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SEC. 7. RESERVE FUND FOR PROGRAMS AUTHORIZED UNDER THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT .

(a) IN GENERAL- In the House, when the Committee on Appropriations reports a bill or joint resolution, or an amendment thereto is offered, or a conference report thereon is submitted that provides new budget authority for fiscal year 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, or 2004 for programs authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget may increase the appropriate allocations and aggregates of new budget authority and outlays by an amount not to exceed the amount of new budget authority provided by that measure (and outlays flowing therefrom) for that purpose up to the maximum amount consistent with section 611(a) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1411(a)(2)).

(b) ADJUSTMENTS- The adjustments in outlays (and the corresponding amount of new budget authority) made under subsection (a) for any fiscal year may not exceed the amount by which an up-to-date projection of the on-budget surplus made by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office for that fiscal year exceeds the on-budget surplus for that fiscal year set forth in section 2(4) of this resolution.

(c) CBO PROJECTIONS- Upon the request of the chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the House, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office shall make an up-to-date estimate of the projected on-budget surplus for the applicable fiscal year.

SEC. 8. APPLICATION AND EFFECT OF CHANGES IN ALLOCATIONS AND AGGREGATES.

(a) APPLICATION- Any adjustments of allocations and aggregates made pursuant to this resolution for any measure shall--

(1) apply while that measure is under consideration;

(2) take effect upon the enactment of that measure; and

(3) be published in the Congressional Record as soon as practicable.

(b) EFFECT OF CHANGED ALLOCATIONS AND AGGREGATES- Revised allocations and aggregates resulting from these adjustments shall be considered for the purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 as allocations and aggregates contained in this resolution.

SEC. 9. UPDATED CBO PROJECTIONS.

Each calendar quarter the Director of the Congressional Budget Office shall make an up-to-date estimate of receipts, outlays and surplus (on-budget and off-budget) for the current fiscal year.

SEC. 10. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON THE COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--

(1) persecution of individuals on the sole ground of their religious beliefs and practices occurs in countries around the world and affects millions of lives;

(2) such persecution violates international norms of human rights, including those established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Helsinki Accords, and the Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief;

(3) such persecution is abhorrent to all Americans, and our very Nation was founded on the principle of the freedom to worship according to the dictates of our conscience; and

(4) in 1998 Congress unanimously passed, and President Clinton signed into law, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which established the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to monitor facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom and authorized $3,000,000 to carry out the functions of the Commission for each of fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS- It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) this resolution assumes that $3,000,000 will be appropriated within function 150 for fiscal year 2000 for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to carry out its duties; and

(2) the House Committee on Appropriations is strongly urged to appropriate such amount for the Commission.

SEC. 11. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON PROVIDING ADDITIONAL DOLLARS TO THE CLASSROOM.

(a) FINDINGS- The House finds that--

(1) strengthening America's public schools while respecting State and local control is critically important to the future of our children and our Nation;

(2) education is a local responsibility, a State priority, and a national concern;

(3) working with the Nation's governors, parents, teachers, and principals must take place in order to strengthen public schools and foster educational excellence;

(4) the consolidation of various Federal education programs will benefit our Nation's children, parents, and teachers by sending more dollars directly to the classroom; and

(5) our Nation's children deserve an educational system that will provide opportunities to excel.

(b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE- It is the sense of the House that--

(1) the House should enact legislation that would consolidate thirty-one Federal K-12 education programs; and

(2) the Department of Education , the States, and local educational agencies should work together to ensure that not less than 95 percent of all funds appropriated for the purpose of carrying out elementary and secondary education programs administered by the Department of Education is spent for our children in their classrooms.

SEC. 12. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ASSET-BUILDING FOR THE WORKING POOR.

(a) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--

(1) 33 percent of all American households have no or negative financial assets and 60 percent of African-American households have no or negative financial assets;

(2) 46.9 percent of all children in America live in households with no financial assets, including 40 percent of caucasian children and 75 percent of African-American children;

(3) in order to provide low-income families with more tools for empowerment, incentives which encourage asset-building should be established;

(4) across the Nation numerous small public, private, and public-private asset-building initiatives (including individual development account programs) are demonstrating success at empowering low-income workers;

(5) the Government currently provides middle and upper income Americans with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax incentives for building assets; and

(6) the Government should utilize tax laws or other measures to provide low-income Americans with incentives to work and build assets in order to escape poverty permanently.

