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[Page: S11398]  GPO's PDF
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   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I always enjoy having the opportunity to discuss education policies with my friend from New Hampshire. As usual, he has been very eloquent in terms of the positions which he has advanced. I would like to bring a few points to the attention of the membership, though, on items he has raised to try to clarify some of these issues and questions.

   One was the issue of flexibility, whether there is sufficient kinds of flexibility at the local level to permit the education of the children in various communities across the country.

   I have Speaker HASTERT's statement he put out at the time the President signed the Ed-Flex legislation. At that time, the Speaker said: ``Ed-Flex''--which passed the House and Senate-- ``ensures our schools have the flexibility they need to make good on the promise to help each child reach their full potential.'' The release goes on and indicates he believes now there is the kind of flexibility the Senator from New Hampshire talks about being extremely important. It seems the Speaker, at least, and many others, believed, with the passage of that act, the local communities had the flexibility they needed.

   I think that was certainly the purpose of the legislation. I am glad the Speaker certainly has supported the President's concept in having that kind of flexibility.

   Secondly, there was some talk about the funding of the IDEA . I want to recall for the Members that we did have an opportunity earlier this year to have full funding of IDEA for the next 10 years. The Senator from New Hampshire has mentioned the importance of us in Congress to meet the responsibilities to those children who are participating in that program.

   The fact is, earlier this year, on March 25, 1999, I offered an amendment that would provide full funding for IDEA over the next 10 years, and also the funding for the class size reduction initiative--that we would provide full funding for those two items. It would have taken one-fifth of the tax cut. With one-fifth of the tax cut, we could have funded all of the IDEA programs for a period of 10 years. That was a party-line vote, including the vote of the Senator from New Hampshire who voted

   against it. That is real money. That isn't speeches on the floor of the Senate. That is real money.

   We would have welcomed the opportunity to have worked with him and others in this body to take some of that money, the $780 billion that was going to be used for tax cuts, and use the money that would be necessary for the funding of the IDEA , but that was voted out. We are not giving up on that.

   So for those who share my belief--I know our colleague, Senator HARKIN, is a great leader on that issue; and it has broad, bipartisan support in terms of fashioning that legislation. We will continue to fight for increased funding

[Page: S11399]  GPO's PDF

   Finally, I say, I hope in our discussion and debate on education that we can understand a very basic and fundamental concept; and that is, we should not be pitting children against each other. We want to have better teachers. We want smaller classes. We want improved reading skills. We want after-school programs. We want safe buildings. We want those conditions for children who are in the IDEA programs, and we want those conditions for children in the Title I programs, and we want those conditions for children in the high-achievement programs.

   Let us not begin to pit one group of children against another. That is why we support the kind of coordinated program, in terms of both program and resources, so all children can move along together to take advantage of the real opportunities that are out there. That is what basically underlines the reason for Senator DASCHLE's Sense-of-the-Senate Resolution.

   Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Ten minutes.

   Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to take a moment of the Senate's time to say why I believe this amendment, this Sense of the Senate, is so important at this time.

   You can ask: Why are we taking time in the Senate on a Friday afternoon to put the Senate on record in urging my colleagues, in the remaining days, to provide the resources that will be necessary to fully fund the President's requests on education and to not see these dramatic cuts which have been indicated with the 17-percent reduction in the allocation of funds for the appropriations for education?

   Families across this country ought to be concerned. We are hopeful that we are giving that signal to the American families. What we are going to do in the next 4 weeks is going to be of the greatest importance and significance in terms of whether we are going to be enhancing or diminishing the quality of education for children in this country.

   I would like to see education be the No. 1 appropriations . I wish we had a binding resolution that said: Before we deal with any other appropriations, we are going to deal with the education appropriations. That ought to be the No. 1 appropriations.

   I daresay, if you ask the American people, sure, they may say national security and defense, that may be in there; but they are going to say national security and defense, and they are going to say education. But what has been the record?

   Here is the record.

   In 1994, under the Republican leadership, the day they captured the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States, they didn't even wait until the appropriations legislation came up. They put a rescission program request into the Congress that effectively said money that had been appropriated, signed by the President, would be rescinded. They asked for a rescission of $1.7 billion below enacted in 1995. That was one of the first actions taken by the Republican leadership.

   In 1996, the House appropriations bill had a $3.9 billion request for education below what was actually agreed to in 1995; in 1997, $3.1 billion below the President's request.

