Vernon Ehlers

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. W. Lee Irving, who is ending his term as President of the American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Dr. Irving has held the position since March 1999 and will relinquish his duties in April 2000 at the organization's annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Throughout his career, Dr. Irving has had a tremendous impact on the advancement of professional opportunities for obstetricians and gynecologists around the country. In addition to his role as President, Dr. Irving has worn many different hats during his career. From 1993 to 1999 he served as the College's Chairman of the Residency Evaluation Committee. From 1990 to the present he has served as a member of the College's Certifying Board and Board of Trustees. At Metropolitan Hospital in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, he served as Program Director from 1985 through 1999. He currently serves as Chairman of the Obstetrics-Gynecology Department at Metropolitan Hospital. Contributions to his profession do not end there. He was recently appointed to the Council for Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology, a national organization that oversees the training of all OB-GYN residents for both the Osteopathic and Allopathic professions. During his tenure as President, he has also been credited with fostering a closer working relationship between the American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Mr. Speaker, I commend Dr. Irving for the countless contributions he has made to his profession. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Irving has had a tremendous impact in his field of expertise. I applaud him and thank him for his work as President of the American College of Osteopathic Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and wish him continued success in his work in medical and educational programs. I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Dr. Irving for his outstanding contributions.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the students, staff and community that represent East Grand Rapids High School in my congressional district. It is my pleasure to honor all of those in the East Grand Rapids family for their commitment and dedication which resulted in being named a 1999 New American High School by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The award recognizes schools where all students are expected to meet challenging academic standards and acquire the communication, problem solving, computer and technical skills necessary to pursue careers and higher education. To even be considered as a New American High School there are many hurdles that a school must successfully pass. Applicants must supply members of a steering committee with documentation that they have undertaken standards-based, locally driven reform efforts that positively affect key indicators of school improvement and student success. Among the documentation items they must present are proof of increases in student achievement, increases in student enrollment at postsecondary institutions, increases in student attendance, and reductions in student dropout rates. East Grand Rapids is a model school when it comes to challenges and performance High expectations are set for all students because of the high motivation level of the student body. The numbers speak for themselves. Based on statistics from the 1998 school year, approximately 94% of East Grand Rapids students enrolled in colleges or universities. The school registered a dropout rate of less than 1% and an attendance rate of 97%. Academic test scores are also the highest in the state of Michigan in mathematics, reading, and writing. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take this opportunity to highlight the positive happenings at East Grand Rapids High School under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. James Morse and Principal Patrick Cwayna. It takes a lot of pride, sacrifice, and teamwork to qualify for this prestigious award. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in saluting everyone involved in helping East Grand Rapids achieve this remarkable honor. I also wish continued academic and overall success for everyone associated with this school.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) for yielding me this time. It is a pleasure to speak here about George Brown, even though it is also tinged with a good deal of sadness. I knew about George Brown a long time before I met him. In fact, my first acquaintance with him dates back to the mid-1970s when, as a nuclear physicist and a county commissioner, I was appointed by the American Physical Society to the committee to select science fellows for Members of Congress. One of those we selected ended up working for Mr. Brown. I got to know him quite well and talked to him regularly and he has described Congressman Brown in very glowing terms. And after that, for some 20 years, I watched the progress of Mr. Brown and the wisdom of his work through the science media. It was a pleasure when I first arrived in the Congress in early 1994 to make his personal acquaintance and to serve on the Committee on Science at the time, he was chairman. Also, I worked with him after the time when he became the ranking member and the Republicans were chairing that committee. He was a striking person in many ways, and I found him to be a many- dimensioned person. He was a gracious gentleman. At the same time, he was a great scholar. He was also a wise leader. In spite of that, he was self-deprecating and self-effacing. A marvelous person in so many different ways. Mr. Speaker, what particularly struck me was that in a very partisan institution, he was willing to ignore partisanship to help a new Member to discuss the history of specific issues and also acquaint me with the history of previous actions of the Congress. He was also very willing and freely gave of his advice to me as a newcomer and I found his advice very helpful. He was a great person in so many ways and so many senses of that phrase. We rarely meet great people throughout our lives, but when we do we immediately know that we are in the presence of greatness and we also appreciate it. That is the way it was with George Brown. As I said, he was a great man. I knew it when I first met him. I appreciated it even more as I continued to work with him on science issues and we had a great kinship on that score. I certainly appreciated him, the work he did, and particularly his friendship with me and his attitude towards the Congress and towards advancement of science. We will all miss him greatly, and I will especially miss him. I just wanted to take this opportunity to express my condolences to the members of the family and to thank them for their willingness to share George with us.