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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LAHOOD). The Chair would remind
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Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, as good a friendship as I have with my friend the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. HOYER), I would strongly disagree with the statement that he made that the Republican majority has not done well for education. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. PORTER) pointed out very effectively that we have actually provided more funding this year alone than the President asked for. The only difference is the great debate over who is going to control the funds, who is going to make the decision on what the needs are, back in my congressional district or in his congressional district, a bureaucrat in Washington, or the locally elected school board back home in our districts.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. CUNNINGHAM), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the Democrats controlled this House for 40 years, and what have we ended up with? This Nation, with all its resources, last in math and science of all the industrialized nations; last in literacy. Our schools are crumbling, and they need help. But what have they done? They have catered to the trial lawyers and the unions to rip off our school system. And I want to be specific.
They talk about school construction. Waive Davis-Bacon. It costs between 15 to 35 percent, depending on what State, to build schools, because Federal dollars have to fall under the prevailing wage . They say, well, we want a living wage . Ninety percent of all the construction in this country are nonunion, and they earn a living wage . And, guess what? Minority contractors have a good chance at the jobs, where they do not with the unions.
We can build schools. Let us not take that money away from the schools. Let us let the schools keep it. Do they want more construction, do they want teacher training, or whatever? But my colleagues on the other side, because they get most of their campaign money out of the unions, will not cross the unions.
Secondly, my colleague from Wisconsin says that 93 percent of the money is controlled by State and local, and 7 percent Federal.
[Time: 16:15]
That is the way it is supposed to work. Just look at IDEA and special education. Look at the requirements in the D.C. bill; we capped the amount that liberal trial lawyers could take out of special education, Alan Bernstein's number one problem in San Diego, the superintendent of schools.
But yet my colleagues wanted to pay off for the liberal trial lawyers and oppose it. Luckily, the Senate saw through in the conference. Guess what? The city was able to hire 123 special-needs teachers. Democrats wanted to control it. We said no, let the local district do it.
When I was chairman of the authorization committee, 16 programs came forward from different areas. Every one of them had the absolute best program in the world. And after the hearing, I said, which one of you have any one of the other 15 in your district? None of them. That is the whole point.
We want to give it directly to the schools so that the teachers, the parents, and the local administrators can make those decisions. My colleagues want Federal control of everything.
Another good example was Goals 2000. There are 14 ``wills'' in that bill, which means you will do it. They say it is voluntary. Well, it is only voluntary if you want the money. One of those wills you had to establish another board to see if you comply with Goals 2000. It then went to your school board. It then went to the principal; it then went to the superintendent.
Think about it, all the schools in California sending all of that paperwork to Sacramento and the bureaucracy it takes. Then where did it go? It came back here to the Department of Education.
Think of all the schools in the United States sending all of that paperwork and bureaucracy and, of course, there was paperwork going back. That is why we only get 48 cents out of a dollar to the classroom.
That is what my colleagues on the other side want to continue to do is have government control of education. Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is a difference, in the two parties.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. FOLEY).
Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, let me first commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. YOUNG), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his sacrifices in trying to work through the difficult details of the bill.
If my colleagues listened to the last several speakers who came before us, claiming this is a do-nothing Congress, as if all of this slow-down of bill passage is our fault, well, if my colleagues listened to the other side of the aisle, this Chamber and this government would be financially insolvent if they had their way.
No rhyme or reason, no restrictions on spending. Our projects, our way or the highway. I voted for Patients' Bill of Rights. I have voted for hate crimes. I voted for a number of issues that are not considered traditional Republican issues, but I have yet to see my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle want to come to conclusion on any of those bills.
Minimum wage , let us not pass it, let us just use it for campaign issue; and then they come down to the floor here today, and assume some way, we, as the Republican majority, are holding up the will of the people.
Mr. Speaker, I personally believe we are exemplifying the will of the people by trying to bring some restraint and establish priorities and focus Federal resources.
