that have 
     helped to make America great in the eyes of the whole 
     civilized world. The way we as a Nation have treated the 
     least among us is the vital ingredient of our greatness.
       This is a plea for honest decision-making. Yes, there is 
     waste in government and it must be removed, but school 
     lunches and summer youth employment programs are not 
     wasteful. These are the government programs that work. These 
     are the programs that are still very much needed. The CIA is 
     not needed at the level of $28 billion a year, which they 
     admitted was at least that much in 1995. The farm price 
     supports for rich farmers are no longer needed at the level 
     of $16 billion a year. We do not need another Sea Wolf 
     submarine, and we certainly do not need to spend billions of 
     dollars for F-22 fighter planes.
       The F-22 enterprise in Marietta, Georgia, represents a 
     long-term, overwhelming pork barrel. For this same amount of 
     money, we could double the number of jobs in the civilian 
     sector, creating infrastructure and services that are needed. 
     The F-22 is Republican pork. In the Federal budget, this is a 
     huge hog that deserves to be slaughtered.

  My point is that the F-22 in 1995 was on no list of public opinion at 
a high level demanding that we build F-22s. In 1999, it is even less 
desirable than it was in 1995. Yet we are going ahead, not listening. 
We are not listening to the public when they say they want a Patients' 
Bill of Rights, we are not listening to the public when they say, we 
want prescription drug benefits. We are not listening to the public 
when they say, we want school construction, an increase in the minimum 
wage. They are not listening, but they are trying hard to put together 
a program to maintain the F-22 in 1999.
  In 1995, I did a little poem for them that went as follows:

     The F-22 for pork, not for me and you.
     The F-22, toys for skies blue,
     Empty of any enemy crew.
     The F-22, jobs for just a few.
     The F-22, rich Georgia stew,
     Pork, pork, pork, not for me and you.
     Off the orphans, starve the kids,
     Save the contracts, roll out the bids.
     Bully the poor, be a high-tech dog,
     Eat the best meat high on the hog,
     For the peach, who gives a hoot?
     The F-22 pork is now the Georgia State fruit.
     Pork, pork, pork where they grow, the F-22, that is the 
           speaker's hometown, too.
     The F-22, pork, pork, pork not for me and you.

