Rosa DeLauro

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon, and I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, let me just make one comment, to start off with. First of all, let me just thank my colleagues who are here this late afternoon on a Sunday. There has been a lot said on the other side of the aisle about wanting to be home with family, and that we are here working. We all would love to be home with our families today and yesterday, and for a holiday tomorrow, but let us put this in the context of what we are talking about, the reason that we are not home. The reason is very simple, that this is a Republican-controlled Congress that in fact has failed to get done the very basics in terms of legislation and process that our Federal Government relies on. Do not take my word for it. The statistics are all there. This is a Congress that has worked the least number of days in decades, 108. It has been said that regular people, real people, over 250 days they have worked, hard work every single day. They have enacted the least number of bills in decades. They have not even passed a budget, and that is the first time. I do not keep the records. They have not passed the budget, and that is the first time since the budget process in the United States was created. Think about that, Mr. Speaker. They have failed to pass even routine spending bills on time. I want to make one more comment before I yield to my colleagues who are here. It has also been said on the other side of the aisle that the President has not been engaged in the process. I want to send to my Republican colleagues a very simple book that is called ``How Bills Become Law'' in this country. Every child in our school understands the process. That is that the House and the Senate must determine what gets done in a piece of legislation before the President signs that piece of legislation. I will tell my colleagues that this Republican-controlled Congress has not brought the bills together so that, in fact, the President could act on it. So he is waiting for this crowd to get its act together. One more point, I will say that there are Democrats and Republicans in this body. What we need to know and understand is that, in fact, yes, the majority party controls. When there is that control, that means that they have charge of the calendar; that is what bills come up, what bills do not come up. They are in charge of the schedule of when we do what we do. The long and the short of it, they are in charge. They are responsible for legislation that gets accomplished or not accomplished in this body. Do not let them get away with saying that it is other people's fault. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller).

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr). Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Ms. DeLAURO. Let me just make a comment before I recognize the gentlewoman from California. The theme that both of our colleagues were talking about, education in this country has been the great equalizer. I think it is true to talk about the fundamental part of our democracy. What I mean by education being the great equalizer is that youngsters have the opportunity to succeed despite their gender, their religion, their socioeconomic status, political party affiliation. It says that your God-given talent is what is in fact that which allows for your success in our society. That has truly been the premise of public education. I will just take myself for example. I am the daughter of a garment worker. My mom worked in the sweatshops. My dad sold insurance. They killed themselves literally to make sure that I had a good education, so that in fact that I could have opportunities that they never had. That is the same with probably the majority of people who serve in this body.

Ms. DeLAURO. Which is so frightening in terms of what is at stake when we are talking about public education and what this institution and the majority party in this institution has refused to recognize. Just one more point. I got the finest education in the same way that any corporate executive or any scientist or any academic could get and was allowed to be able to have the honor and the privilege of serving in this body. So it is a precious, precious gift, if you will, that we need to preserve this ability. It is values. It is what we prize and what we value in our society is this ability for education.

Ms. DeLAURO. We were supposed to be marching in parades today, in the heart of the Italian-American community.

Ms. DeLAURO. Well, interestingly enough, you know, to further talk about this a bit, is that 90 percent of our youngsters are in public schools. Now, we do have problems with the public school system. No one is suggesting that we cannot make improvements, which is what precisely we are talking about, and in terms of the modernizing, again the piece that is, it is not just about the bricks and the mortar. It is in fact about providing that opportunity for youngsters to be able to have a learning environment which is a secure one and at the same time have a learning environment which, in fact, plugs them into an Internet to utilize advanced technology. I did a survey, a modernization survey, in my district. I visited the Orange Avenue School for a tour. We had a round table discussion with superintendents about school modernization needs. There were 71 schools who responded, and this is what I found in my own district. The average age of the elementary school buildings is 50 years old. More than half of the elementary schools regularly hold classes in areas not designed to be classrooms, including cafeterias, hallways, mobile or temporary rooms and storage areas, literally closets being turned into classrooms. The average class size was still 23 students, even with the makeshift facilities, which is why we have been talking about reducing classroom size to 18 in the grades from 1 to 3. All of the schools that responded said that they had some computers for students to use. More than 50 percent of the schools have no computer lab or a room where there are computers. The majority of the schools have no computers designated for teachers' use, nor is there programing to teach teachers as to how to teach our kids to use computers, and many schools do not have computers in every classroom. I would venture to say that today computers are becoming like textbooks; where you have a text book for every child, you have to have computers for every child. Let me just make one more point about modernization because our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will say the Federal Government wants to get involved in construction of schools. Not true. Very simply what we are talking about here is that what the President's initiative, what the Democratic initiative is, and what we like to have accomplished before we leave here, it is to help with Federal tax credits to pay interest on $22 billion in bonds to build or to modernize public schools. That helps the local community float the bonds that they need to construct the school. We do not want to be building schools and have the Federal Government pay for the building of these schools, but we want to try to provide that local government with the opportunity of getting some relief on their taxes with regard to the bonds. What does that do for the local community? You know what it does for the local community? It lowers their tax obligation. That is what we are talking about. And it is very simple, it can be done, and we truly do have the obligation to make sure that we do this. That is what we are calling for: Do this before we get out of Washington, D.C.