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss the issue of education and mathematics and science in our Nation. I have deep concerns about the current status of math and science education in this Nation. First of all, I believe currently it is inadequate. I say this for several reasons. Mr. Speaker, as I was stating, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, which was conducted a few years ago, indicated that we were near the bottom of those nations and developed countries teaching mathematics and science in their high schools, near the bottom. Some say, well, it is not so bad, we were not that far below the others. I say it is terrible. With the resources that this country has and with the high quality of students this Nation has, it is inexcusable for us to be near the bottom, or at the bottom. We should be not only at the top, but far and away the best Nation in this world in terms of our educational effort. Mr. Speaker, the second reason I say we are not doing well in mathematics and science education is simply by looking at the tests administered by the States. When we look at these tests and look at the test scores, we find that in reading a typical average for a State might be in the seventies, and for some of the other subjects in that area, and for science we are down in the 30 percent, even for some of the better States, and as low as 10 percent in some of the others. These are not passing grades and they never have been in our school system. We must improve. A third indication that we are not doing the job well is that we do not have enough engineers and scientists to do the job in this country. How do I know? Because we issue H(1)(b) visas every year to allow scientists and engineers from other countries to emigrate into this country to help us out. Annually, it is in the neighborhood of 100,000 each, and usually that quota is used up well before the end of the year. We are importing scientists and engineers, asking them to emigrate to this country for this purpose. Clearly, we are not producing enough of our own. The final indication that we are not doing the job with math and science education in our K through 12 system is that when we visit our grad schools, graduate education in mathematics, science, and engineering, we find that, in general, over half of the students are from other countries. Our students are not able to compete for grad school entrance with students of other nations. I think we have to improve our math and science education. Why? For the reasons I gave above, but also because, first of all, we have to make sure we have enough scientists and engineers in this country so that we can keep our economic growth strong and meet the needs of our citizens. There are other reasons as well. It is not just producing good scientists and engineers, but a second main reason is what I call workplace readiness. We have reached the point in our society and in many developed nations that you literally cannot find a good job unless you have a good grounding in math and science. It is going to get worse. I have made predictions on this floor that in 20 years, it will be impossible to find a good job without a good foundation in math and science. I have to revise that, because last week I attended a talk at the Capitol here by John Chambers, CEO of CISCO Systems, an Internet company. It is clear to me that I have to revise my estimate downward and say in 10 years people will not be able to get a really good job without a good grounding in mathematics, science, engineer, and technology. So workplace readiness is another good reason. The third reason is to simply produce better consumers and citizens of this Nation, people who understand math and science, so they can evaluate claims in the marketplace about health products or health supplements, or that they can vote better about projects that involve science and the environment, and that they can elect leaders who have shown that they understand these issues and will vote intelligently on issues involving math, science, technology, engineering, the environment, and so forth. How are we going to improve math and science education? I think three major points: better teachers, or better trained teachers, I should say; better curricula; and improved methods of teaching science. I will take just a minute to discuss each of those. I will address those later in more detail in another talk. We have to make sure we recruit good teachers, because we are not recruiting enough today, we have to make sure they are trained properly, and we have to keep them. We have to make sure they do not get discouraged. We have to help them get the job done in the classroom. We have to improve our science curricula. Right now it is a hodgepodge. Recently the American Association for the Advancement of Science studied middle school curricula. Every middle school science curriculum in the United States was judged to be inadequate, every single one. The only one that was regarded as acceptable, and mildly acceptable, was one put out by Michigan State University, and that is only a partial curriculum. The final point is methodology. We have to improve our way, our methods of teaching science. As I said, I will address these issues in a later talk.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 564 and 565, I missed the votes due to my participation in an important meeting and in the Marine Corps ceremony. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on both.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, just to wrap up, we do not have this take effect until 2005-2006, which is actually after this bill expires. It is basically setting the groundwork for the next bill. It will be in effect the final year only if we do as we normally do, and reauthorize the bill for an additional year. But it sets the pattern for the future and gives the schools more than adequate time to prepare.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, I thank the gentleman for stating that very well. There is no additional cost involved for the States.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the question; and I also appreciate the support from the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and other Members of the body who have indicated their support. Because of the shortness of time, not everyone will be able to speak. There is a question as to whether or not this is another mandate. I do not believe it is so, because this is a matter of assessment. The schools are ready, the teachers are ready. This is simply saying this is an important national priority and one of the subjects that we should teach and which our school systems should assess is the knowledge that students have acquired in the scientific arena so that we know whether or not we will have an adequate work force for the future, and so that we will have an adequate number of scientists and engineers as well. So it addresses both the issue of workers in the workplace, and training for scientists. We simply need more technological workers. And then secondly, that we will have the researchers necessary to do the research work that will be necessary. In my own State, they are still evaluating this amendment. The Governor is not opposing it, but I know he is concerned about it. A few other States have indicated a concern, and that is why we added the language that this does not take effect until 2005-2006. