[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17591-17592]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR VITAL PROGRAMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) is recognized 
for 30 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would probably not go beyond the 30 
minutes, and I will yield to my friend, the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Emanuel), so he will be able to pick it up right after that.
  Let me take this opportunity tonight to, first of all, talk about the 
issue of Labor-HHS, Education appropriations bills that includes, as 
far as I am concerned, a very inadequate funding level for education, 
for health care, for job training, and other vital programs.
  This administration and this President went around the country, Mr. 
Speaker, and talked about education being his first priority. Well, we 
have gotten a great deal of lip service, but we have not received the 
resources to fund the education bill that he himself authored, an 
education bill that is more than $8 billion behind in the lack of 
funding. And I would be ashamed to go back to the taxpayers and to our 
constituencies throughout this country and talk about the fact that he 
passed a tax bill, a very irresponsible tax bill, and at the same time 
has not been responsive about meeting the needs in education and health 
care.
  H.R. 2660 fails to meet the education and health care needs of our 
Nation's working families. Although the No Child Left Behind Act was 
recently enacted and aimed at promising fulfilling the funding of the 
education bill, there would be a shortchange, as indicated, for 2004 of 
$8 billion. In fact, this legislation would provide inadequate 
resources for vital Federal education programs such as Title I and such 
as special education.
  In Texas, Mr. Speaker, since I know the gentleman is from Texas, we 
need some additional resources in special ed since in that particular 
area we basically allow the local communities to take the burden since 
the Federal Government has mandated a lot of the needs in those 
specific areas, but it has failed to provide the resources.
  In Pell grants in this particular bill, when our kids have tuition 
rates that have gone high and continue to increase, we are deciding 
that we do not want to fund the Pell grants at the same levels. These 
are the grants and resources that our students throughout the country 
need in order to continue their education. Moreover, this legislation 
would provide little or no funding increases for health programs that 
assist some of the most vulnerable members of our society including the 
Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program and most also the Ryan 
White AIDS Care program. The Ryan White

[[Page 17592]]