Ms. DeLAURO. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Ms. DeLAURO. I would just say that, you know, when we talk about reduced class size, again like modernization is not bricks and mortar, lower class size says the following: I am a teacher, I can give more individual attention to each of the youngsters I have in a classroom. Better learning, better standards, more accountability. And you know what else? More discipline in the classroom. Parents today want to make sure that their youngsters are in schools that are safe, in a learning environment with a teacher who has time to devote attention to them. And you are absolutely right about we have a very successful model on which to base this program, and it is one that universally school officials and administrators and parents and teachers are clamoring for. I think it is important to note, because we are going to be out of time in a few minutes here, that our colleagues will talk about their accomplishments in education, but I do not think that we ought to be fooled by their commentary. Child literacy program, America Reads, zero funding. Summer jobs, zero funding. Out of school youth, zero funding. School modernization, zero funding. Class size reduction, zero. New teachers, zero. Shortchanging Head Start programs, Goals 2000. When they talk about taking the money, Dollars to the Classroom, that eliminates Goals 2000, the Eisenhower training program that trains our teachers, several other critical programs that provide for basic skills for our young people. We have an obligation. We serve here because the people who we represent trust us, and they trust us with their children. Let us take the remaining days of this session and do something to improve public education in this country. We can do it. There is support for doing it. We need to do it. That is what we should be about. I yield to either of my colleagues for any final comments.