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out some basic facts about science in the United States. First of all, more than one-half of all economic growth in this Nation is tied to recent developments from science and technology. That is, over one-half of our economic growth is dependent on science and technology. Our Nation's economic future and our economic strength are directly linked to the science aptitude of our work force. Unfortunately, our science aptitude is not good. You are aware that, on an international scale developed through international assessments, the United States came out near the bottom; and, in fact, in physics it was at the bottom of the 15 developed countries participating in the evaluation. With that type of record, it is very hard for us to keep our economy going. Science education must start early to prepare students for the demands of tomorrow's jobs. But currently, schools are not teaching science in many cases, and they are not teaching it well in other cases. There are, of course, exceptions. Some schools do exceptionally well. But, across the country, our science and math education is deficient and as a result, our students are falling behind other countries. Perhaps one indication of that is that in today's graduate schools in science and engineering, over one-half of all of the graduate students are from other countries. It is clear that has to change, and the best place to have it change is in early education. My amendment is a simple amendment. It will not place much demand on the educational system, but it simply will require that by the 2005- 2006 school year that science will be placed alongside of reading and math as essential subjects to be assessed in each school. In other words, this will give parents an opportunity to determine how well their schools are teaching science and how well their students are learning science, the science they must have if they are to be employable and to contribute to the economic growth of our Nation. I believe this is a good amendment which will help solve a major national problem. There is very little expense, if any, attached to it. It simply will make clear the need for increased teaching of science in elementary and secondary schools, and will give us an opportunity to assess how well the schools are doing in meeting that need. I urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the role of government is to attempt to solve problems, but the intent of the government should be to solve the problems with reasonable solutions. The point here is not just whether or not we should do this. The point is coming up with a solution that works. The section 110 that is being implemented simply will not work in Michigan. Now, I have no idea whether it would work well in San Diego or other border crossing points. But the immensity of the problem in Michigan is hard to describe unless you have been there and watched. In a major metropolitan area, we have the Ambassador Bridge with 12 million vehicles crossing per day, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, 9 million vehicles, and up in Port Huron, the Blue Water Bridge with 5.5 million vehicles crossing. Now, when we talk about the amount of trade crossing that border, it exceeds $1 billion worth of goods and services crossing the border every day, counting between the U.S. and Canada. We have more trade crossing over the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, trade between Canada and the U.S., we have more crossing there than we have with the entire nation of Japan. That gives you some idea of the immensity of the problem and why we need a special solution. If we are trying to reach a solution for this problem, we have to have a different type of solution to fit that situation in that congested metropolitan area dealing with that much traffic and that much trade flowing over one single artery. And so the plea is that we do adopt this motion. It is absolutely essential. Because if the purpose of section 110 is to try to solve the problem, it fails. If the attempt is to create a roadblock to trade with Canada, it succeeds. We do not want that kind of success. We want a solution to the problem and something that works. Please vote for this motion to instruct.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, just a short time ago, we passed a resolution allowing the use of the rotunda for a ceremony to grant a Congressional Gold Medal to President and Mrs. Ford. I would like to give some background information on that award. I was very pleased to sponsor the bill that would grant them this medal because they have served this country so well for so many years. What is unique about this medal, this particular medal, and what is different than any previous medal in history, is that it will be awarded to both President and Mrs. Ford. I believe it very important to recognize the part that both of them played in the history of our country. Mrs. Ford contributed a great deal to the health of the women of this Nation by discussing very frankly and openly the fact that she had breast cancer. Now, that may seem rather mundane today, but at the time she developed breast cancer, she was the First Lady in the White House. Breast cancer was not discussed in polite society. It was whispered about. As a result, many women did not know what caused breast cancer. They did not know about self-examination. They did not know what treatments were available. Mrs. Ford announced that she had this terrible disease. She described the symptoms to this Nation. She worked with the media to publicize the nature of breast cancer. She was very effective in alerting the women of this Nation to the need for breast examination and treatment. In addition to that, later on in life, due to a number of pain medications that she was taking and the use of alcohol, Mrs. Ford recognized the need for treatment for alcoholism and drug dependency and started the Betty Ford Clinic. This has been a life-saving institution for many, many people. She still takes a personal interest in it, still visits with new patients as they come in, and has been very effective in helping many people recover from substance abuse or alcohol abuse. President Ford, of course, is well known as the President who healed our Nation after the resignation from office of President Nixon. However, since we have almost a generation elapsed since President Ford held office, I find many people simply are not aware of what was happening at that time and the incredible turmoil that this Nation felt at the time that President Nixon was undergoing examination by the Congress, facing impeachment, and eventually resigning from office. When President Ford took that office, he, in a very calm and deliberate manner, proceeded to heal this Nation. He restored order. He restored financial stability. He reduced interest rates. He improved the economy and showed that our government could survive a crisis like that and function well. For this, he deserves our thanks and our commendation. Because of this and because of the actions of both President and Mrs. Ford, I thought it very deserving that they receive the Congressional Gold Medal. This will be presented to them next week in the rotunda of the Capitol. I urge all Members to attend, and I urge also the citizens of this country to join me in applauding both Jerry and Betty Ford, President and Mrs. Ford, for their selfless service to this country for all the good that they have done for all of us.