Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, this amendment is about fairness. The bill before us is tilted heavily toward high-income taxpayers. The highest-income 1 percent of taxpayers would receive 35 percent of the benefits, while the majority of taxpayers in the bottom three- fifths of the population would get only a little more than 15 percent of the bill's benefits. My amendment would strike the cut in the top tax rate, and use the savings to increase the amount of income covered by the 10 percent income tax bracket. It would thus reduce the already large benefits to that less than 1 percent of the population with incomes of more than $297,000, and use the savings to give tax cuts to all income taxpayers. This amendment would restore a modicum of fairness to this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive the applicable sections of the act for consideration of my amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, my amendment would repeal the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program, the real ``death tax'' for many elderly Americans. When nursing home bills force a person onto Medicaid, the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program allows the government to put a lien on the family house and, upon the death of the spouse, recover the amount that Medicaid spent on nursing care. This Medicaid death tax does not affect the wealthy. In order to qualify for Medicaid, a person has to pay down assets, and the spouse can only keep so much under the spousal impoverishment provisions. But the Medicaid death tax effectively imposes a 100 percent estate tax on these vulnerable Americans. My amendment would repeal this Medicaid death tax. It offsets the cost by shaving back ever so slightly the reductions in the estate tax rates for the very largest estates. I urge colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. The last one. Madam President, I yield the floor. Amendment No. 727

Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank my colleagues. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, this is a simple amendment. It limits the estate tax repeal for estates of over one hundred million dollars and uses the savings to give tax cuts to all income tax payers. This debate is about priorities. It is a debate about where we should devote our resources. This amendment provides a clear, easily definable choice. The Senate has indicated that reforming the estate tax, especially for small businesses and farms, should be a priority. I support that goal, but this bill goes much further than any reasonable limit to address that concern. This bill goes beyond any common-sense definition of small businesses or modest estates. This bill provides massive amounts to money tax cuts to extremely wealthy multi-millionaires. How can anyone suggest that distributing the nation's hard-won surplus to multi-millionaires should be among our highest priorities? Literally hundreds of millions of Americans have more pressing needs. Specific tax cuts or spending increases come with a price. Every time we lower a tax rate or create a new tax loophole, the tax burden on everyone else increases. Last year, the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy told us how much we would have saved from our amendment to cap the estate tax repeal at estates of $100 million in size. At that time, their most current data was for 1998, for people who died in 1997 and paid taxes in 1998. In that year, 35 estates amounted to more than $100 million. Of those, 31 paid taxes, and 4 did not. Those 31 estates paid $1.4 billion in taxes, or 7 percent of all estate taxes. Repealing the estate tax for those estates would have given those estates a tax cut averaging $45 million each. Too often, the choices we weigh are heartbreakingly difficult. This is not one of those cases. It makes some sense to increase the current exemption on estates; it makes no sense at all to repeal the estate tax for the handful of estates over one hundred million dollars. Madam President, surely the supporters of estate tax cuts must agree that eliminating the estate tax on those handful of estates over one hundred million dollars is not our highest priority or anywhere close to it. My amendment eliminates the repeal of the estate tax on estates of more than $100 million, and uses the savings to increase the income tax cut for all income tax payers. It is a simple choice. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate temporarily set aside the pending amendments.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, it is no secret that the benefits of this bill are not fairly distributed. The highest-income one percent receive 35 percent of this bill's benefits. A significant contributor to this imbalance is the estate tax provisions of the bill. Even under current law, roughly 98 percent of Americans will never have to pay a cent of estate tax. So this bill's $145 billion in estate tax cuts will benefit only the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, and will have no benefit for the other 98 percent of us. But even in the estate tax provisions themselves, this bill tilts unnecessarily to the very wealthiest. The bill would increase the unified credit exemption up to $4 million a person, or $8 million a couple. This change alone will exempt all but the very wealthiest Americans from any contact with the estate tax. But the bill goes further. It would also reduce the rate of taxation that the few extremely wealthy families who still have to pay the estate tax would pay. It thus focuses tax cuts on the very pinnacle of wealth. Let me give you an idea of the numbers. According to an analysis done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, fewer than 50,000 families in the entire United States paid any estate tax at all in 1999. But of those families, fewer than 3,300 families had estates larger than $5 million in size. These small numbers are indicative of the very few who would benefit from the rate reductions in this bill. My motion to recommit would spread the estate tax relief in this bill more broadly. My motion would instruct the Finance Committee to strike all the estate tax rate reductions in the bill and use the savings to expand the amounts of the estate tax unified credit exemption amounts. Thus under my motion, more relatively smaller estates would be exempted from taxation altogether. I have been told that elimination of the rate reductions would allow the unified credit exemption to increase to $5 million, or $10 million a couple. This motion would give complete estate tax relief to more families earlier than the underlying bill. That is the direction we should go, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I send a motion to commit to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, this amendment is about tax fairness. The bill before us is tilted heavily toward high-income taxpayers. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, when this bill's tax cuts are fully phased in, the highest-income one percent of taxpayers would receive 35 percent of the benefits of the bill. The majority of taxpayers in the bottom three-fifths of the population would get only a little more than 15 percent of the bill's benefits. When this bill's tax cuts are fully phased in, the one percent of taxpayers with the highest incomes would receive an average tax cut of more than $44,000, while taxpayers in the middle fifth of the population would receive an average tax cut of less than $600. Even as a share of their income, those with the highest incomes would receive greater benefits under this bill. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, when fully phased in, this bill's tax cuts would increase the after-tax income of the highest-income one percent of families by an average of 5 percent, but it would increase the average after-tax income of the middle fifth of families by just a little more than 2 percent. Nationwide, only 907,990 taxpayers, or \7/10\ of a percent of taxpayers are in the top tax bracket. But that group is not too small to capture the attentions of this tax bill. In response to an inquiry from Senator Rockefeller during the Finance Committee markup on Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Taxation indicated that reducing the top rate from 39.6 percent to 36 percent in steps over 10 years costs $120 billion in this bill. That's $120 billion for fewer than a million taxpayers. In contrast, fully 128 million taxpayers do not fall into the top tax bracket and would get no benefits whatsoever from the reduction in the top tax rate. In my own State of Wisconsin, fewer than 15,600 taxpayers, or \6/10\ of a percent of taxpayers, are in the top tax bracket, and fully 2.5 million taxpayers are not in the top tax bracket. My amendment is a simple one. It would strike the cut in the top income tax rate, and use the savings to increase the amount of income covered by the 10 percent income tax bracket. It would thus reduce the already large benefits to that less than one percent of the population with incomes of more than $297,000, and use the savings to give tax cuts to all income taxpayers. Mr. President, this amendment would restore a modicum of fairness to this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the current amendment be set aside.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at that point.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, it was for that reason that I did not ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, my amendment would eliminate the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program, the real ``death tax'' for thousands of elderly of modest means. It offsets the cost of eliminating this program by shaving back the reductions in the estate tax rates. The Medicaid Estate Recovery Program may be the most regressive tax of all. It effectively imposes a 100 percent estate tax on our most vulnerable citizens--severely disabled seniors who are impoverished. It is levied against the first dollar of the estate's value. At a time when we are considering completely eliminating all estate taxes on the super wealthy, it is indecent to retain a 100 percent tax on the estates of those with practically nothing. The average annual cost of nursing home care is about $40,000 or about $110 per day. That cost poses an enormous burden on many elderly or disabled individuals, many of whom are forced to spend down a lifetime's savings before they become poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. After having spent down those savings, a home may be the only thing they have left to leave to their children. The estate recovery program not only places liens on homes, I also understand that personal property may be at risk in some areas. Grandma's locket may have little material worth but may have great sentimental value to children and grandchildren. Nevertheless, they may go on the block, too, and there is strong anecdotal evidence that many forgo needed care in order to avoid losing their homes and personal property to the estate recovery program. The estate recovery program does little to offset the cost of Medicaid, accounting for only one-tenth of one percent of the funding for the program according to data from the Congressional Research Service. In fact, there is reason to believe that the estate recovery program may not even achieve this tiny savings, but instead may actually result in greater Medicaid expenditures. Individuals who forgo nursing home care to avoid liens on their homes and personal keepsakes may end up requiring far more expensive care as a result, and the ensuing higher cost of care only leaves the taxpayers worse off because of this self- neglect. The estate recovery program can work a real hardship on surviving spouses. After surviving the chronic illness of their loved one, and spending down their life's savings, they then must cope with a lien on their home. As the Congressional Research Service notes, though claims on an individual's estate cannot be acted upon until after the death of the surviving spouse, liens placed on houses can affect an individual's financial credit, preventing that spouse from mortgaging property, getting a bank loan, or taking out a new credit card in order to pay for essential living expenses such as home repairs like a new furnace or a leaking roof. This program turns States into Realtors and pawn brokers. Some States have simply not implemented the program, and I understand that among them is the President's home State of Texas. Under my amendment the rest of the country would conform to the practice of Texas. Mr. President, my amendment gets States out of the real estate business. It ends a program that dissuades elderly with severe disabilities from seeking the care they need while generating a pitifully small revenue stream. It ends the 100 percent ``death tax'' that is imposed on families with the most modest means. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