Ms. DeLAURO. The one thing they want to do is to return education to the limited few and the rich instead of using education as that great equalizer that allowed us our success to be able to come here.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, this is absurd. Republicans taking credit for improving education is like saying that Jerry Springer is in the business of improving television. It really is quite extraordinary. My Republican colleagues say that the President wants to shut the government down. Friends, American public, understand: This government is shut down. Let me tell you what the Republican-controlled majority has not been doing in the last 2 years of the 105th Congress. No budget. No budget. No appropriations bills. No managed care reform. No campaign finance reform legislation. No tobacco legislation to help to save your kids. No education program. They say, ``Let's raid Social Security to pay for other things in this budget.'' Let me just say this to you, that yes, what we need to focus on in these last remaining hours of this Congress is our kids' education. Let us in fact reduce class size. Let us get 100,000 more teachers. Let us make a difference in our kids' lives.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I just wanted to make a couple of points before we start our hour's time here. The gentleman who led the previous discussion here this evening is the third-ranking leader in the House of Representatives, the majority whip. I think it was interesting to note that he commented about the government shutdown 2 years ago. What is quite extraordinary to note is that the government was shut down twice, unheard of in the history of the United States, by the Republican majority because, as my colleague from New Jersey has rightly said, and sometimes people do not understand this, when the party is in power and they have the majority, they control what happens here. You can say anything that you want about the Democrats were in the majority and you could agree or disagree on what they have, but the fact of the matter is that the Republicans control both the House and the Senate. But an interesting point, because he talked about how terrible a government shutdown would be and that is not what they were looking for and that it was the President looking for a government shutdown. Well, I was so stunned by a comment that the majority whip made when the government was shut down 2 years ago that quite honestly I had it blown up and I have it in my office because I could not believe anyone who held such an honor and held a position in this body would say such a thing. It was in a Texas newspaper and I am happy to provide it to anyone who would like to see it. I am not making this up. He said that when he heard that the government was reopened, that it was the worst moment, and I am paraphrasing, the worst moment of his life. He was grilling steaks on his balcony with some other Republican members, and he said, ``We should have kept the government closed for as long as it was necessary.'' Now, he has the luxury of saying that because he was earning a salary while the government was closed and people who were furloughed or laid off had no idea whether or not they were going to get their salaries, and the hundreds and hundreds of services that are supplied by this United States Government were shut down. So that he truly is someone who, in fact, was pleased that the government was shut down in the past, and I hasten to view that he would not mind if that happened again. That is where they are going. I might also make just one more point. We are talking about how this Republican majority, how they legislate and the reasons for what they do and how that is tied in to special interest money. There is a big argument, if you will, a feud, GOP Feuding About Lobbyists. The point here, and it is in the papers here, again the majority whip is locked in a feud with the chairman of the Republican Conference because what they want to do is to dump the choice of president of something called the Electronic Industries Alliance. The long and the short of it, the person that is scheduled to become the president of this organization is a former Member of the House, Representative Dave McCurdy, who is a Democrat from Oklahoma. Essentially what they want to do, and this is by their own admission here, this is a quote, they want to send a message to this EIA that Republicans will not deal with trade associations and lobbying groups run by Democrats. Now, this is a quote by John Linder who is the head of their Republican Congressional Campaign Committee who says, quote, we think they, ``they'' being the trade associations, et cetera, ought to look back and see who won the last couple of elections. And Mr. Linder confirmed that Republican leaders held intellectual property legislation, that means that our patents, all of our inventions, that laws restricting foreign governments, speaking of foreign governments, Chinese, everywhere where they are stealing our intellectual property around the world. What he is saying is that they held the legislation hostage that would have restricted foreign governments from stealing our intellectual property. He confirmed, ``Republican leaders held intellectual property legislation favored by these EIA members hostage, quote, to send a message, that if you don't play by the Republican rules and don't do business with the Democrats, we are not going to pass legislation and you are not going to be able to get anything done up here.'' That is the way this Republican majority is dealing, fast and loose, fast and loose with the lives of the people in this country. It is on intellectual properties, it is on tobacco, 3,000 of our kids start to smoke every single day, a thousand of whom die. And they refused to pass tobacco legislation in this body. They are the single biggest recipients of tobacco dollars in the country. So who are they kidding when they talk about what they want to do for the American public? It was Mr. DeLay, it was Mr. Gingrich who said, ``There isn't enough money in our system. That's why we cannot pass campaign finance reform.'' And it was the Republican leadership of this House who said take Social Security dollars and squander them away.

Ms. DeLAURO. That is right.

Ms. DeLAURO. I believe it was Mr. Armey, the second-ranking member, who said Social Security is not a system that ought to be in existence or that we ought to have a part of. We need to remember some of those things. In terms of public education, what we were talking about before, they would just as soon see public education come crumbling down and take public education and take those dollars and put them in the hands of the very few and the very rich and take away our birthright to education in this country.

