    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [September 23, 1999]
    [Pages 1580-1581]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on Proposed Education Appropriations
    September 23, 1999

        The House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education
    appropriations subcommittee today passed a partisan bill that would
    seriously undermine our efforts to strengthen public education, protect
    workers, and move people from welfare to work.
        This bill is proof that America's highest priority--improving our
    schools--remains the Republican Congress' lowest priority. The bill
    eliminates our effort to hire quality teachers to reduce class size in
    the early grades. It denies hundreds of thousands of young people access
    to after-school programs, fails to improve and expand Head Start, cuts
    the successful America Reads program, cuts educational technology, and
    eliminates the GEAR UP program, which helps young people prepare early
    for success in college. It fails to give public schools the resources

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    to succeed, and does nothing to demand accountability for results.
        The bill also terminates the successful school-to-work program and
    youth opportunity grants, and makes deep cuts in programs that help
    dislocated workers, provide worker protections, and ensure worker
    safety. It undermines America's efforts to move people from welfare to
    work by reneging on our bipartisan commitment to the States on welfare
    reform. It contains a range of unacceptable provisions, which would
    prevent the government from effectively protecting the health and safety
    of the American people.
        The subcommittee bill would also underfund public health priorities,
    including preventive health, mental health and substance abuse, health
    care access for the poor, and our efforts to reduce racial health
    disparities and the spread of AIDS worldwide. It would prevent us from
    continuing to provide important patient protections for American workers
    and improving our Nation's organ distribution system. It also would
    threaten our ability to manage key entitlement programs, such as
    Medicare and Medicaid.
        I warned earlier today that the tax bill sent to me as part of the
    Republican budget plan would lead to major reductions in key national
    investments in education and other programs. The subcommittee's bill
    today is another step in the same misguided direction.
        This bill is unacceptable. Our Nation's children deserve much
    better. I sent the Congress a budget for the programs covered by this
    bill that provided for essential investments in America's needs and was
    fully provided for. If this bill were to come to me in its current form,
    I would veto it. Instead, I urge the House not to pass the
    subcommittee's bill and to work on a bipartisan basis with my
    administration on acceptable legislation.