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

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be temporarily set aside.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the disclosure late last week that the Government had failed to share thousands of pages of evidence with defense attorneys in the case of Timothy McVeigh. Let me first say that my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families who lost loved ones as a result of this horrific, cowardly act. My heart goes out to them. For them, this cannot help but be a very difficult time. Sadly, their ordeal has only been aggravated by the national spectacle surrounding McVeigh's planned execution and now this latest revelation of the mishandling of his case. This latest unforeseen turn must only add to their anger, their pain, and their grief. There is no question that McVeigh should be punished severely for this heinous crime. On that, there can be no disagreement. But the FBI's belated release of these thousands of documents highlights the fact that the Federal Government's administration of the death penalty, even in the most highly scrutinized of cases, is fallible. At his press conference Friday, President Bush said: Any time we're preparing to carry out the death penalty, we have a solemn obligation to make sure that the case has been handled in full accordance with all the guarantees of our Constitution. The very foundations of our democracy depend on our ability to assure our citizens that in all criminal cases, and especially in the death penalty, defendants have been treated fairly. I agree with President Bush. But if this kind of gross failure can occur in a case managed by the most competent, professional law enforcement agency of which we know, doubts must arise with regard to the Government's ability in every capital case ``to assure . . . that defendants have been treated fairly.'' And if this kind of dereliction occurs in a case vigilantly observed under the television klieg lights, doubts must arise that this Nation has made sure that other capital defendants' cases have ``been handled in full accordance with all the guarantees of our Constitution.'' And if this kind of deficiency can take place when dedicated and well-trained counsel have labored and diligently applied themselves to ensure fairness for this defendant, doubts must arise that this Nation is in all death penalty cases delivering the justice on which ``[t]he very foundations of our democracy depend.'' To honor ``the guarantees of our Constitution,'' we must ensure the fairness of the entire process by which the Government applies the death penalty--from arraignment, to trial, to sentencing. And to ensure that ``defendants have been treated fairly,'' we must ensure equity in treatment for all defendants, regardless of where in the Nation they live or what the color of their skin. In these respects, the case of Timothy McVeigh does not present the Bush administration its most difficult test. For the McVeigh case lacks the questions of innocence, regional disparity, and discrimination that haunt so much of death row. After McVeigh's, the next scheduled Federal execution is that of Juan Raul Garza. Because of questions raised about regional and racial disparities in the Federal death penalty system, his execution was stayed until June 19. When he stayed the execution, President Clinton instructed the Justice Department to conduct a study to determine the causes of those regional and racial disparities. Observers of justice in America will await how the Justice Department and the President review these questions. Until these questions are resolved, and until we are certain of the fairness of the process, the Government should not execute Juan Raul Garza. These questions may provide the weightiest test of Attorney General Ashcroft and President Bush in the weeks to come.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I, again, thank the ranking member, the chairman, and the Senator from California for their generosity in giving me this time. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Senator very much for her amendment and for her help in getting me time to speak. (The remarks of Mr. Feingold are located in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'')

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am happy to join with the Senator from Arizona in offering this amendment. Actually, that is not true. I am not really happy we are offering the amendment; I am disappointed and puzzled. Because this amendment should be totally unnecessary. It is unnecessary because by instructing the enrolling clerk not to transmit S. 27 to the House, the majority leader is frustrating the will of the Senate and of the American people for no apparent reason. I was pleased with the debate we had on campaign finance reform back in late March. Not only because we finally were able to have a real debate, vote on amendments, and ultimately pass a good bill, but also because I thought the Senate acquitted itself extremely well under difficult circumstances. Both sides played fair in that debate. The majority leader kept his word not to filibuster the bill. The opponents fought hard but did not drag out the proceedings unnecessarily. I think we kept our word as well, even though there were amendments added that we did not necessarily approve of or like a great deal. We did not offer a cleanup amendment before the end of the debate to wipe out all the work of other Members of the Senate; we let the chips fall as the Senate wished. The result was a bill of which the Senate and the public could be proud. As we know, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 59-41 on April 2, 2001. There was a technical amendment right before final passage, and it could normally be expected with such a complex piece of legislation that it might take a few days for the bill to be engrossed and officially delivered to the House. That