                              {time}  2145

  The F-22, mostly manufactured in Marietta, Georgia, the home of 
former Speaker Newt Gingrich, and there are still people who are 
working day and night to put together a plan to keep that F-22 flowing 
at the cost of billions of dollars.
  Nowhere is the public asking for more F-22s. We are spending a great 
deal and amount of time to do the things that nobody wants done, except 
a small special interest few, but we are ignoring some other big 
issues. While we dawdle here in this 106th Congress and do not pay 
attention to anything of great importance, the era of prosperity and 
relative peace in the world, which has given us time to focus on 
important vital matters, is being whittled away.
  We should be dealing with the fact that in this era of peace, we 
should invest more funds in ways to keep peace going, not in F-22s and 
other war machines that are really outdated.
  Where is the next contact likely to come from? Probably between India 
and Pakistan. Every day some new development takes place way over there 
between two very highly populated countries that have been at each 
other for quite awhile, mainly over the issue of Kashmir. The Pakistani 
government was overthrown today. There was a coup. The elected 
government, elected by a majority of the people, was overthrown by the 
Army. Pakistan has had a long history of military rule; and whenever 
the military rules, they only go backward. They have a lot of economic 
problems at this point, and they are likely to get worse. Why is the 
Pakistani Army in charge now? Because the elected prime minister, a 
person chosen by the people, decided to dismiss the chief of staff of 
the Army, the chief of the Armed Forces. The chief of the Armed Forces 
is the person rumored to have caused a major upheaval a few months ago 
when he marched without the knowledge of his government, without the 
knowledge of the prime minister, of the approval of the elected 
officials that went into Kashmir beyond the line of demarcation and 
caused a crisis with India. That blunder is the kind of blunder that 
could lead to a situation where we would inevitably be drawn in, not 
that we could do much to solve the problem. In that place, it is not so 
easy to have a bombing campaign which would bring whoever is right and 
wrong, and it is not clear who is right and who is wrong, to the table.
  In that situation, there may be two recent nuclear powers, I will not 
say amateur nuclear powers but they certainly are recent. There is a 
recent acquisition, recent testing of nuclear bombs. If they start 
throwing bombs at each other then the atmosphere is polluted, the winds 
are blowing, who anywhere in the world is going to be safe from the 
kind of radiation fallout? Who anywhere in the world will be safe from 
the kinds of things that would permanently be done to the environment 
as a result of some kind of even a small-scale nuclear war between 
Pakistan and India?
  So we ought to be studying ways to deal with making peace in the 
world. And Pakistan, India, and Kashmir ought to be one of those places 
that we are focusing attention on.
  We have focused very little of our energy and attention on that 
region. If the same kind of energy and attention that we focus on the 
Middle East was focused on that area, we might have gotten close to a 
solution by now. Not that we have done too much in the Middle East. We 
just need to do as much to deal with the world's second most populous 
nation, India, and a very densely populated nation of Pakistan.
  There is a territory called Kashmir, and it lies between India and 
Pakistan. And years ago when I was still in school, India promised that 
it would allow self-determination for the people of Kashmir. That has 
been on the agenda for all of these years and still no plebiscite, no 
vote has been allowed under the supervision of the United Nations or 
some kind of outside objective observers, which would allow the people 
of Kashmir to make a determination as to what they want to do, whether 
they want to become part of India or part of Pakistan, or become 
independent.
  India says, no. The focus of the world is on the gun-happy army of 
Pakistan. Yes, that is a problem. Pakistan must find a way to control 
its own military.

[[Page 25019]]