(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS- It is the sense of Congress that any changes in tax law should include provisions which encourage low-income workers and their families to save for buying their first home, starting a business, obtaining an education , or taking other measures to prepare for the future.

SEC. 13. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE AND PRESERVING HOME HEALTH SERVICES FOR ALL MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES.

(a) ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE-

(1) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--

(A) 43.4 million Americans are currently without health insurance, and that this number is expected to rise to nearly 60 million people in the next 10 years;

(B) the cost of health insurance continues to rise, a key factor in increasing the number of uninsured; and

(C) there is a consensus that working Americans and their families and children will suffer from reduced access to health insurance.

(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS ON IMPROVING ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE INSURANCE- It is the sense of Congress that access to affordable health care coverage for all Americans is a priority of the 106th Congress.

(b) PRESERVING HOME HEALTH SERVICE FOR ALL MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES-

(1) FINDINGS- Congress finds that--

(A) the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 reformed medicare home health care spending by instructing the Health Care Financing Administration to implement a prospective payment system and instituted an interim payment system to achieve savings;

(B) the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act , 1999, reformed the interim payment system to increase reimbursements to low-cost providers, added $900 million in funding, and delayed the automatic 15 percent payment reduction for one year, to October 1, 2000; and

(C) patients whose care is more extensive and expensive than the typical medicare patient do not receive supplemental payments in the interim payment system but will receive special protection in the home health care prospective payment system.

(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO HOME HEALTH CARE- It is the sense of Congress that--

(A) Congress recognizes the importance of home health care for seniors and disabled citizens;

(B) Congress and the Administration should work together to maintain quality care for patients whose care is more extensive and expensive than the typical medicare patient, including the sickest and frailest medicare beneficiaries, while home health care agencies operate in the interim payment system; and

(C) Congress and the Administration should work together to avoid the implementation of the 15 percent reduction in the interim payment system and ensure timely implementation of the prospective payment system.

SEC. 14. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON MEDICARE PAYMENT.

(a) FINDINGS- The House finds that--

(1) a goal of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was to expand options for medicare beneficiaries under the new Medicare+Choice program;

(2) Medicare+Choice was intended to make these choices available to all medicare beneficiaries; and unfortunately, during the first two years of the Medicare+Choice program the blended payment was not implemented, stifling health care options and continuing regional disparity among many counties across the United States; and

(3) the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 also established the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare to develop legislative recommendations to address the long-term funding challenges facing medicare.

(b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE- It is the sense of the House that this resolution assumes that funding of the Medicare+Choice program is a priority for the House Committee on the Budget before financing new programs and benefits that may potentially add to the imbalance of payments and benefits in Fee-for-Service Medicare and Medicare+Choice.

SEC. 15. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON ASSESSMENT OF WELFARE-TO-WORK PROGRAMS.

(a) IN GENERAL- It is the sense of the House that, recognizing the need to maximize the benefit of the Welfare-to-Work Program, the Secretary of Labor should prepare a report on Welfare-to-Work Programs pursuant to section 403(a)(5) of the Social Security Act . This report should include information on the following--

(1) the extent to which the funds available under such section have been used (including the number of States that have not used any of such funds), the types of programs that have received such funds, the number of and characteristics of the recipients of assistance under such programs, the goals of such programs, the duration of such programs, the costs of such programs, any evidence of the effects of such programs on such recipients, and accounting of the total amount expended by the States from such funds, and the rate at which the Secretary expects such funds to be expended for each of the fiscal years 2000, 2001, and 2002;

(2) with regard to the unused funds allocated for Welfare-to-Work for each of fiscal years 1998 and 1999, identify areas of the Nation that have unmet needs for Welfare-to-Work initiatives; and

(3) identify possible Congressional action that may be taken to reprogram Welfare-to-Work funds from States that have not utilized previously allocated funds to places of unmet need, including those States that have rejected or otherwise not utilized prior funding.

(b) REPORT- It is the sense of the House that, not later than October 1, 1999, the Secretary of Labor should submit to the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Ways and Means of the House and the Committee on Finance of the Senate, in writing, the report described in subsection (a).

SEC. 16. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON PROVIDING HONOR GUARD SERVICES FOR VETERANS' FUNERALS.

It is the sense of Congress that all relevant congressional committees should make every effort to provide sufficient resources so that an Honor Guard, if requested, is available for veterans' funerals.

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