AIDS program is one that provides assistance for the area of AIDS. And 
in Texas, Mr. Speaker, we have a disproportionate numbers of Latinos 
and Africans who are now being hit with AIDS where we still need the 
resources. In fact, within the Latino community there are a lack of 
priority programs and especially community-based programs that are 
needed in order to reach out to the special population.
  H.R. 2660 would also fail to increase job training opportunities for 
our Nation's workers, especially at a time when we ought to be 
investing in ourselves, investing in our workers to make sure that they 
have the skills in order to compete in this global economy. We are 
choosing not to do that.
  Despite our Nation's ongoing economic recession and higher 
unemployment rates, we have the largest unemployment rate among 
Hispanics of 8.2 in 9 years, and it has not taken this administration 
much to get it at that level in the last 2\1/2\ years.
  This legislation provides no funding for increases for adults' and 
dislocated workers' training programs that would help the unemployed 
and the underemployed workers throughout this country to develop the 
skills that are needed to compete in this global economy. It would 
provide no funding to increase the Occupational and Safety and Health 
Administration to help protect workers that are injured and die on the 
jobs, despite the steep increases that we have seen in fatalities of 
those that are working out there, and especially among Latinos. It 
would also eliminate funding for the Department of Labor, international 
initiatives that help foreign countries fight child labor, education 
for HIV/AIDS and develop core labor standards.
  I have heard arguments that people still argue that we are still 
supportive of fighting child labor, but we are unwilling to provide the 
resources, we are unwilling to help internationally for those countries 
that abuse our children and use them as child labor. This 
administration has failed to respond in the issues of education, in the 
issues of health care, in the issues of the economy and in the issues 
of immigration.
  And as I recall, this President went around the country and talked 
about Latin America, and he talked about the fact that he was going to 
be there and that his first priority internationally was also Latin 
America. Well, you talk to anyone in Latin America, they have not seen 
him since he got elected, and they have not heard anything about him. 
And so it was good to see today, and I was elated and I feel hopeful 
today, when we met with the Democratic Senate and the Senators, that we 
have a joint effort in working with them. We know now and we have 
decided to come together and to come together to talk about the 
importance of not only the Latino community, but the entire community 
when it comes to economic empowerment, of looking at the fact that we 
have to begin to work on the unemployment rate, unemployment that is 
continuing to grow under this administration.
  We have to make sure that small businesses have access to capital 
that is drastically needed. That is something that is critical. Small 
business is what makes America. Small business is where 80 percent of 
Americans are working, and we are beginning to look at that, and we 
look forward to working on turning the economy around.
  We are also looking at specifically some proposals that deal with 
educational opportunities. This administration, this President, has 
zeroed in on Head Start, a program that has been a great program, a 
program that has worked. And he has chosen first, he proposed to change 
it from the Department of Health to the Department of Education. And we 
said, Why, why? Here is a program that all the research says that it is 
working. Why mess with it? The only thing that I can come to a 
conclusion is that he is choosing to try to destroy it.
  Secondly, now he chose to put it into the form of a block grant. 
Well, the reason we have Head Start is because States like Texas that I 
come from and that the Speaker tonight comes from have failed to fund 
even full-day kindergarten. In the State of Texas we only fund half a 
day. We hold the local communities accountable for the other half a 
day. Now we expect them to provide Head Start to a State that has been 
unwilling to even provide full-day kindergarten? I do not think so.
  This administration has asked and recommended that we begin to put 
this as a form of a State grant. And those States like Texas are 
salivating at the possibility of getting their hands on those monies 
that are out there not for addressing the needs of our constituents in 
terms of those youngsters that need those resources, but for other 
priorities that they might personally have. So Head Start has been a 
program that has been there.
  I will remind all Texans and all Americans that this President said 
he favored education, that he was going to concentrate on education. 
Well, to this day we have not seen that. We have seen No Child Left 
Behind at the expense of all the kids that he has left behind. And so 
he chose not to fund it appropriately, and that is not appropriate. He 
has chosen not to look at higher education and the importance of those 
Pell grants and the importance of allowing those opportunities of those 
youngsters to be able to reach that American dream of being able to get 
to college and be able to afford a college education. We have to make 
sure that we do that.
  When it comes to health care, this administration has also talked 
about responding to the needs of those senior citizens in health care, 
and he has failed to meet this. We have worked on a bill that looks at 
the disparities that confront Latino Americans as well as others, as it 
deals with diabetes, that we have to address.
  We have to also look at the uninsured. Texas has the largest number 
of uninsured, and at one time we used to say, thank God for Mississippi 
and Illinois. Well, now the Texas House is controlled by Republicans on 
both sides, and I am sure that the people from Mississippi and Illinois 
are going to say, thank God for Texas, because we are probably going to 
be on the bottom of the totem pole. When it comes to uninsured, the 
largest number of uninsured comes from Texas. These are hard-working 
Texans. If you work in rural Texas, you work for a small company. If 
you do not work for the government, you do not have access to 
insurance. They do not have access to HMOs. HMOs have left rural Texas 
and abandoned us. This administration continues to push forward on 
these agendas that do not meet the needs of our constituencies, that do 
not meet the problems that confront us.
  In addition to that, this administration promised that they would 
start working on immigration. We have not heard anything since. We need 
to make sure in the issue of immigration that those individuals that 
are out there working and that are paying their taxes, we ought to 
reach out to them and begin the process of legalization.
  And so as we look forward, I want to thank my colleagues, and I want 
to yield because I did promise that a little bit before 8:00 that I 
would have an opportunity to yield and leave and let my fellow 
colleague continue for the next 30 minutes or so because I know he has 
a flight.
  But I did want to come tonight and say how disappointed that I was 
with the passage of this piece of legislation that is a step backward 
and does not address the needs of our constituency; and, secondly, how 
elated I am that the Texas Senate Democrats who are out there working 
with us and making things happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to you with the understanding that I think that 
you will be yielding to my colleague.

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