Barbara Boxer

Mrs. BOXER

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, simply put, what we do is we add another $200 million to afterschool programs. We believe it is very important to do this. I have a number of cosponsors. This would take the funding to the President's requested level of $600 million. It would enable us to take care of another 370,000 children. I ask that the Senate support this. Amendment No. 1810 To Amendment No. 1809 (Purpose: To require that certain appropriated funds be used to carry out part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Reid amendment be laid aside.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, for her very strong leadership on this important issue. We just heard the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, talk about 779 different programs. My friends in the Senate, we are not talking about 779 different programs. We are talking right now about a very important issue. It is one issue. It is one program. It is a program that has placed 29,000 teachers across this country in schools. We have a bill before us that would end that program. That is what the Senator from Washington State is doing. It is bad. It is bad on the merits. It is bad in terms of the whole issue that has been raised here about us moving forward and then turning our back on a program we just began. It is bad for the children. It is bad for these teachers. If I were the Senator from Alabama, I wouldn't feel so good about having a vote that is going to result in teachers getting their pink slips in his State and in every State in the Union. In my particular State, we are talking about 4,000 teachers being given pink slips. A lot of us like surprises. We like nice surprises. We don't like bad surprises. This Republican bill has a surprise for the children of this country. Surprise: Many of you are going back into large classes after you have spent a year getting the attention you deserve, because that is the impact of the Gorton amendment, and everybody on the other side tries to cover it up by saying: Oh, no; Senator Gorton is merely trying to make this thing a block grant package. It doesn't matter. The Murray amendment is a fight with Senator Gorton about whether or not we are going to live up to our promise. The Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, said it is a very simple form to fill out. I have the form here. You have seen it before. It is a one-page form. I hope no one on the other side of the aisle gets up and says what bureaucracy this is. They talk about 779 programs. But this is one program, one sheet of paper, a program that was praised by Republican Dick Armey, the Majority Leader over in the House. It was praised by the Republican chairman of that committee. They took all kinds of credit for it. We said: Great; take credit for it. Now they are going to end it right here in the Senate. I have a problem with that. I also have a problem with the way the bill was put together. I have a chart. I am going to try to explain what has happened with this bill. The Republicans promised to have their appropriations bills ready in time. Wrong. What do they do? They left Health and Human Services, which includes education, for the last appropriations bill. I find that interesting since they often say education is the highest priority. When they wrote this bill, they were short $11 billion for education. We had been saying on the floor we need to make education a priority. Desperately, they looked around and came up with the all-time gimmick of the year. They said: Let's take two issues which we can argue later are emergency issues. One is the census. I find it interesting to declare that an emergency since we have known it was coming since the founding of the Constitution. Be that as it may, they called it an emergency. Then they said: We can say the defense budget is an emergency even though we have already funded it as a nonemergency. So they took the $11 billion from defense and they put it over to education. Now they had a bit of a problem. They were short $11 billion on this side of the chart. How would they replace it? Guess what, folks. Social Security--Social Security had that $11 billion. They decided to declare defense and the census emergencies; they took the money, by declaring them an emergency, out of Social Security and put it in defense. Then, something they promised they would never do because this was supposed to be locked up, we have an $11 billion IOU in the Social Security trust fund. This was quite a maneuver, going against what the Republicans said they would not do. In order to get this money, they steal from here; in order to get this money, they steal from there; and Social Security, which they were not going to touch, will now be owed $11 billion because that is where the emergency spending comes from. I think it is time we used a little fiscal discipline and paid for things as we go. I think that is the right way to go. Some Members say one good thing about this, they do have $11 billion for education. I say right, but even within that, they zero out the teachers in the school program. They have the money now, but they take it away, and in their appropriations bill they set up a whole new program that no one has ever heard of called teachers assistance. We don't know what it is or what form it will take. We don't know if it will be authorized. The Senator from Washington says if it isn't authorized, we will figure a way to give the schools a block grant. This is an important issue. The Senator from Alabama gets up and says: I don't understand how we in the Federal Government know what people want. Maybe he doesn't know what his people want, but I know what my people want. I ran two tough elections for the Senate. One of the biggest issues was education; within that, putting more teachers in the schools, afterschool programs, and school construction. My Republican opponent was against me on every single issue. My election was based on issues. I say to my friend from Alabama, yes, I know what the people in my State want. I am proud to know that. I didn't come here to give my responsibility to someone else. Today, in the Public Works Committee we honored a great President, Dwight Eisenhower. We named a building after him. I was thrilled to vote for it. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, the first President to say there is a function and a role for the Federal Government in public education. He outlined it in the National Defense Education Act. It amazes me when Republicans stand up and say this is some radical idea. It came from one of their leaders whom I greatly admire. We are doing too little for the schools, not too much. I don't want to be a party to children in school being told they have to leave a class of 15 or 20 and return to a class of 35 or 40. That is what will happen with the Gorton amendment. Senator Murray is right on target in her fight. It stuns me that we are dealing with this situation. As Senator Kennedy said, all the Republicans, a year ago when we funded this program, not only praised it but took credit for it. I ask, is anyone writing to complain about this program? No. The local districts want this program to continue. They want the certainty of this program to continue. They want the smaller class sizes to continue. Even with this $11 billion that they will eventually take out of Social Security and place in here, they ignore teachers in the classroom. They underfund afterschool programs by $200 million under the President's proposal. That will leave a lot of children out in the cold, tens and tens of thousands. I will have an amendment on that. The crumbling schools initiative is as if every school is beautiful. I have been to schools where the tiles are falling off the ceilings. Yes, they put in the $11 billion, but they are not spending it in ways that the people in our country want Congress to spend it. Education is a priority. We all say it; we ought to mean it. In conclusion, my friends talk as if the schools are forced to apply for this program. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not a mandate to put teachers in the school. This is Congress responding to a request to help put more teachers in the school. It is a one-page form. With one vote, we can do away with a great program. I hope we will follow the leadership of Senator Murray and Senator Kennedy. I yield the floor.

