[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 25447]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     LET US SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

  (Mr. SHERMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, we have heard discussion of the school 
construction provisions of the tax bill. Let me set the record 
straight. We Democrats want provisions where school boards are given a 
chance to issue bonds, where the Federal Government pays the interest 
costs and the bond money is used immediately to build schools. 
Unfortunately, this tax bill, while it provides some of those bonds, 
provides not enough and then provides over a $2 billion cost to the 
Federal Government to liberalize the arbitrage rules in which school 
boards will be told by the Federal Government to delay building 
schools, take the money, put it on Wall Street and try to make money by 
arbitrage provisions. That is how Orange County, California, went 
bankrupt. That is not a way to help our local schools. The way to help 
our local schools is to reject the tax bill that passed through this 
House and instead provide a full $25 billion worth of bonds where the 
Federal Government will pick up the interest cost. We need to build 
schools on Elm Street, not skyscrapers on Wall Street.

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