   It was in 1995 that the Republican Party introduced a resolution to abolish the Department of Education--abolish the Department of Education. That gives us some idea about what their views are in terms of any kind of partnership between the Federal Government and the States and local communities. They wanted to abolish it.

   I think most parents in this country want to have someone at that Cabinet table every time the Cabinet meets who is going to say: Mr. President, what about education? That is what the Secretary of Education is supposed to do. That is why he is there. Every time there is a debate on national domestic issues, any time there is a debate on priorities, that Secretary of Education is there saying: What are we doing about educating and enhancing the education of our children?

   Republicans wanted to forbid that Secretary to come into the room. They wanted to deny him access to the President of the United States. What possible sense does that make?

   We ask why the Daschle amendment is being brought up now. So we can garner the support of the American people and say we are not going to get rolled on this issue, not without a fight. This President isn't going to get rolled on it. All we have to do is look at where the priorities have been on the education issue.

   We want the funding for education as the first appropriations. We challenge the Republican leadership in the next Congress to bring it out as No. 1, not as the last one. And the last one, here in 1998, is only $200 million below the President's request; 1999, $2 billion--the House bill. The House bill, according to Mr. Obey, is $2.8 billion below the President's.

   We have to ask ourselves, what is happening across the country on education? I will tell my colleagues what is happening. We have 400,000 new students--400,000 new students who are going to classrooms in America now. We have 200,000 teachers who taught last year who have given up and retired from teaching, and only 100,000 have been replaced. One would think the effort contained in the President's program of trying to find qualified individuals to teach ought to be something that is pretty important, wouldn't they? Sure, they would. Not the Republican appropriators, not the Republicans. They cut that almost in half.

   We have to ask ourselves, what are they possibly thinking about? Sure, these are numbers, but they are a pretty good indicator. What we are saying is--talking about numbers--that just because of $1 billion or $2 billion, it is not going to necessarily solve all the education problems we have in our country, but it is a pretty clear indication about what a nation's priorities are.

   That is what the appropriations process is about--what are our Nation's priorities. What are parents going to say and what should they say, when every single time they see those reductions? Now we are seeing it again with these actions that have been taken in the House of Representatives.

   We are going to resist those. We are saying it not only because we see what is happening with the growth of the various numbers of students and the decline of the numbers of teachers, but we know a whole host of other things.

   Most Americans understand we want our children to have the

   kind of skills that are going to be necessary for them to play a role in getting a decent job and providing for their families for the next century.

   I will not take the time today, but maybe later I will have the time to discuss the various studies which show that only 20 percent of the graduates now entering the job market have the kind of skills that 60 percent of those students are going to need, not 5 years from now, but 1 year from now--a year from now. That is what is happening out in the job market. That is what is happening in this new economy.

   President Clinton understands that. He has funding in this so we can have continuing, ongoing training and skills for the young people of this country, so they will be able to be part of the economy. This Republican Appropriations Committee guts that particular provision and effectively wipes it out.

   I will mention one final item. We heard from our good leader about the importance of reading. There isn't a teacher across this country who doesn't know the significance and the importance of reading. Yet we find here in the United States that we are still challenged in terms of having our children reach acceptable levels that are going to be necessary for the improvement of their education and their academic achievement.

   I am not taking the time to go through the various assessments and the progress that has been made, although progress has been made. It has been small, perceptible, but we are on the road to enhancing the number of children who are going to be able to read satisfactorily to be able to grow in terms of their own future education.

   What has happened to the reading programs--the reading programs that depend upon volunteers, that depend

[Page: S11400]  GPO's PDF

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

   Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair. I will have more to say on this on Monday. I thank the leader.

   Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, under the unanimous consent agreement, I am to be recognized

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

   Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts for a powerful statement and for his analysis of the current education budget and our circumstances here.

   He has laid out what the ramifications are. People ought to know that rhetoric and reality could not be further apart as we listen to our Republican colleagues talk about education. The rhetoric all year long has been: Education is important; education is going to get the priority it deserves. The reality is, we are now 1 week away from the end of the fiscal year and we have yet to pass an education bill. We have yet to make decisions about what we are going to do on education next year. The decisions we are making--they are making, let me clarify that--that they are making on education are devastating, absolutely devastating.

   I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, what is his analysis of a $1.5 to $2 billion cut in the President's budget this year? I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, what would his advice be to the President of the United States if he were to get an education budget $2 billion below his request?

