[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 25242-25243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION VERSUS TAX BREAKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ETHERIDGE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to continue my call for 
this Congress to pass real school construction legislation without 
further delay. We have missed opportunity after missed opportunity, and 
it is time to stop playing partisan games and pass a meaningful bill to 
address this urgent priority.
  Madam Speaker, as a Congressman from the Second Congressional 
District of North Carolina, I represent an area of the country that has 
undergone tremendous growth in recent years. In communities throughout 
my county and my district, our schools are bursting at the seams. The 
same can be said for this country. Our local communities are struggling 
to provide resources to build new schools and to get our children out 
of trailers and to fix up rundown school buildings.
  Throughout my district, students in overflowing schools are being 
packed in trailers that are years old and long past their use. As an 
example, in Franklin County, 55 trailers; in Granville County, 16; 
Harnett County, 41;

[[Page 25243]]

Johnston County, 98; Lee County, 40; Nash-Rocky Mount, 162; Sampson 
County/Clinton City schools, 76; Wilson, 34; and Wake County, a 
whooping 530.
  That would not be such an astounding number, except for the fact our 
State has passed a $1.8 billion bond issue and each county has borrowed 
money and worked as hard as they could. The problem is, we are the 
fourth fastest growing state for students in the country. Congress must 
act now to help get these children out of trailers.
  For nearly 4 years now I have worked with my colleagues in this House 
on both sides of the political aisle to provide leadership on this 
issue and pass a common sense bill that will help our local folks deal 
with this critical problem.
  We have come together in support of H.R. 4094, the bipartisan Rangel-
Johnson bill that has a number of sponsors. This important bill will 
provide $25 billion in school construction bonds for our local schools 
to build new schools for our children and renovate others.
  Madam Speaker, the clear majority of this House is in support of this 
piece of legislation. 228 Members, Republicans and Democrats alike have 
signed on as cosponsors. The House will pass this bill, if we can only 
get a chance to vote on it. The President has stated that he will sign 
this important bill into law the minute it reaches his desk.
  We have an opportunity to provide real leadership and pass this 
measure that will help further educational progress for all the 
children in this country. But, unfortunately, the Republican leadership 
of this House has chosen to choose a path of confrontation and gridlock 
over the opportunity for consensus and progress. Rather than working 
together to produce a common sense solution to the need for school 
construction, the Republican leadership brought to this floor yesterday 
a bill that contained a sham school construction measure.
  Madam Speaker, the Members of this House have an obligation, a solemn 
responsibility, to work together to craft common sense solutions to the 
problems facing America's people. But, rather than meet this 
responsibility, Republican leadership has chosen to pass a sham 
proposal and a bill they know would be vetoed.
  The Republican tax bill contains many provisions that I support, but 
the sad fact is they chose to include many good provisions in a 
fundamentally flawed bill.
  In addition, the leadership yesterday pushed through an 
appropriations bill that provided $687 million in grants to states to 
build prisons. Now, I support the need for prisons in certain areas, 
but prisons should not be a higher priority than our schools for our 
children. What does it say about our values that we can pass millions 
of dollars in prison aid, yet leave our children in overcrowded 
schools, trapped in rundown facilities and stuck in trailers? Prisons 
ought not to be nicer than our schools.
  In conclusion, remain an optimist. We still have time to pass a 
school construction bill before we adjourn this Congress, and I urge 
the Republican leadership to allow us to do so.

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