On the other hand, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that India 
over these years has refused to allow a plebiscite where the people can 
vote their own destiny.
  We applauded, we were very happy when finally East Timor was allowed 
to vote and overwhelmingly the people of East Timor voted to be 
independent. As a result of that, of course, they paid a heavy price 
because in a very few days the Armed Forces, disguised as guerrillas 
and local militia, exacted a heavy toll in terms of lives and property; 
but it went forward. Troops from Australia are there now, and people 
who like to put down military interventions and say they are never 
good, I think the people of East Timor, a very small nation of less 
than 500,000 people, welcomed the entry of the Australian and other 
troops under the United Nations command to help bring some justice 
there.
  Well, we hope we never have to send troops to Kashmir, and I doubt if 
it will be so easy to do that. Why are we not working on some peaceful 
solutions to that problem right now? Why are we not working on peaceful 
solutions to the problems in a large number of places in the world?
  Why do we not spend some money on our peace academy? We have a peace 
academy. Most people have never heard of it. There is an organization 
with a very tiny budget that does things in the name of promoting 
peace. Our peace academy really ought to be as large as our military 
academies, if we are serious. We have West Point. We have the Naval 
Academy. We have the Air Force Academy. We have the Coast Guard 
Academy. We have the War College. We have numerous places where we are 
still training some of our best minds for war, for old fashioned war, 
violent war, but we have no places where the Federal Government is 
investing significant amounts of money to train people for peace.
  So I mention this because the folks who are here pressuring to find 
billions of dollars for the F-22 are off course. They are certainly not 
listening to the American people. I think if it went to the American 
people, common sense would set a different agenda. They would say, what 
is being done to promote peace? How are we investing to promote peace? 
And that would go forward.
  We are not listening, though. We are not listening to those who want 
to see justice in the world with the least costly means, and that is 
through a process of peaceful negotiations. In Kosovo, there are some 
people who have said that it would not have gotten as bad as it was if 
we had given the peace process, the nonviolent approach, more 
resources; and they are probably right, but that is a matter of 
hindsight now. There are a lot of situations in the world where as a 
matter of foresight we ought to be investing more heavily in peace, but 
we are not listening.
  The Republican majority is not listening to the American people. They 
are not listening. On the HMO bill of rights, they were not listening. 
They are not listening on prescription drug benefits. They are not 
listening on the minimum wage bill.
  We have a minimum wage bill now which Members of the House of 
Representatives have signed a discharge petition for because under 
normal circumstances we could not get the bill to the floor. Now that 
large numbers of members have signed and we also know that a 
considerable number of members of the majority, of the Republican 
Party, are willing to vote for a minimum wage bill, finally we hear 
rumors that there is going to be some movement on a bill which would 
merely raise, merely raise wages from $5.15 an hour to $6.15 an hour in 
a two-year period, fifty cents a year over a 2-year period.
  Considering the fact that we have unprecedented prosperity in this 
Nation, our CEOs, corporate heads, are making salaries higher than ever 
before, some of their salaries dwarf the budgets of small countries, we 
are in a situation where the majority, the Republican majority, will 
not listen to the American people who say it is only fair, only fair 
that we increase the minimum wage so that the people on the very bottom 
are able to begin to make their work count for more.
  People who are making minimum wage, a family of four who lives in 
poverty, they are still below the poverty line at this point if they 
are making a minimum wage. Let us raise it over a two-year period by 
one dollar. Republicans have a counterproposal. The leadership of the 
majority of the Republican Party has not committed themselves, but 
there are proposals to raise it 25 cents per year over 4 years.
  The unprecedented prosperity that we enjoy now is not enough to make 
them sympathetic toward a 50 cent increase per year, but it appears 
that finally they are going to listen to the point of yielding to a 
minimum wage bill being placed on the floor, if they can exact a high 
price for business. There may be some compromise coming. I think it is 
important. It is important to people in my district. New York is one of 
the States with large numbers of people who are still making only the 
minimum wage, and we need to help those people who are working get 
better rewards for their work.
  The welfare reform bill is coming to a point now where the limits are 
going to be kicking in, and more people are going to be thrown off 
welfare, certainly some mothers of young children, and they need to 
have jobs out there that at least pay $6.15 an hour instead of $5.15 an 
hour. The Republicans are not listening, but I think we have reached 
the 80 percent point, at least 80 percent of the American people are 
saying we think that it is only fair that there be an increase in the 
minimum wage.
  What the Republicans are proposing in the area of programs that help 
the people on the bottom the most are across the board cuts at this 
point. We have the appropriations process, which is creeping forward.
  I said this, this first year of the 106th Congress, is a tragic 
comedy. It is tragic that certain vital things are not getting done. It 
is a comedy to see the kinds of proposals that keep popping up that 
they expect us to take seriously. Even the Republican candidate for 
President has stated that he does not want to be identified with 
certain proposals that have been made recently. One proposal to cut off 
the lump sum payment of the wage extension that people get as a result 
of having worked and not making enough money, they now want to cut that 
into 12 parts and pay it out on a monthly basis instead of the earned 
income tax credit being paid in a lump sum at one time. I think the 
reaction of the Republican candidate for President was he does not want 
to be any part of an action which attempts to balance the budget on the 
backs of the poor. I applaud his candor, and I applaud his 
truthfulness, but that only led to another absurd and very harmful 
proposal by the Republican majority.
  Now they are proposing across the board cuts. Let us cut everything 
drastically. The Health and Human Services bill, which contains most of 
the programs that benefit the poorest people in America, that was being 
targeted as the last bill to come out of appropriations, where the 
highest amounts of cuts will be made. Now they are getting a little 
more generous and saying we are not going to just make them bear the 
brunt of the burden. We will have it across the board and all the 
appropriations bill will be cut and let everybody suffer. At a point in 
history where we have the greatest prosperity this Nation has ever 
known, we want to go to the American people and say, we are going to 
cut title I; we are going to cut Head Start. We are going to cut food 
stamps; we are going to cut aid to college students. The Pell grants 
and student work programs, we are going to cut. We are going to cut and 
say with a straight face that we are being responsible. This is 
responsible because we need the money in order to put it into a pot for 
a tax cut, a tax cut for people who are working and earning sizable 
amounts of money.
  Most of the tax cuts, the greatest benefit of the tax cuts, would go 
to the richest people in America. That is responsible. That is 
listening to the American people.
  The fact that the polls show that most people have used their common