is the way the legislative process legitimately works. The House passes a bill, and it goes to the Senate; the Senate passes a bill, and it goes to the House. But it has been a month and a half. The McCain-Feingold bill passed by the Senate still has not been sent over to the House. There is not a question at all that it is ready to go, but apparently an instruction was received by the enrolling clerk not to follow the standard procedure when the Senate passes a bill. That instruction clearly originated with the majority leader of this body. This is actually an embarrassment to the Senate. I think it would also be an embarrassment to the majority leader. I thought we were beyond petty game playing in this body. These kinds of tactics discredit the institution, and they also completely undercut the good feeling many of us gained during that extraordinary 2 weeks of open debate. As a result, this action by the majority leader could be indicative of the lengths to which the opponents of reform will go to stop the bill even when they have lost in the Senate fair and square. Will they stop at nothing? Is there no legislative or parliamentary tactic too obscure to be invoked in the name of stopping reform, to be invoked in the name of protecting this big money system? In the end, we will enact a reform bill for the American people in this Congress, and the President will sign it, no matter how the opponents complain or what tricks they try to stop it. I agree with the Senator from Arizona that we need to resolve this. The regular business needs to go forward, but that has to happen after this message is sent clearly by the Senate that it is long overdue for this bill to be sent over to the House. I yield the floor.

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. I rise to add my thoughts to this important debate about the proposed annual testing requirements for students in grades 3-8. This bill that we are debating would require states to implement annual testing in reading and math by the 2005-2006 school year; to develop standards for science and history by the 2005-2006 school year; and to implement annual assessments in science for students in grades 3-8 by the 2007-2008 school year. I commend the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wellstone] for his commitment to ensuring that these tests are high in quality and do not have an adverse impact on students, teachers, schools, school districts, and States. I am pleased to be listed as a cosponsor of a number of his amendments to this bill to improve its testing provisions. I actually heard a lot about this proposal for testing from the people of Wisconsin, and their response has been almost universally negative. My constituents oppose this proposal for many reasons, including the cost of developing and implementing additional tests, the loss of teaching time every year to prepare for and take the tests, the linking of success on these tests to ESEA administrative funds, and the pressure that these additional tests will place on students, teachers, schools, and school districts. I share my constituents' concerns about this proposed Federal mandate. I find it interesting that proponents of the BEST Act say that this bill will return more control to the states and local school districts. I strongly support local control over our children's day-to- day classroom experiences. In my view, however, this massive new federal testing mandate runs counter to the idea of local control. Many States and local school districts around the country already have testing programs in place. We should leave the means and frequency of assessment up to the States and local school districts who bear the responsibility for educating our children. Every State and every school district is different. A uniform testing policy may, therefore, not be the best approach. I am extremely concerned that this new Federal requirement will teach our children that education is not about preparing for their futures, but rather about preparing for tests. That education is really about sharp number two pencils and test sheets; about making sure that little round bubbles are filled in completely; and--if their school districts and states have enough money--maybe about exam booklets for short answer and essay questions. American students are already tested at many levels--in their classrooms, in their schools, in their districts, and in their States. My home state of Wisconsin currently tests students in reading in grade 3 through the Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test, and in reading, language, math, science, and social studies in grades 4, 8, and 10 with the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations. Wisconsin also will require a high school graduation test beginning in the 2003-2004 school year. And this is in addition to regular classroom tests and quizzes and tests given at the district level by many of the 426 school districts in my State. Then, for those students hoping to go to college, there is the pre-SAT, the SAT, the ACT and on and on. I know; I have four kids who are just completing all that process, or have in the last couple of years. It is an awful lot of testing already. One of my constituents who is a high school counselor said the high school students in her district spend so much time taking standardized tests that the district could award them one-half of a credit for testing. How much testing is worth one-half of a credit? During their 4 years in high school, the students in this district will spend 84 hours taking standardized tests--84 hours. This does not even include regular classroom tests, final exams, or instruction time spent on test preparation. According to one teacher who recently contacted me regarding this legislation: Already I see that teachers are spending too much time on test preparation rather than good instruction. The test administration itself takes valuable time away from instruction and does not provide new data on individual children for the well informed teacher. . . . [M]ultiple choice tests with some short answer [questions] only measure rudimentary knowledge. They rely on memorizing and regurgitating isolated facts and most items only allow one correct answer. Students are being evaluated on one single test. What if the student has a bad