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the chairman of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies, for his hard work on this bill and for the results he was able to achieve. As the gentleman well knows, I have spoken to him a number of times about the importance of science. I have also spoken to many other colleagues and to this Chamber. Scientific research and development is the single biggest factor today in the economic growth of our Nation. If we do not continue to support our scientific and technological enterprise, we are throwing away our economic future. It is just that simple, and it is that stark. When we look at the world scene, we notice that our spending on basic science, mathematics, engineering and technology research, is declining compared to our gross domestic product. Japan is now ahead of us and increasing their spending in that area. South Korea is coming up fast and has almost surpassed us on a per capita basis, and Germany already is above us as well. So we are in danger of losing our economic leadership on this planet by virtue of losing our leadership of scientific and technological research. It is very important that we continue that. The gentleman from New York (Chairman Walsh) recognizes that. Unfortunately, the allocation that was given to him earlier in the year did not permit him to provide full funding for science. But, fortunately, the final allocation was increased; and he did a magnificent job of restoring the funding, not only to the National Science Foundation, which is the key to our research future, but also restoring the funding to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA. I just want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) from the bottom of my heart, and thank him also on behalf of the many scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and technologists in this country for the work that he has done on this budget. It is a magnificent piece of work, in particularly difficult times, and I certainly appreciate it. I also want to mention a personal interest in terms of clean water activity. We still have a long ways to go in this country in purifying our water and making it pure. The gentleman from New York has provided appropriate funding for that purpose as well. In addition, Housing and Urban Development has some wonderful programs. There are some that need cleaning up, but there are some wonderful programs in HUD. Michigan, in particular, through its Michigan State Housing Development Authority, has done a great deal to provide low-income home ownership opportunities for the people of our State, particularly in my area where we have some faith-based organizations which have developed to take advantage of both MSHDA and HUD funding and have done a magnificent job. I want to especially mention Habitat for Humanity and a local homespun organization we have, the Inner City Christian Federation. The latter has been phenomenally successful. We have done better at providing home ownership opportunities for low-income individuals than almost anywhere in this country. They are totally dependent on the HUD and MSHDA funding. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Chairman Walsh) and the members of the committee for their good work. I urge adoption of the rule and passage of the conference report.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Let me first comment briefly on the comments of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). I was disappointed that he came in and basically rained on the parade here, because frankly I think everyone in this Chamber and everyone in the House is very pleased with this bill and with the result that the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), and the ranking member have achieved. I am personally very pleased with it. Furthermore, on the issue of Social Security and dipping into Social Security, I hope we do not dip into Social Security this year, but even if we would have to dip into it slightly, as the gentleman from Wisconsin observed, I would just point out that during the last year that he controlled the Committee on Appropriations the dip into Social Security was well over $60 billion, the entire amount available. Now let me get to the main point that I wanted to make, and that is to thank the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), and the ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), for their work on this bill. I was responsible for circulating a letter which was signed by over 80 House Members and sent to the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations urgently requesting that the National Science Foundation budget be increased above the House figures as they came out of this chamber. I am very pleased that Chairman Walsh was able to accomplish that. In fact, he did yeoman's work on the entire budget, but particularly on the budget of the National Science Foundation. Furthermore, what he has done on environmental issues is also very worthy, and I certainly appreciate it. I thank him and the rest of the members of the committee for their fine work on this bill. I urge that we adopt the conference report.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I do plan to participate in part of his discussion. But before we get into that, I just wanted to respond to the comments of the previous speakers on the issue that was being discussed and just give some additional comments. Today, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) had a press conference at which he announced the development of a bill dealing with the Medicare issue and which the amount of money to be appropriated as well as administrative actions we are requesting be taken from the President will resolve the problem and will deal with all the issues and problems that were mentioned by the preceding two speakers. I also want to clarify, as Paul Harvey says, to give the whole story; and that is that many of the points that they were belaboring the Republican party for are in fact a direct result of the actions of the President and of his employees, particularly those at the Health Care Financing Administration. They have cut far more deeply than the legislation the Republicans got through asked them to do. As a result of that, the home health care agencies are severely in trouble, the rural hospitals and skilled nursing units are also in trouble, and even the major city hospitals are in trouble. The other factor that should be mentioned is that the President, who does have the responsibility for this and who has criticized us for not acting on this, has not come to the Congress with any suggestions of how to deal with it and has not initiated any actions as a result of the problem, although much of it he could do administratively through requests directed to the Health Care Financing Administration. So there is more to the story than was explained in the last 60 minutes, and I just want to make sure everyone in the House and in the Congress, as well as in our Nation, is aware of the fact. It is a broader story. The President has not acted as we think he should have. Furthermore, the Health Care Financing Administration has cut more severely than the Congress intended; and Congress has taken action and will conduct a hearing on that, in fact, and final action on the bill in committee this week to ensure that the additional funds will be allocated for hospitals, skilled nursing units, and for home health care. We hope this will go a long way toward resolving the problem.