[[Page 25020]]

sense and said, look, this tax cut does not make sense, the people who 
need it most are not getting it, the people who need it least are 
getting the most, why do we need this kind of tax cut? I am in favor of 
a tax cut. I am in favor of a tax cut, but we ought to start at the 
bottom and cut the payroll taxes on the poorest people in America.
  The biggest increases in taxes over the last decade has been in the 
payroll taxes, Social Security, and the taxes of Medicare, the taxes 
that have been imposed on everybody, and poor people have paid the 
biggest increases. So let us start there and cut the payroll tax first, 
and then come up and cut the people at the lowest income levels first 
and keep going so we can give the middle class, which probably suffer 
the most, because they have enough money to really place them in 
jeopardy in terms of unfair taxation but not enough to be able to 
benefit from all the loopholes and the corporate give-aways so they 
suffer the most. The middle class needs some relief, but that is not 
the way the Republican majority proposes to handle the tax cut.
  After they have across the board cuts, their tax cut will not give 
the money to the majority of the people in America in any kind of 
significant way. So they are not listening. They are not listening.
  Eighty percent of the people say this tax cut proposal is no good, 
but they are not listening. When it comes to education and school 
construction, that is a high priority. The American people keep 
demanding it. I have been on the floor time and time again saying that 
the people want more Federal assistance for education. They want more 
government involvement at every level. Whether we are talking about the 
State government or the city government or the Federal Government, they 
want more government.
  My people in my district need help. They are tired of situations 
where the children have to eat lunch at 10:00 in the morning because 
the school is so overcrowded, and most of the schools in my district 
there are twice as many students as the school was built for so it is 
overcrowded from the time they come in in the morning to the time they 
leave, and the lunchroom cycle has to be arranged so that the lunchroom 
is not overloaded at any one time. That means that some schools have to 
have three and four lunch periods. If they have to have three and four 
lunch periods in order to get the kids in there safely and out, then 
they have to start having lunch in some cases at 10:00 in the morning. 
That is child abuse. To make a child eat lunch at 10:00 in the morning 
is child abuse, but it is going on in large numbers of schools because 
they see no way out.
  In the same schools, there are some students being taught in the 
hallways, some being taught in closets. There are situations where the 
President's proposed bill to give money for more teachers at the lower 
grades cannot help us because of the fact that if they get more 
teachers, they do not have a way to reduce the classroom size because 
there are no classes. In a first grade class, one teacher cannot be put 
in one corner of the room and another teacher in the other corner of 
the room and expect to have any productive teaching taking place. It 
will not happen. So as we get more teachers in order to reduce the size 
of the classes, they need more classrooms.
  It goes on and on and the public says, look, we are tired of it. We 
want more done about education, and we want specifically to have 
something done about school construction, school infrastructure, school 
repair, school wiring, things related to the physical infrastructure.
  I have been saying this for some time so I guess my credibility in 
this House would not be that great because one might say I am 
prejudiced, I am locked into a position. Let us look at the polls that 
all of us politicians respect.