Ms. DeLAURO. I think that this is such an appropriate discussion, and it is such an issue that is on the minds of the American people, and that is what is being flaunted here. It is not us. It is about what the American people have talked about in terms of the whole managed care system which they find is out of control. There was a recent Times CNN poll that found that 76 percent of Americans support managed care reform. Only 41 percent said that they were very confident that their health care plan would pay for their treatment if they really got sick. And now you have another, and most people, and I think everybody saw it, As Good As It Gets, the movie where there is the great applause line when Helen Hunt expresses her frustration with the HMOs and managed care because people feel that that is out of control, that they, in fact, have no way of being able to handle this system. More recently we have found that the HMOs are pulling out of Medicare and leaving seniors on their own. It has happened in my State of Connecticut where we have 12,000 people now who are, you know, trying to scramble around for what they are going to do for their health care. Now, it is not only happening in Connecticut, it is happening all over the country. So, the fact is that the public truly knows that the managed care system is out of control. Now we tried to address that, as both my colleagues have pointed out, with a very simple set of guidelines, if you will, in which my colleague from New Jersey mentioned about emergency room care, and speciality care and continuity of care if your employer changes plans, and employers change plans every year now. Just interesting to note that that was a bipartisan piece of legislation. There are lots of folks said if we can put the bickering aside and do something on behalf of the American public, let us set the record straight. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Dingell, Ganske, a number of other folks including the gentleman from New Jersey who worked very hard on this issue that could have passed this House in a heartbeat. But go back to the notion that who was in charge? Who has the jurisdiction to bring up the legislation? Who has the jurisdiction to hold hearings? Three days of hearings on the issue of managed care reform; contrast, 63 days of hearings on politically-motivated investigations. More to the point: 2 days of hearings on renaming National Airport the Ronald Reagan Airport. Now for 3 days, only 3 days for our health care system, they finally passed; they brought up after months and months, they passed this sham bill, sham bill, and I just want to mention it because they will come up and claim that they passed a HMO bill, but let me just say that it makes things worse, the bill that they passed. It does not guarantee coverage of emergency care, it does not guarantee privacy of medical records. That is your medical records which today is such a problem with regard to employment or with regard to insurance coverage can be given away to anyone without your knowledge. It would not guarantee access to specialists, it does not guarantee the continuity of care if your doctor is arbitrarily dropped from the plan, does not hold health plans accountable for their decisions when things go wrong. And above all, above all, it will not give the power to decide what is medically necessary to your doctor. That is the fundamental reason people want to see health, managed care reform because of they want doctors to make the decisions along with them, with themselves. Again, this is thwarting the will of the public, it is thwarting the will of the majority in both the House and in the Senate, and they recently, just 2 days ago, defeated managed care. That is not the way that this place should be operating. We are here to represent people's interests. We are not for political reasons to thwart the will of the people particularly on their health care and their health and their safety.

Ms. DeLAURO. If you survive, they do not pay. Only if you die.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, then the leader of the other body, that was his quote, so that in fact what you understand here is that they wanted their folks to get up, get their money out there, and defeat managed care reform. Another $40 million ad campaign to defeat managed care reform, one of the single biggest issues that the American public is trying to grapple with today. It just reinforces the point of how this Republican-controlled Congress is dealing with legislation that faces people.

Ms. DeLAURO. I think the gentleman is right. Also, just because of what they will say on the other side of the aisle, I would just say this: There are reasonable people, as I said, because the managed care reform bill was a bipartisan piece of legislation. It was the leadership who will not bring it to the floor. I think that is critical, because this is not bickering back and forth. We could have done this. We had enough votes.

Ms. DeLAURO. That is precisely the point. Let us listen to the public. We reflect their interests here. We put a piece of legislation together. Let us get it passed. The other thing they would say is that this was going to drive the cost of health insurance sky high and make it unable for people to pay for. Wrong. The CBO analysis, Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Patients' Bill of Rights of 1998, was it would have only a minimal effect on premiums, with most individuals paying only about $2 more per month for all of the protections that have been cited in the past. So they should not have said that.

Ms. DeLAURO. When we voted, I know the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) did and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) and I did, we voted for tax cuts. We all support tax cuts. We voted for the tax cuts, and we said that they would go into effect when there was a law in place that would make sure that the Social Security system was solvent. Because in fact with this opportunity for a surplus, the Social Security Trust Fund surplus allows us to have the surplus, so in fact you are using the surplus and then shortchanging Social Security. We vetoed four tax cuts. I support tax cuts. Men and women are working hard today. Families are literally throwing every hour that they have into the workplace, and they are barely staying even. We need to do that. However, the point was, let the tax cuts go into effect when we are sure that Social Security is solvent, so the beneficiaries today will keep getting their benefits, and, if you will, my generation, the gentleman's kids' generation, will have the opportunity. I want to just tell the gentleman why, because this is critical. Social Security is 60 years old. It has been one of the major success stories of this country. We have men and women who are working hard all their lives, and now for their financial security and their retirement years they rely on Social Security. Today two-thirds of America's seniors rely on Social Security for over one-half of their income. That is staggering, and is why we cannot be political with Social Security. Social Security, we cannot play fast and loose with it. It has to be a thoughtful and reflective process. We have the opportunity immediately to take a look at this potential surplus in order to be able to make it solvent over the next 75 years. This is going to be the critical issue in the next session of the Congress. There are going to be a number of issues that are going to come up, such as privatizing Social Security, which is something that I lean against, because the other piece, which is important to note, Social Security provides for a guaranteed annual income for these two-thirds of seniors who rely on Social Security for over half of their income. There is a guaranteed annual income. The privatizing solutions remove that guaranteed annual income, so we need to be very, very careful with it. That is what we were saying by that vote a couple of weeks ago in this body: Let us not raid Social Security, let us make sure it is safe for the next 75 years. Then, yes, let us move to tax cuts, targeted tax cuts for working families today in this country.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, and it kind of sums it up for me about this Congress, it is really the political equivalent of the Maytag repairman. The Maytag repairman's phone never rang because nobody ever needed his help. Our phones are ringing off the hook here, but we have a Republican Congress that refuses to pick up the line. All the Democrats are saying on these issues is, let us answer the call from the American public. First and foremost, we have talked about HMO reform, we have talked about saving Social Security, but what we are asking for in these next several days while we are here is education reform. Let us reduce the size of classrooms, 100,000 teachers in grades 1 through 3, and let us in fact modernize our classrooms, provide those tax credits to local government, so that they can float the bonds to build the schools, and it will bring down their own property taxes, if you will. Let us do that for the good of our children. That is what we are claiming to want to do in the next several days. We can talk all we want about what has not been done. We have a few more days. This we can get done. I think we have an obligation to go for it.