Mr. EHLERS. Yes, in the overall rating, and we were behind Slovenia and a lot of other nations. This was all developed nations of course. It was a real shock, but there are other factors. Just recently our science Olympiad students went to compete on an international level, and they were bright students. I met with them, and they were very capable. But once again we did not win the international championship, and it was certainly not the fault of the students. It is just that we have to do a better job throughout our educational system of educating and preparing. Now there are several reasons for that. Number one, of course, is to produce good scientists and engineers, and that is very important in this technological age because, as my colleagues know and have heard repeatedly here, over one half of our economic growth today comes from science and technology, and if we do not train the people, we are going to lose that to other nations. We already are losing some and have to Japan which spends more on this, on scientific research and training, than we do, a greater percentage of their gross domestic product, and also Germany does the same, and, believe it or not, South Korea is almost overtaking us. So we have to watch this very carefully and do a better job. But there are other reasons why we have to do a better job in math and science education, and that is I am personally convinced that within 20 years you will not be able to get a decent job in America without some good understanding of science and technology. It even happens in my office here, and you would not think a congressional office would be that way. But I have told my employees; I said, just imagine, suppose you had worked here 20 years ago, and you fell into a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and you just woke up this morning and came to work here. Would you know what to do? And everyone of them said, no, they would not have the slightest idea because they could not even operate the telephones because telephones are basically computerized today. They obviously could not operate the computer, so they could not get letters out, and they could not handle mail and so forth. And you just go right down the line, so many things we do. If I asked them to find out what is in a particular bill, they would not know how to get on the Internet or the Intranet and look it up. We work much more efficiently in the Congress today because of our computerization, but it takes knowledge and skill, and the more that they learn in the school, the less they have to be trained when they get a job. That relates to another issue of what I call workplace readiness. We are spending a huge amount of money in this country, individual companies are spending that, training their employees to be able to do their work when they hire them, and we certainly have to do a better job of preparing them for the workplace. Third major reason for improving math and science education is just better educated citizens and voters. We deal with a lot of complex scientific issues here. How are the voters going to be able to judge us and judge the issues if they do not have some background in it? And similarly in the marketplace, as consumers; how are they going to be able to judge individual products when they evaluate the claims? As my colleagues know, are these claims, too, or are they not, particularly when you get to health supplements, or health care or issues like that. It is very complex, and we certainly need to do a better job of training them. Now how can we do that? Again, I mentioned earlier trying to find, train and keep better teachers. But there is more to it than that. There are a lot of teachers out there who did not receive adequate training. We should not talk in terms of they cannot do their job, is that not terrible? We should say, hey, they were trained in a different era. Our job in the government is to try to offer retraining, and that is why I have been a very strong advocate of what is called professional development, helping teachers who are out there, doing a good job but suffering because they have not had the proper training and they do not generally have the best textbook because there are not really good textbooks out there in many of these areas. Let us help them by providing professional development funds so that they can learn more about it. I am impressed every time that I go in the class. The teachers really want to do the job well, and they really are fearful when they have not had adequate training, and that is what we have to provide. One last thing the Federal Government could do without interfering with the local schools, but helping them a lot, and that is by funding research on better ways to teach, particularly teaching math and science. There are a lot of new ideas out there, and I have another aspect of that. I am hoping that we can, as a Federal Government, fund a national clearinghouse which will take all the supplementary materials available from chemical companies, from NASA, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They all have individual units. Put them all on the Internet, have them all catalogued so if a teacher wants to go and do a unit on Antarctica; there is an interest now because they are trying to save this doctor down there. She can just go right to the Net, she can give her students experiments that are ready on the Internet and say, hey, we read about Antarctica; why is it so cold there? And they can do a unit right that day.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to comment on that. You have touched on something that means a lot to me and I pursued a long time. For those who are not aware, I just mentioned that I happen to be a physicist, I have a doctorate in nuclear physics, and never in my life intended to get into politics, enjoyed teaching and research, but here I am. I was given an assignment by the previous Speaker of the House to work on improving our Nation's science policy and improving math and science education, and I am continuing this year under the direction of Speaker Hastert and the Chairman of the Committee on Science, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) both of whom have a deep interest in this and have given a lot of help and support. And you are quite right. The third international science and mathematics study which compared students from our high schools with students from high schools across the country really, I think, shamed us in the sense that our students came out near the bottom. They were at the bottom in physics, they were barely above the bottom in mathematics, and overall there were only two nations below us in the rankings of knowledge of math and science in high school.