                              {time}  2200

  The ABC News, Washington Post poll released on September 5, 1999 says 
the following: Support for education over tax cuts. We find that 
improving education and the schools will be very important to 79 
percent of Americans when choosing the President next year more than 
any other issue, more than any other issue. Only 44 percent say cutting 
taxes is very important, making it 14th out of 15 issues.
  Do my colleagues want to know what the 15 issues are? The top five 
issues, according to the ABC News, Washington Post poll released on 
September 5, 1999 is, one, improving education, 79 percent rank 
education as the number one issue; handling the economy, 74 percent; 
managing the budget, 74 percent; handling crime, 71 percent; protecting 
Social Security, 68 percent.
  Now, the fact that any one of these made the top five is such that I 
would not quibble about which is most important, first place or third 
place or fifth place. Those are top five. Education is always in the 
top five for the last 5 years. Sometimes it trades places with Social 
Security and sometimes with crime. Education has always been there. In 
this poll, 79 percent say improving education is the top issue.
  What are the lower five of these 15, they are still important issues: 
Helping the middle class, 61 percent. Handling gun control, 56 percent. 
Still over the majority feel that handling gun control is important. 
Handling foreign affairs, 54 percent. Still over a majority, over the 
50 percent. Cutting taxes, below the 50 percent. Only 44 percent are 
interested in cutting taxes.
  Campaign finance reform, 30 percent. I am sorry to see that campaign 
finance reform is down there so low, but to make the top 15 is 
important considering this Nation has more than 250 million people, and 
all the opinions of different problems and issues to make the top 15 is 
important. Campaign finance reform is one of the those issues where I 
think we elected officials, Members of Congress, and others have to 
move public opinion. We have to explain to the people. We have to use 
our own set of principles and our own values to help guide public 
opinion into realization of how dangerous it is not to have campaign 
finance reform and to have money play such a great role in our 
democracy.
  Let me just go a little further on this education issue. When we take 
the education issue and break it down into parts, the polls show that 
80 percent of Americans support at least three education priorities. 
What are those three priorities? Fixing rundown schools. Ninety-two 
percent favor fixing rundown schools, 92 percent. Only 7 percent 
opposed, and 1 percent says they do not know. Let me just say that 
again. Fixing rundown schools, 92 percent favor, and only 7 percent 
oppose.
  Are we listening? Is the Republican majority listening? Is the 
Democrat minority listening? Are our Democratic leaders listening? Is 
the White House listening?
  We do not have in this Congress adequate proposals to address the 
fact that 92 percent of our people say fixing rundown schools is a top 
priority. Eighty-six percent say that reducing class sizes is a top 
priority; 86 percent favor, 13 percent oppose, 1 percent says they do 
not know. But reducing class sizes, 86 percent favor and 13 percent 
oppose.
  Placing more computers in the classroom 81 percent favor, 16 percent 
oppose, 2 percent do not know. A lot of people will say, well, that is 
a luxury, computers in the classroom, hookup with the Internet, all 
this stuff. We need pencils and papers. We need chalk. We have got to 
stay with the basics.
  Well, I think the common sense of the American people have run off 
and left Members of Congress who think that computers, educational 
technology, hookups with the Internet, all that is not vital to the 
education of children in 1999 who are going to be in a cyber-
civilization tomorrow. They are going to have to take jobs in a world 
where, if one cannot use computers and use them effectively, there is 
very little hope for one ever having the opportunity to make a decent 
living.
  So placing more computers in the classroom is of vital importance. 
The common sense of the American people has sensed this. Instincts have 
told them that this is important.
  We are privy to all kinds of studies. We know, as Members of 
Congress, that

[[Page 25021]]