   Mr. KENNEDY. I would expect that budget would be vetoed and hope that it would be. I think all of us have every expectation that it will be.

   This President, from the very beginning of his administration, has set a series of priorities and he has expressed those. In more recent times, he has talked about the importance of Medicare, Social Security, a prescription drug benefit, and targeted tax cuts for needs. He has been very clear about his priorities. But there has not been a higher priority for this President than the issue of education, and he has been strongly committed to it. I have every expectation this legislation will not pass, nor should it pass.

   Mr. DASCHLE. I will ask the Senator from Massachusetts another question, if I may. He mentioned that one of the most important issues we are facing is the fact that we are dealing with 400,000 new students. We are dealing with the fact that we will have a shortfall, perhaps, in the next few years of 2 million teachers. Yet we see a Republican budget that eliminates the ability for us to help schools deal with class size by absolutely cutting the very programs that allow us to reduce class size and improve the student-teacher ratio. I ask the Senator, what do we do with a budget, or what will be the ramifications of a budget, that fails to recognize the demand for new teachers, the extraordinary explosion of new students, and the overcrowding of schools from South Dakota to Massachusetts? What is the message this Congress is sending with those facts?

   Mr. KENNEDY. Well, it basically says to not just the Nation, but to the students that education really isn't so important. If a student goes into a crowded classroom, uses old books, or goes into a classroom that is leaking, or where there are no recreational programs; if a student goes into these kinds of settings where no music or art is available, we are sending a very powerful message to those children. We are saying your education doesn't really count; it doesn't really matter because it doesn't matter to us to try and provide you with the kind of classroom, the kind of teachers, the kind of athletic facilities, and other after-school programs that you deserve. We say our children are the future, which they are. Children understand, children are perceptive, and they know when they are getting a second-rate deal. That is what they would be getting if the Republican education funding proposal were to pass.

   Let me finally, in answering this question, mention for the RECORD what the President actually said yesterday. I will put the full statement in the RECORD. He said:

   If the Republicans send me a bill that doesn't live up to our national commitment to education, I won't hesitate to veto it. If it undermines our efforts to hire quality teachers, to reduce class size, or to increase accountability in our public schools, I will veto it.

   Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the President's radio address in the RECORD.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered.

   Radio Address of the President to the Nation, September 18, 1999

   The PRESIDENT: Good morning. This month millions of students across America are beginning the last school semester of the 20th century. Today I want to talk about our obligation to give them the education they deserve to succeed in the new century--for more than ever, in this information age, education is the key to individual opportunity and our share of prosperity.

   That's why, even though we've worked hard to cut spending to balance the budget, we've also nearly doubled our investment in education and training. Many people said we couldn't do it, but we proved them wrong.

   Today, we have the longest peacetime expansion in our history. After years and years of deficits, we now have budget surpluses for years ahead. More people have a chance to realize the American dream than ever before. More children have the chance to realize their full potential than ever before. We've laid a foundation to preserve our prosperity for future generations.

   Now, as the budget deadline rapidly approaches this year, we face many of the same tough choices again. And once again, I think the answer is clear: To build a strong nation in the new century, we must continue to invest in our future. That means we must strengthen Social Security, secure and modernize Medicare, pay off the national debt in 15 years, making America debt-free for the first time since 1835. And once again, it means we must invest in education, not sacrifice it.

   Months ago now, I sent Congress a responsible budget--to maintain our fiscal discipline and honor our commitment to our children's education. So far, the Republicans in Congress haven't put forward a budget of their own. In fact, they're so busy trying to figure out how to pay for their irresponsible tax plan that they're in serious danger of not meeting their obligation to finish the budget by the end of the budget year. Even worse, they're preparing to pay for their own pet projects at the expense of our children's education.

   We know now that the Republicans' risky tax cut would force us to slash vital funding for education by as much as 50 percent over the next 10 years. But what many people don't know is that next year alone, the Republican plan would cut the bill that funds education by nearly 20 percent.

   Now, if carried out, this plan would lead to some of the worst cuts in education in our history. More than 5,000 teachers, hired as part of my Class Size Initiative, could be laid off. Fifty thousand students could be turned away from after-school and summer school programs. More than 2 million of our poorest students in our poorest communities would have a smaller chance of success in school and in the workplaces of the future.

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