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to. This is the dirty dozen that the Congressional Republicans wanted to do to our public schools: eliminate the Department of Education; divert billions of dollars in public school funds for private school vouchers; cut school lunches for poor children; block-granting critical education programs, and when we block-grant those programs, we eliminate programs, and there is no accountability by the Governors as to where that money is being spent; ending equal opportunity in higher education; tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers who send their children to private schools; eliminating summer jobs; eliminating school-to-work; ending school interest subsidies for student loans; eliminating safe and drug free schools. That is the litany, that is the legacy of this Republican Congress.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this martial law rule. We have had an entire session to pass legislation which would have improved the lives of the people in this country, and the majority party has ignored, ignored that opportunity. Instead of doing the people's work, they frittered away your time and our time. What have we spent our time doing here? What have they accomplished this year? Let us take a look at the Record. We have no budget. We have not finished appropriations. We have not protected Social Security. We have not reformed HMOs to ensure that healthy patients are more important than healthy profits of the insurance companies in this country, and we have not stopped the tobacco companies from targeting and killing our children. We have not reduced class size to provide individual attention for our kids in classrooms. We have not modernized a single school. We have not raised education standards for a single child, we have not provided training for a single teacher, we have not hooked up a single classroom to the Internet. Let me just say this to my colleagues, that what the Republican majority would do with regard to education is reduce the dollars to States. What they would do is take money out of our school system and put education once more in the hands of the rich and of the few. Let me just say, we have a few days before this Congress adjourns. Let us do what the American people want. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, defeat the previous question. Let us debate education. Let us do something for American families and for American kids in this country. Stop frittering away the American public's time.

Ms. DeLAURO

Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, let me paraphrase Admiral Stockdale, a former vice presidential candidate: ``Who are we, and why are we here?'' It is clear that the Republican leadership of this House has no idea who they are and certainly do not know why they are here. They do not know why the people of this country sent them to represent their interests. This Republican-led Congress has failed the American people. We have passed the end of the fiscal year, and what have they accomplished? The Republican leadership has not passed the budget. They have not completed appropriations. We only have a few days left before this Congress adjourns, and they refuse to address the issue that the American people care about. Let us talk about the missed opportunities. Social Security reform. Instead of doing that, they would raid the Social Security Trust Fund and not preserve and protect Social Security for the future. Tobacco legislation. Three thousand kids in this country start to smoke every single day, and 1,000 will die. But, no, we could not do something about tobacco legislation. Real managed care reform. About getting doctors and patients to make the decisions, the medical decisions in their lives instead of insurance companies. No. We had bipartisan support in this body. We could have passed it in a heartbeat. If the Speaker of this House wanted to get it passed, we could have done it at a moment's notice. Let us talk about minimum wage and raising the living standards of working families in this country. No, we could not do that. Campaign finance reform. Certainly let us not reform this House. Let us not do that. They have failed to take any action to strengthen our public schools, reduce class size, make sure we have 100,000 new teachers in the classroom, modernize our schools so that our kids get wired up to the Internet and they can succeed in their future. No, none of these we could do. Let me just say, the American people deserve to know why we are here. We are here to represent their interests. We have a few short hours in this session of the Congress. Let us do something about our school system; let us pass legislation that is meaningful to the people of this country.