we are considering another bill to bring in people from outside the 
country who would fill the jobs and information technology because we 
have so many vacancies. There is so much pressure from industry here in 
this country to get more people from the outside to take these jobs. We 
know that. Most people out there do not know that.
  But their instincts tell them, their observations at a very low 
level, without all the benefits of the staff and the studies that we 
have, say that computers in the classroom are important.
  In other words, 80 percent of Americans support at least three 
education priorities: fixing rundown schools, reducing class sizes, 
placing more computers in the classroom.
  I think I have just begun to tell my colleagues that the three are 
inseparable. If we do not fix rundown schools, if we do not create more 
space, if we do not allow funding for schools to be able to wire for 
the Internet, and, in many cases, the wiring in the walls will not 
take, and they have to be rewired, in many cases they have asbestos 
problems, and that has to be taken care of as a construction issue. So 
fixing rundown schools is vital in order to be able to put more 
computers in the classroom.
  Fixing rundown schools, of course, is obviously vital if we are going 
to reduce class sizes. In the places where the children have the 
greatest amount of problems with reading, and where we want to reduce 
class size in order to be able to give the early teachers the 
elementary grades, a chance to be able to help kids more, to learn to 
read, to establish the basic fundamentals that allow them to be 
successful in school, in those places, they have the worst physical 
plants, the worst infrastructures. They do not have any classes. They 
need more classes before they can have reductions in class sizes.
  We are not talking in New York City this fall about the tremendous 
shortage of classrooms and the overcrowding. We talked about it last 
year and the year before. Now the silence is such that one thinks the 
problem has been solved and resolved. It has not.
  There is more overcrowding now because there is a great increase in 
the number of students that have gone into the schools. There is more 
overcrowding now because children are being held back on the policy of 
no social promotion.
  Some children, of course, last year had to go to summer school and 
had to attend summer school in buildings that were so hot that it was 
torture for young kids to be in those buildings during the summer 
because they have no air conditioning, and they have very poor 
ventilation. Then they found out some of those same kids should not 
have had to be there because they had passed the necessary tests, and 
they did not need to go to summer school in order to qualify for 
advancement to the next grade. There had been an error, an error in the 
calculation of the test, to show us how blunders place children at risk 
and make them suffer.
  The private sector I think was involved in that testing blunder as 
well as the board of education. But let us put that aside for a moment 
and consider the fact that there is silence in New York City, a city 
that had $2 billion in surplus last year and did not spend a penny to 
help renovate, repair, help building those schools. Not a penny of that 
surplus went into the schools.
  There was silence at the State level. The State had a $2 billion 
surplus, and the Governor vetoed a bill which called for $500 million 
to help repair schools.
  The burden should not only be on the shoulder of the Federal 
Government. We need movement on the Federal Government because, in the 
process of having the Federal Government move, we hope to stimulate and 
drag along other levels of government in this process of getting 
schools built.
  Why do I think it is so important? Because, as I said many times 
before, in any religion, the state of the temple, the church, or the 
synagogue, the way the physical building looks is the beginning of the 
assessment of the way people feel about that religion. If it is a 
dilapidated, rundown, neglected building, then nobody is going to take 
the parishioners seriously about their religion and the way they feel 
about it, because that symbolism, that highly visible statement of how 
one feels is there.
  When one does not take care of school buildings, one sends a message 
to parents in my community and certainly in inner city communities 
across the country that we have abandoned the schools. That is almost 
true. The major leaders of America, the people who are in the power 
structure, have abandoned public schools in their heads already. Many 
have overtly done it. Others do not realize yet, but the way they 
behave, their hesitation, their neglect, their sins of omission means 
that they have abandoned public schools already. Because if one does 
not move to build and rebuild the physical infrastructure, then all 
hope is lost.