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding. Let me just make a couple of final comments on Social Security and then I will say something about education. I happened to pick up this morning a sheet from the Committee on Appropriations' office because I was interested in digging out these numbers. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations had managed to get this out last week. In terms of the money taken from the Social Security trust fund to help balance the budget, if you go back to 1960 as you mentioned earlier, the problem starts then but the amounts are fairly small. Nothing in 1960, $431 million in 1961, then really low again, then up to $600 million, but very modest amounts, until 1967. What happened in 1967? President Lyndon Johnson, with the unfortunate agreement of the Congress, combined all the money in the Federal budget into what is called the unified budget. Now, that sounds nice but I have to tell you, I was angered back then. I was not involved in politics at all. I never dreamed I would be involved in politics. But I thought that was voodoo economics, to coin a phrase, that they were cheating, because they were taking all the funds, the gas tax trust fund that people pay to get roads built, the aviation trust fund, the Social Security trust fund, Medicare trust fund, combined it all into one. And then look at the figures of what happened after that. Immediately, that year, almost $4 billion, the highest amount that had ever been taken out of the Social Security trust fund. And it continues to be high, partly to cover the cost of the Vietnam War. Then it dropped down in 1976 to zero. Why? Because there was no surplus left in the Social Security fund. And then in 1984, 1983 and 1984, we revamped the Social Security tax and really increased it. It is now for many people, the lower income people, the highest tax they pay, for Social Security. So there is a fresh influx of money. And immediately the Federal Government began using that money once again to cover the deficits. It goes up, it starts modestly again, $212 million, before long it is up to $58 billion, then continues all the way up to $60 billion in 1995 and so forth, until we finally got in office and started chopping it down. Now, the other point I would like to comment on is the one made by the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Hill), about this is not the end-all just because we balanced the budget. We have to make up for all that money that was taken out and basically is added to our national debt. We have to begin paying back the national debt to correct the problems we have had ever since President Johnson went in the other direction in 1967. I am very pleased that last year we got the gas tax trust fund off-budget, so now when people pay their fuel tax, it actually goes into roads, bridges, highways and all the things that it was supposed to go into instead of being used for other purposes. This year, we are trying to get the aviation gas tax off-budget so the ticket tax that people pay when they travel will be used for better airports, runways and so forth. I hope someday personally that we can get the Social Security trust fund off-budget so we cannot even tinker with it and take that money out of there. That is a long-term goal. Now to shift gears a little bit and make some introductory comments about education. What should we do for education in this country from the Federal level? Here it is quite different from the previous topic we discussed. We have been criticizing the Democrats for a long time on their fiscal management, but I will commend them, just as I commended the Republicans, on their desire to improve education in the United States. I think that desire is shared throughout this entire Chamber. But there is a basic difference in philosophy, and I think it is very important to highlight that. The approach of the other party is to have a Washington down program; in other words, it starts here, we think of the ideas, we do the work here, and we filter all that down, and in the process we lose a lot of money. We can tell endless stories, and you may hear some of those later from my colleagues about the money that is wasted in that. The Republican philosophy is, first of all, that the Federal Government has a limited role in K-12 education. That is not the job of the Federal Government to dictate how the schools should operate; it is our job to try to help them in ways that they determine are best, and so that we should serve as a resource for the local and State governments as they attempt to run our schools and that our program should make sense. Furthermore, it is our philosophy that the Federal money should go directly down to the local schools where it will do some good. Right now, current estimate I am aware of is that only about 65 percent of the education dollars from Washington actually get down to the classroom. Thirty-five percent is lost in administration and other parts of the bureaucracy. Our goal, by virtue of a resolution we passed just yesterday, is to get 95 percent of the Federal money right down in the classrooms where it will do some good. Also, it is not the Republican philosophy to mandate precisely how that money is to be used. Just compare, for example, President Clinton's proposal to provide 100,000 new teachers. Now that is a noble gesture, but what would be accomplished? Governor Wilson in California tried to do exactly the same thing, and he found out that in fact the result was not what he had expected. Adding teachers to the California system, reducing class size, did not help. If you look at the students' scores, they really did not change. Why not? Because there are not