Mrs. BOXER. That is correct.

Mrs. BOXER. No, just 1 minute in the morning, which I already have.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I have an amendment I would like to send to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. I understand we may be in virtual agreement on it. I will call for the question after the amendment is read.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I sent the amendment to the desk and asked for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. BOXER. I have strongly supported, for a very long time, the President's request--$600 million--I say to my friend. Not only that, he did join me in an amendment I offered earlier on that point. Six hundred million dollars is where we ought to be now. To answer my friend, this is not a frivolous amendment by any stretch. The $600 million is the amount we believe we need. There is a backlog existing. These are real children waiting in lines to come in. Let me assure my friend, I do appreciate the fact that we have gone up to $400 million for after school. Believe me, I am very pleased about that. But I do believe, since we all know this is a proven program, and my friend shares enthusiasm for it, since we know 92 percent of the people in the community support it, since we know the crime rate goes up exponentially at 3 o'clock--and the Police Athletic League has told us how important this is; this is just a list of some of the law enforcement organizations that support this--we ought to go to the $600 million level. That is the reason I am offering this amendment. It is not to be difficult. It is not to be ungrateful. I want to make a point to my friend. The committee worked very hard. The Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Iowa did. They added $700 million, is my understanding, for IDEA. That is the additional for IDEA--$700 million additional. Senator Gregg is just putting another $200 million in. It may pass. That would be an additional $900 million for IDEA. I am for it. I am for it. It is important to take care of kids with disabilities who need the help. We promised the local districts. I am for it. We are also for this. I think it is not out of the question, when we support the money for IDEA, we also support the funding for afterschool programs.