The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. HOYER) said, despite the stump speeches, domestic spending has risen at the behest of the Republican leadership. Amen to that. We are finally putting our money in domestic accounts for the people of the United States who are the taxpayers. No longer are we willing to waste away money on international expeditions, finding ways to send money to every nation that never votes with us at the U.N. treaties or any other instances.
Again, I hope that the Members of this Congress will applaud and appreciate the hard work of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. YOUNG), and I hope they will come together and end the rhetoric.
Yes, it is almost election day; and we know we are all tense and ready to leave, but our government is better for the debate and the negotiations that have occurred. If the President is willing to negotiate with us on some of these final outstanding issues, we will be gone. Do not look to us and blame us for all of this slow-down.
I think a lot of it is occurring on the other side of the aisle, and they should take equal credit.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I think to understand our concern about today people need to understand what the record was yesterday. And if my colleagues take a look at what our Republican friends in the majority have tried to do on education since the day that they took over control of this Chamber 6 years ago, my colleagues will see the following:
Over that 6-year period, they tried to cut the President's budget request for education by a total of over $13 billion.
They shut down the government twice to try to force the President to buy their priorities which included the elimination of the Department of Education.
They will claim, well, you are just talking about cuts in the increase, you are not talking about cuts in actual spending levels.
I have two responses to that. First of all, we will have a million more children in our schools, and so any budget that does not provide increases for education each year, in fact, results in less dollars being spent on every child each year, and that is not a way to promote educational quality.
My second point is that even if you only measure the cuts, which our Republican friends tried to make in preexisting spending levels, you will find that they, on four occasions in the last 6 years, they tried to cut education spending below the amount that was being spent at the time to the tune of more than $5.5 billion.
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After we went through all of the arguments, we wound up, because of pressure from the White House and pressure from the Democratic side of the aisle, we wound up restoring some $15.5 billion to those education budgets. That is the track record.
I was amused when I saw the Republican leadership yesterday in a media event brag about the fact that they should be trusted on education, because they had increased spending on education by over 50 percent since they had taken control of the House. That is true, but only after you shut down the government twice to try to avoid doing that, only after you tried to cut $5.5 billion below existing spending levels.
The only reason that spending for education has risen by 50 percent over the last 6 years is because we made you do it. I find it ironic that you are now taking credit for the fact that you were beaten in previous years. That is an interesting trick, but the numbers that I am giving you happen to be true.
Mr. Speaker, the record will bear them out.
Mr. Speaker, I submit for the RECORD the following three charts demonstrating what I have just said:
| Fiscal year | Request | House level | House cut | Percent cut |
| 1996 Labor-HHS--Education | 25,804 | 20,797 | -5,007 | -19 |
| 1997 Labor-HHS--Education | 25,561 | 22,756 | -2,805 | -11 |
| 1998 Labor-HHS--Education | 29,522 | 29,331 | -191 | -1 |
| 1999 Labor-HHS--Education | 31,185 | 30,523 | -662 | -2 |
| 2000 Labor-HHS--Education | 34,712 | 33,321 | -1,391 | -4 |
| 2001 Labor-HHS--Education | 40,095 | 37,142 | -2,953 | -7 |
| Total FY 96 to FY 01 | 186,879 | 173,870 | -13,009 | -7 |
| Fiscal year | Prior year | House level | House cut |
| 1995 Rescission | 25,074 | 23,440 | -1,635 |
| 1996 Labor-HHS--Education | 25,074 | 20,797 | -4,277 |
| 1997 Labor-HHS--Education | 22,810 | 22,756 | -54 |
| 2000 Labor-HHS--Education | 33,520 | 33,321 | -199 |
| Fiscal year | House level | Conf agreement | Restoration | Percent increase |
| 1995 Rescission | 23,440 | 24,497 | 1,057 | 5 |
| 1996 Labor-HHS--Education | 20,797 | 22,810 | 2,013 | 10 |
| 1997 Labor-HHS--Education | 22,756 | 26,324 | 3,568 | 16 |
| 1998 Labor-HHS--Education | 29,331 | 29,741 | 410 | 1 |
| 1999 Labor-HHS--Education | 30,523 | 33,149 | 2,626 | 9 |
| 2000 Labor-HHS--Education | 33,321 | 35,703 | 2,382 | 7 |
| 2001 Labor-HHS--Education | 37,142 | 40,751 | 3,609 | 10 |
| Total FY 95 to FY 01 | 197,310 | 212,975 | 15,665 | 8 |
Now, we are down to the last days of this Congress, I hope, and we have essentially two issues remaining, one involves what are we going to do with the issues of class size and teacher training and Pell grants and special education. Are we going to meet our responsibilities there?