enough qualified teachers available in California or, in fact, in the United States, and so they proceed to hire 100,000, or I forget precise number; they hired a large number of new teachers, most of whom are not qualified, and there was no net improvement in the schools. Rather than taking a Federal approach that says we will help you hire 100,000 new teachers, a far better approach is to say we want to hear from you at the local level what you could do to improve education in the schools and to work with them, and that has been the emphasis in the Committee on Education and the Workforce of which I am a member. And we have just passed out major legislation today, two different bills which will help the schools, but give them much greater flexibility than they have had in the past and reduce the amount of money spent at the Federal level trying to evaluate programs, telling them what to do and saying: You do it our way or the highway. So I think it is very important to recognize the distinction in philosophy. The people of this Nation can pick and choose which philosophy they want, but I happen to think just from my years in education; I spent 22 years teaching. As far as my money is concerned that I send to the Federal Government, Mr. Speaker, I would rather have it come back to the local schools and the teachers where they know how to use it and can use it well. Something else the Federal Government can help in tremendously is that we have to recruit and train and keep good teachers. Over the next decade we are going to lose 2 million teachers in the schools. There is going to be a great shortage, and that is something the Federal Government can help with through various scholarship programs to make sure that we get the best possible teachers, we train them the best possible way and we make sure we keep them and that they do not go off to other jobs.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to make a few additional points. First all, we talked in the past year about the tax cuts and the need to give money back to our citizens if we have a surplus. But let me point out to my colleagues how the citizens of our country are getting more money back than we could give them through a tax cut. Now, how could that possibly be? The point is simple. When I came here in late 1993, early 1994, we were running at an annual deficit of over $300 billion per year. We were going in the hole that much every year, using every penny I might add of the Social Security surplus. And then in the space of a short time, 5 years, we have changed that. And instead of a $300-billion deficit way done here, we are now up to over a $100-billion surplus. This is a $400-billion difference. Now, why does this help the people? It helps them in a lot of ways. First of all, we do not have as much interest to pay as we would have otherwise. But more directly, every economist I have talked to says, because we are not out there as a Government borrowing these huge amounts of money, the interest rates will go down and their estimate is the interest rate has dropped between one percent and two percent simply because we have balanced the budget and we have a surplus instead of the deficit. Now, how does that affect the average citizen? Just think about that for a moment. If the interest rates, just averaging the numbers they have given, is about 1\1/2\ percent lower, and recognizing that the average American home is worth $100,000 and so people have gone on to get a mortgage of roughly that amount for their first home on a $100,000 mortgage, a 1\1/2\ percent difference in interest rates means they are saving $1,500 per family, just on the mortgage every year, they are saving $1,500 a year because they have a lower interest rate on their mortgage. That is astounding. That is bigger than any tax cut we talked about giving them, even though we had proposed a very healthy tax cut in the Republican tax cut proposal. But we actually have given them more money back already just by balancing the budget and having a surplus because it has affected the economy. And this applies to purchases of cars, credit card debt, anything of that sort. So the average American is saving a lot of money just because we have balanced the budget, and that is very important to remember. The other point I would make about the comment from the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), and he has hit it right on the nose, once again, it amuses me, a couple of months ago we were being wrongly criticized by the folks on other side of the aisle that Republicans were raiding Social Security of all things. How could we do that? That was terrible. And even my Republican colleagues are starting to feel bad about this. Are we really doing that? We must not do that. So I got up and spoke at the Republican Conference a few weeks ago and said, hey, folks, remember, we may possibly dip into the Social Security reserve just a little bit yet this year and not do it next year, but I do not think we will even have to do that. But remember that the last several years the Democrats have not just dipped into it, they have run off with the whole pot. They have spent every single cent of the Social Security reserve for the past few years. Now, that is intolerable and it certainly means that they cannot criticize us for any actions we take in that regard this year but, rather, should thank us and congratulate us because we are determined not to touch this Social Security surplus, which is generated because people are paying more into Social Security than is currently be being taken out. And that money has to be saved for the future when the current people paying it in will retire and need their money back.

