[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 23398-23399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                             106TH CONGRESS

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I think the focus today, as we move toward 
the appropriations bills, is education. It has been a focus during this 
whole Congress. I saw some figures that we spent a total, in the 106th 
Congress, of 5 weeks talking about education. That is indicative, I 
believe, of the importance all citizens place on education. I don't 
think anyone would say education isn't a very high priority for 
everyone.
  The question is, How is the role of the Federal Government best 
created? In my view, one of the important things is to have some 
assistance from the Federal Government, to have some financial 
assistance. We also are in a system where people move about and are 
educated in one place and work in another place. There has to be some 
continuity or accountability that each of us is educated enough to be 
able to be successful.
  One of the most important issues is who makes the decisions with 
regard to individual school systems. I think the Republicans, working 
on this side of the aisle, have had a very strong agenda for education, 
returning control to the parents for sending dollars to the classroom, 
dollars to States and local school boards so they can make the 
decisions that are necessary to be made in that particular school, give 
families greater educational choice, support exceptional teachers, and 
focus on basic academics, stressing accountability.
  I have always thought, as a member of the Wyoming legislature, we 
cannot have a good school system without the dollars. Dollars alone do 
not necessarily result in a good school system. There has to be some 
accountability as well.
  Of course, on the Federal level, the needs in Chugwater, WY, are 
quite different from those in Pittsburgh. Many things are that way. 
There needs to be flexibility; in one particular school, perhaps what 
is most needed is to build a new school or replace the old school; in 
another school, what is needed is computers, teacher training, or more 
academic materials. ``One size fits all'' does not work. Frankly, that 
has been the underlying difficulty in this entire debate.
  The President of the United States will be here this afternoon 
pushing for his plan so bureaucrats in Washington can decide and 
dictate what the Federal dollars are spent for. On the other side of 
that argument, we have given more dollars to the budget than even the 
President asked for. We are saying those ought to offer flexibility so 
local people can decide the best use for the dollars, yet with 
accountability for the taxpayers' dollars.
  The Democratic approach has been a series of mandates: 100,000 
federally funded teachers, federally funded school construction, 
federally funded afterschool. All those are fine if that is the 
priority in your particular school district. However, we are not in the 
business of having a bureaucracy in Washington make those decisions.
  There have been difficulties moving forward:
  The Taxpayer Relief Act, vetoed by the President, over $500 million 
in family tax relief--families could have used that money at any level 
to have supported schools;
  Passing the Ed-Flex bill, with Federal requirements being waived if 
they are interfering with what they seek to do.
  These are the items we are debating with regard to education.
  We are, hopefully, near the end of this session. We will wind up next 
week. We have accomplished quite a number of things. Some people talk 
about a do-nothing Congress, which absolutely is not the case. The 
Republicans have balanced the budget, pushed forward and obtained the 
balanced budget in 1998, the first time since 1969 we have had a 
balanced budget. We saw that because of some restraints on spending, 
because of the flourishing economy bringing in more dollars. 
Nevertheless, it is the first time we have had enough dollars to 
balance the budget outside of Social Security dollars. We have changed 
the deficits to surpluses and lowered interest rates, paid down the 
debt $360 billion over the past 3 years.
  In addition to that, of course, at the same time, Republicans have 
lowered

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the tax burden over the next 5 years. The tax cuts will provide the 
average household with almost $2,000 in tax relief. We enacted the $500 
child tax credit that keeps $70 billion in the checking accounts for 25 
million families. These are important things. We created the individual 
retirement accounts with IRAs to help families save more money, help 
people prepare for their own retirement, so that Social Security is a 
supplement, as it was designed to be.
  The Republicans have stopped the raid on the Social Security trust 
fund and set aside Social Security funds so that they will be spent on 
Social Security and not borrowed and spent for other programs. We need 
to ensure that continues to be the case.
  Welfare has been reformed and has helped Americans go back to work. 
In 1995, there were 13 million Americans on welfare. In 1996, there was 
reform, helping more than 6 million of those, nearly half, to be now 
employed--to be able to sustain themselves. That is really the purpose 
of Government programs. It is not to have a continuing source of relief 
but to provide an opportunity to help people help themselves, which not 
only is a good issue governmentally but, of course, individually it is 
something that is so important.
  We strengthened the military. More needs to be done. We find 
ourselves in the situation where we have had more military deployments 
out of this country over the past 6 or 8 years than we have ever had in 
the past. We find ourselves, of course, in sort of a semipeaceful time 
but with a voluntary military, so we have to be able to compete 
somewhat with the private sector in pay so people will join. It is not 
only in the recruiting, of course, but the maintenance of people who 
have been trained so they will stay in the military. We have done that. 
We need to do more, of course.
  We need to change the military. Our needs are different than they 
were 20 years ago. We are not going to see ourselves having to send 12 
divisions with tanks somewhere. We are going to see ourselves with 
smaller, more flexible combat units moved quickly to a place with 
enough support to stay there for some time.
  These are some of the things that continue to be important. I hope we 
continue to focus on them. Our job now, of course, is to get out about 
three or five more appropriations bills and fund those programs. I am a 
little discouraged at the amount of spending we have had this time. 
Much of that has come from pressure from that side of the aisle and the 
White House. They will not agree to appropriations bills unless they 
have all the things in them the President wants. He is entitled to do 
that. But this is one of the three units of Government, a separate 
unit. We ought to do those things we think are right and the President 
can do what he thinks is right. But I hope we do not get ourselves into 
a position where the President is deciding what we in the Congress do. 
That is not the system. We ought not be doing it that way.
  I look forward to us moving forward, completing our work, and coming 
back with a new Congress, able to take a look at where we are going. I 
hope each of us, as Americans, gives some thought to where we would 
like to be, where we would like to see these various programs go--
regardless of which you are looking at; whether you are looking at 
education; whether you are looking at reregulation of electricity; 
whether you are looking at the military. One of the difficulties is we 
move forward many times and make decisions that impact those issues 
without having a very clear-cut image of where we want to go. It is a 
little like Alice in Wonderland where she was wandering around and no 
one was able to tell her anything. She finally saw the Cheshire cat. 
There was a fork in the road and she said, ``Which one should I take?'' 
The cat said, ``Where are you going?'' ``I don't know,'' Alice replied. 
The cat said, ``Then it doesn't make any difference which road you 
take.''
  That is true. So we need to come with an idea of what our goal or 
mission is, where we want to end up over a period of time in education, 
and what are the steps we can best take to ensure that happens. 
Regarding Social Security, where do we want to be in 20 years or 30 
years? These people who are paying in 12.5 percent of their salaries 
into Social Security, are they going to have benefits 40 years from now 
when they are entitled to them? Not unless we make some changes.
  The choices are fairly clear. You can raise taxes; people are not 
excited about that. You can cut benefits; that is probably not a good 
idea. One of the alternatives we are pursuing, and there may be others, 
is to take a portion of the Social Security dollars that have been paid 
in over time by younger people to make that decision for themselves--
take a portion of that and have it invested on their behalf in their 
accounts in the private sector so the return, instead of being 2.5 
percent, could be 5 percent or 6 percent.
  People say: Well, look at the market now. Look at the market over 
time. The market over each 10-year period has grown fairly 
substantially.
  So these are some of the things I hope we consider. I hope we 
consider them promptly so we are out next week.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Is there a time limitation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 31 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.

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