We have seen billions of dollars go into other appropriations bills. Now we are told, oh, you have to be tight on this one. So that is one education issue remaining.
The other issue is whether or not we are going to sufficiently respond to the President's request on school construction.
What has been missing from this debate so far on that side of the aisle is the recognition that there are two construction pieces which the administration is trying to achieve. The first is the small $1.3 billion renovation package which we are trying to get in the Labor, Health Education appropriation bill, and the second is the bonding assistance that the administration is trying to get, either by running it through this bill or by running it through the Committee on Ways and Means, the bonding authority which they are trying to get so that they can help by the expenditure of $2.5 billion of Federal money over a multiyear period so that they can leverage the construction of $25 billion in additional new school facilities, modern school facilities.
As I said before, to put that in context, the demonstrated need for the country is $125 billion. So that basically is what we find at issue on education as we try to reach agreement.
We are here because we have seen the succession of week-long continuing resolutions, and as a result of that, the Congress has moved along in a leisurely fashion, most Members being able to go home 5 days a week; the negotiators on the Committee on Appropriations being stuck here most of the time around the clock, 7 days a week.
Mr. Speaker, I have been home to my district exactly 2 days since Labor Day, and that is why I have told people I feel like a fugitive on a chain gang.
I would hope that we will be able to reach closure on these issues. Until we do, we have no choice but to approve the continuing resolution before us, but I would urge in the meantime that we have additional flexibility on the majority side when it comes to the school construction issue, because that, in my view, is the issue that has to be resolved before we are going to be able to put together the rest of the pieces on education and get out of here in time to at least say hello to the constituents that we all thought we would be greeting and meeting with and talking with for the last 3 weeks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I had been prepared to just yield back my time early on during this debate, because the issue before us is simply a 1-day extension of the continuing resolution, but so many things have been developed during this debate that I feel tempted to respond to each and every one of them, but I am not going to do that. But I feel tempted.
I understand the position of the minority. I served in the minority for a lot of years, as did many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. We were not all here for 40 years, but for those who have been here nearly that long, we served in the minority almost the whole time we have been here, so we understand the frustrations.
But when we became the majority party and I became chairman of one of our subcommittees on appropriations, I was determined that the minority would have access to every bit of information, would have the opportunity to have input on every subject coming before that subcommittee, and I think any member of that subcommittee on either side would concede that and confirm the fact that that is how we function.
When I became chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, one of the first instructions I laid down to the Members and the staff that the minority would be included in all of our deliberations, and I believe they would admit to that at the staff level and the Member level.
We have met with each other off and on most of the year, and then as we got toward the end of the process, we began meeting with the President's representatives, and both parties were involved in all of those meetings. Even at that we understand the frustration of the minority.
We tried to be as responsible as we could and as generous as we could in trying to reach consensus and trying to reach bipartisan agreements.
[Time: 16:30]
And we have reached a lot of bipartisan agreements. But there is a lot of political rhetoric occurring now, because we are rapidly approaching Election Day.
One of the things that got my attention was the gentleman from Wisconsin's statement that the Republicans shut down the government. Well, that conclusion is the result of masterful and effective spin-mastering. The Republicans did not shut down the government; the Republicans passed the appropriations bills, they sent them to the Clinton-Gore administration, they vetoed them, and when they vetoed them, the government shut down for a couple of days. The Republicans sent the appropriations bills to the President. We did our job. He vetoed them. Until we were able to come back and rewrite the bills, the government was closed for a short period of time.
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