Mr. EHLERS. Just a brief comment on that, and a slight correction, but the correction is to make a point. There were several years in the late 1970s when Congress did not take anything out of the Social Security surplus. The reason for that is that there was no Social Security surplus. So what did they do? They still overspent but added it to the national debt. If you wonder why we have an almost $6 trillion national debt at this point, you can recognize what happened in those years. You just look to it, and see that they just kept the spending on and added it to the national debt. I do not want to imply that you are wrong in any way, but the point is simply they could not take any in those few years because there was not any. It was about 6 years longer.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I have been giving a series of comments in special orders about the importance of science in today's world, and also the importance of government funding of science, because the question often asked is why should the Federal Government be spending good taxpayers money to conduct scientific research. One very obvious reason: Over half of the economic growth of this country comes from the scientific research which we have funded in the past. I can give numerous examples, and I have given some in the past, but let me just point out a few tonight. When computers were first developed, one of the difficulties was how computers could talk to each other. That was resolved fairly readily. But then some bright individuals in the Defense Advance Research Project Agency began wondering how can we network a large number of computers. And then, beyond that, how can we connect the networks so that we have what is really an internet, a connection or a network of networks. That was not easily resolved, but it has had far-reaching implications when it was solved. The basic method is to create what is called a packet of information that travels along the telephone lines from one computer to another. There is a certain protocol of what is in that packet, what is at the lead, what is in the middle, what is at the end, so that you can keep track of these. After that was developed, the interest of the Defense Advance Research Project Agency was to tie together all the military laboratories in the United States. That eventually came to include other laboratories. And then the NSF got involved and developed what was called the NSF net, which broadened it to all universities. And that was the basis from which the Internet was developed. Now, who can question the value of the Internet today? So many people use it for so many purposes, we have trillions of dollars flowing on the Internet every day, indicating the commerce we have between banks and other places. If an individual's check is deposited by electronic fund transfer, that money was probably transferred over the Internet. I have been told, and I have not had a chance to check this for myself to be certain it is true, but I have been told that there is more money transferred electronically over the Internet each day than we have in the entire Federal budget for a year. That illustrates some of the importance of the Internet for this and for various other purposes. One little sidelight that might be interesting to my colleagues. As we developed these packets to go on the Internet, someone got the bright idea why not do the same thing with telephone information. In other words, treat voice information just as we treat computer information. So today, when we place a telephone call, our voices are chopped up and put in all these little packets, they travel over telephone lines by various routes, and when they reach their destination they are unscrambled, and no one on either end knows that this has happened. That has greatly increased the capacity of our telephone lines for carrying voice and data transmissions. Mr. Speaker, I now yield some time to my scientific colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who is a fellow physicist. We often work on science issues together. This is obviously a bipartisan issue, and I am pleased to yield to him.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I saw a Democratic member of this Congress on television stating that the Republicans were going to spend Social Security money to finally get the appropriations bills passed. I was astounded, absolutely astounded. First of all, he is wrong. We are not planning to do that. What is even worse, although I have been here only 5 years, I did serve under a Democratic administration of this House that first year I was here. Not only did we take Social Security money and spend it, we took every cent of Social Security money and spent it. Not only did we take all of the Social Security money and spend it, but we spent a couple of hundred billion dollars beyond that and added that to the national debt. That is what we had 5 years ago here in this House under Democratic control. Today the Republicans are controlling it. We are not adding to the national debt. We are trying not to spend a cent of Social Security to get our budget out. What a dramatic change, and to have someone from the other side say we are breaking the rules is just utter nonsense. Listen to the truth and the truth is things are much better today.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about something we do not discuss very much in the House of Congress, and that is our scientific effort in this Nation. I think it is important to point out as we are in the appropriations process some of the reasons why it is important for the Federal Government to support science. First of all, over half of our economic growth today arises out of scientific research work done within the past 3 to 5 decades, over half of our economic growth just from that source alone. We are very pleased with our good economy. Let us recognize what the cause is and make sure we continue that effort. Secondly, our scientific research results in a great improvement of the quality of life in this Nation, not just in all the good things we enjoy every day of our lives in various ways, but, for example, health care. Some of the major devices and methods used in improved health care today arise out of research that was taking place when I was a graduate student 40 years ago. That involves for example MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, the use of lasers in surgery, and other purposes, straight out of the laboratories of the times when I was in grad school. It is imperative that we continue to support that research. Yet, when we passed the appropriation bill last week, we cut NASA by $2 billion. We cut the National Science Foundation. Earlier, we cut the Department of Energy research program. We cannot do that. As we proceed through the appropriations process, let us make sure that that money is restored, that we continue our research effort, and that we continue to provide the knowledge, the goods and services, and economic growth that we want in this country.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California, the sponsor of the substitute, for yielding time to me. My only regret is he did such a masterful job of introducing his substitute that he has left very little to say. It is clearly a very good substitute. It is a very good piece of legislation and something we should pass. Mr. Chairman, let me add just a few comments about that. First of all, let us be pragmatic. As Members have heard a number of Members say, we passed this bill, the Shays-Meehan bill, last year. The Senate did not. We may pass it tonight. The Senate is unlikely to pass it. Let us pass something that will make a difference. Let us be pragmatic and vote for the Thomas substitute, and get something passed that will in fact make a difference. Furthermore, it is badly needed. I was just chatting with a member of my staff tonight. Less than 10 years ago he was working for a Member of Congress and they were answering all their mail with Selectric typewriters. My comment was, no wonder that Member lost his election. The times passed him by. The times have passed our current election law by and we have not corrected it. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) gave a list of all things that should be changed. I was astounded when I was elected to this House and found a totally antiquated computer system, and Speaker Gingrich asked me to work with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) in updating it. We have done that. Today all the Members of the House enjoy a marvelous computer system. They are on the Internet, they have websites. Yet, they are not willing to vote for a bill that will make a difference, that will put the FEC online, put all our contributions online immediately, in a direct fashion, and bring the system up to date. Let us be pragmatic. Let us vote for something that will work. Let us update current election law. Let us vote for the Thomas substitute and get this done.