Mrs. BOXER. If I can make my point. I am happy to yield to my friend, noting I am using my valuable time which I promised I would not use up. The fact is, the President, in his budget request, studied the number of applications that were coming in from the districts all across this Nation and looked at the backlog. It is amazing what we have done. Since my friend has been chairman--I need to compliment him--we went from $40 million for afterschool programs under his leadership and the leadership of the Senator from Iowa and the President to $200 million. Together we went from $40 million to $200 million, and now my friend is suggesting we go to $400 million. What I am suggesting to my friend is there are culled applications sitting at the Department of Education--Senator Kennedy pointed them out in his remarks; I refer my friend to his remarks--so we know what the backlog is. We know that 184 afterschool applications were funded and 2,000 applied. I am not suggesting that every one of those 2,000 is meritorious, but I say to my friend, out of the 2,000 that applied and only 184 were funded, we know there are a lot of good schools in Pennsylvania and California and Iowa and all over the country. What we are saying is, we could probably fund far more than the $600 million, but we believe to ratchet up the program in the right fashion, to get it done right that $600 million would be appropriate. It is supported by Secretary Riley; it is supported by the Clinton administration, in addition to the President himself. I say to my friend, 370,000 more children would have the opportunity to participate in afterschool programs. Let me one more time show a chart which I showed previously. We see what happens after school. We see exactly what happens after school when kids have no place to go: The crime rate goes through the roof. It is only as the children return home that the crime rate dissipates. That is why the Police Athletic League is one of the strongest supporters of this amendment. We have a letter from them. It is very clear. They say they are working on behalf of the Police Athletic League to endorse and express our support for the afterschool education and anticrime amendment. This one was written when we offered it to the Ed-Flex bill. I do not need to prolong this debate. Members want to either come to the floor and talk about something else or conclude tonight. I want to close by saying this: I appreciate the fact that the committee, with all the demands on it, did increase this program. I am very pleased to see it at $400 million. However, I truly believe if we are to do right by our children, funding 184 afterschool programs, when 2,000 applied, is not meeting a need. My friends on the other side of the aisle are continually making the point that we do not want to force this on our local communities. Believe me, we are not forcing this on them at all. What we are essentially saying is it is here for you, and they have overwhelmingly applied for these funds. When I make my closing argument--I will have 60 seconds tomorrow morning--I am going to show one of my favorite charts, and that is a picture of children, an actual photograph of children in an afterschool situation--the look on their faces, the excitement. What an incredible thing for them rather than, A, going into an empty house and being alone, not being safe; and, B, going out on the corner to find out who else is standing on the corner. In the old days, kids stood on the corner, and it was not that bad. Today, unfortunately, they get into worse trouble. In the old days, the trouble they got into was not as bad as today. We do not want our children to have nothing to do after school. We know when they are idle, bad things can happen, such as getting into alcohol problems, getting into drug problems, joining a gang, just because they are lonely. I look at some of our pages who work so hard and what a good job they do. They sit here, and sometimes it is hard. They are occupied, and they are learning. They listen when we speak. They are picking up things. They are kept busy. Their minds are working. Every child deserves a chance to get that mind going and keep that mind going in a positive way. Our children are our future. Every one of us gets up and says that day after day. If you mean it, I am giving you an opportunity to vote for an amendment that will allow 370,000 kids-- and let's hold that number up one more time--370,000 kids, and I put that number up because it is a huge number--370,000 more kids under the Boxer amendment, under the Clinton administration request, will be taken care of. Think about the range of that number. Think about how many moms and dads will be relieved to know their children were being taken care of. My hat is off to the ranking member, Senator Harkin, and the chairman, Senator Specter, but I still believe in my heart of hearts that we should move up to the President's request. It is the right thing to do. If Senator Judd Gregg can find another $200 million for IDEA--terrific--using the same forward-funding approach we are using, then Senator Gregg ought to also support this afterschool amendment. We did a good thing. We want to make it even better. Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time and allow the Senator from Pennsylvania, without interruption, to wind up his argument, and I will see him back on the floor tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mrs. BOXER. Of course. I will be happy to.

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I assure my friends I do not intend to take the full time I have allotted to me. That will make the Senator from Pennsylvania very happy. Maybe he might even vote for this amendment if I keep it very brief. I do thank my friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter. I may disagree, we did not get enough for after school, but I have to acknowledge, we did get an increase in after school. For that, I am very pleased. But I really do think we need to do more. I think this chart explains it all. You could not find a simpler chart. All it says is ``370,000.'' I say to my friend, Senator Specter from Pennsylvania, and my friends on the other side of the aisle, this represents the number of children who would be served if my amendment were to pass, an additional $200 million which we forward fund in the bill. I think this is a very important number when you stop and think about what it would mean if 370,000 additional children had the opportunities we are giving at this point to about 1 million--an additional 370,000. That is 370,000 kids who are going to get help with their homework. That is 370,000 kids who will stay out of trouble. That is 370,000 children who may just get really excited about something such as computers because they have them in this afterschool program. That is 370,000 kids who may get excited about becoming a policeman, a fireman, or doctor because the community comes into these programs. I know the Senator from Pennsylvania agrees that these programs are very laudable. I just hope at the end of the day, tomorrow at least, by 10, we could agree to add this $200 million, forward fund it, and it would bring it up to the level President Clinton requested for this program.

Mrs. BOXER. As I repeat to my friend and colleague, a real leader in this area, this number was not pulled out of a hat. This number comes from the President's request. The President's request has a rationality.

Mrs. BOXER. I object.

Mrs. BOXER. If I could ask my friend if he will allow us to add a little bit more time and have an hour equally divided, after the Senator finishes?

Mrs. BOXER. Do you think about 15 minutes would do it?

Mrs. BOXER. May I ask my colleague, tell us how much time you need, and then we will adjust accordingly.

Mrs. BOXER. Forty-five minutes.

Mrs. BOXER. I want to ask my friend how much more time he will take so I will know how much time I have to speak on this.

Mrs. BOXER. I object.

Mrs. BOXER. What the Senator is trying to do is reach an agreement. I would reach an agreement if I knew we would have a vote on my second degree. If you object to Senator Specter trying to be accommodating, that is your choice.

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. I would say, with the clear understanding it is a Boxer second degree to Gregg, that is quite acceptable. Two minutes to a side would be good.