                              {time}  2215

  Parents have no hope when they hear the rhetoric of the Department of 
Education, of the White House, or the Congress or any Member of the 
Congress. They hear the rhetoric, but they see the schools collapsing. 
They see the schools have leaky roofs, crumbling walls. They see the 
schools have coal burning furnaces. There are still more than 200 
schools in New York City that are burning coal and jeopardizing the 
healthy kids immediately and causing respiratory illnesses among 
teachers.
  When though see these things happening, they are correct in not 
believing that elected officials are serious about maintaining the 
public school system. Is it any wonder, then, that so many inner city 
parents, white and black, and certainly a large number of black 
parents, are opting to support vouchers, more than 50 percent in 
certain surveys.
  In a survey that was taken last year, 57 percent of black parents in 
inner city communities said that they would certainly support vouchers 
in order to get their kids a decent education. They did not have any 
faith left in the public school system. That is most unfortunate, but 
that is a truth I have to stand here and admit.
  They have given up hope because they realize that their child only 
has one life and they only go through the process of being educated one 
time and they cannot afford to wait any longer. They are desperate. But 
in their desperation, they are turning to a system which will also 
disappoint them, because all we have done is create a hope in a false 
institution that does not exist. The private sector cannot handle the 
millions of youngsters in public schools who need help.
  There is a large scholarship program that was developed by some 
millionaires in New York and they put up large amounts of money and a 
thousand youngsters could be provided with a scholarship which allowed 
them to go to a private school of their choice. The money that they got 
as a scholarship would pay half of it.
  Thousands and thousands are on the waiting list because there are no 
schools to accommodate all of those young people. There are no private 
schools that can accommodate it. It would take 20 or 30 years to build 
a private school system that could accommodate the 53 million children 
who now go to public schools in America.
  It is not an answer to the problem. And the parents who have given up 
hope are only going to have their hopes dashed greatly as a result of 
this illusion that is being created by people who wanted to destroy 
public schools to make a point and to prove that the private sector can 
do it better.
  If they lose a generation, they are so cold hearted that they do not 
particularly care what happens to that generation. But that is about 
what we are facing. A generation will be lost while we try to get in 
place a private school system to replace a public school system which 
now takes care of 53 million students.
  It is most unfortunate. I can only close with the same message that I 
have brought here before many times. Both parties are negligent in 
focusing on the principal problem with the education improvement 
effort. Kids must be provided with an opportunity to learn. As we try 
to raise standards, as

[[Page 25022]]

we standardize curriculums, we need to focus on the students themselves 
and provide them with the maximum opportunity to learn.
  At the heart of the opportunity to learn is a physical facility. We 
need a physical facility which can support the opportunity to learn. 
They need a decent library. They need decent laboratories. They need a 
clean, safe environment conducive to learning. We cannot go forward 
unless we address the issue of school construction, school repair, 
school modernization.
  The bills that we are supporting in the Democratic Caucus is a bill 
that I have my name on as a cosponsor is totally inadequate. It is a 
bill to sell bonds and the Federal Government will pay the interest. It 
is a commitment of the Federal Government over a 5-year period to $3.7 
billion for the school construction situation under a situation where 
each locality or State will have to vote to borrow money and we will 
pay the interest on the principal. That is totally inadequate.
  As would he go into a cyber-civilization, I strongly advise, urge, 
and plead that all elected officials understand that what would he need 
is an omnibus cyber-civilization education program to guarantee that 
the brain power and the leadership needed for our present and our 
expanding future digitalized economy and high-tech world will be there.
  At the heart of such a comprehensive initiative, we must set the all-
important revitalization of the physical infrastructure of America's 
schools. These necessary brick and mortar creations will long endure as 
symbols of this particular set of leadership's commitment to education. 
It will also serve as practical vehicles for the delivery of a kind of 
high-tech education required in the 21st century.
  All of the most brilliant and visionary education achievements of the 
Clinton administration may be merged and focused through these vital 
and physical edifices. We have had a net day movement for the volunteer 
wiring of schools. We had the technology literacy legislation, the 
community technology centers, the distance learning projects, and the 
widely celebrated and appreciated E-rate for telecommunications.
  The lifting of standards, the improvement of school curriculums, and 
the support for smaller class sizes are also initiatives that require 
the additional classrooms and expanded libraries and laboratories that 
school modernization will bring.
  We are not listening to the majority of Americans. The Republican 
majority is not listening, and too many other people in other places 
also are not listening. We need to listen on all of these vital issues, 
whether it is the HMO bill of rights, prescription drug benefits, 
minimum wage, the need to fund HHS right across the board with 
increases instead of decreases, or school construction.
  All of these are areas where leadership is needed, where the demands 
right now in a time of great prosperity and peace are that we lay the 
foundation for a cyber-civilization, and we do that with an education 
program that is across the board seeking to improve education but 
starting with the all-important area of construction of new schools.

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