day? Lastly, the truly scary part is that standardized tests ensure that half of our students will always be `below average.' How can we meet the benchmark that everyone will score proficient and advanced when the tests are designed to never let that happen?. . .Taking more tests is not going to improve learning. I have heard from many education professionals such as these in my state that this new testing requirement is a waste of money and a waste of time. These people are committed to educating the children of my state, and they don't oppose testing. I think we can all agree that testing has its place. What they oppose is the magnitude of testing that is proposed in this bill. One of the biggest concerns I have heard about this program is its cost. In my home state of Wisconsin, where the state imposes limits on the amount of money school districts can raise and spend annually, education budgets are already stretched to the breaking point, and federal funding is absolutely critical. And to add a federally-mandated testing program with little in the way of resources to implement it will only compound this problem. I am pleased that the Senate passed an amendment offered by the Chairman of the HELP Committee, Mr. Jeffords, to increase funding for this testing program but I remain concerned this bill still falls far short of authorizing enough funding for this program. Under the provisions of the BEST Act, Wisconsin would have to develop new reading tests for grades 5, 6, and 7 and new math tests for grades 3, 5, 6, and 7. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the estimated cost to add these additional tests would be between $2 million and $5.3 million annually, depending on the type of tests chosen by the state. And this is over and above the $1.5 million the state already spends on testing in grades 3, 4, and 8. And this figure does not include the cost of the state-mandated Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination for grade 10, which also fulfills the federal requirement to tests students in math and reading at least once between grade 10 and grade 12. And it does not include the cost of the Wisconsin High School Graduation Test. And it does not include the additional cost that the state will have to incur to develop and implement the additional science tests in grades 3, 5, 6, and 7 that this bill requires to begin in the 2007-2008 school year. Teachers in my state are concerned about the amount of time that they will have to spend preparing their students to take the tests and administering the tests. They are concerned that these additional tests will disrupt the flow of education in their classrooms. One teacher said the preparation for the tests Wisconsin already requires can take up to a month, and the administration of the test takes another week. That is five weeks out of the school year. And this bill would require teachers to take a huge chunk out of each year in grades 3-8. In my view, and in the view of the people of my state, this time can be better spent on regular classroom instruction. In addition to the financial cost and the instruction time lost, my constituents are concerned about the value of these tests to students, parents, and teachers. According to one teacher, the existing tests don't have any meaning to students and have little meaning to classroom teachers. The impact of these tests on students varies. Some students have high test anxiety and, as a result, grow to fear tests. Others simply do not care about the tests, and fill in random answers on their test sheets. And for students who are struggling, a low test score on a standardized test can be demoralizing. Most students, of course, try their best. But they are confused about why they are taking these tests, and many students and parents are confused by the results of these tests. Many teachers are unsure about how to interpret the test results. They see statistics that tell them about the numbers of right and wrong answers and about percentiles, but the test results provide little in the way of information for teachers and parents to know where students are having problems. Because so many standardized tests are copyrighted and are used more than once, students, parents, and teachers do not have the opportunity to compare the students' answers to the correct answers. They are unable to determine which concepts the students need help with, or for which concepts the students have demonstrated understanding. Our children are real people, not numbers. Yet the testing program contained in this bill would judge our students, teachers, schools, school districts, and states by test scores. In my view, linking funding sanctions to test performance sends the wrong signal. As I noted earlier, students respond differently to tests. To link education funding to a series of high-stakes tests not only does a disservice to our children, but to our teachers, parents, schools, school districts, and states. I also fear that this new annual testing requirement will disproportionately impact disadvantaged students. As the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, has said so many times on this floor, we must ensure that all students have an equality of opportunity to be successful in school. To that end, I am pleased that the Senate adopted an amendment to this bill offered by the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, and the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, that would authorize full funding of Title I over the next ten years. I am also pleased to be an original cosponsor of the amendment that will be offered by the Senator from Minnesota which would modify the annual testing provisions of the bill to clarify that states will not be required to implement the annual tests unless Title I is funded at $24.7 billion by July 1, 2005, which is consistent with the funding levels in the Dodd-Collins amendment. Study after study shows that disadvantaged students lag behind their peers on standardized tests. We must ensure that schools have the resources to help these students catch up with their peers before students are required to take these new annual tests. If we fail to provide adequate resources to these schools and these students, we run the risk of setting disadvantaged children up for failure on these tests--failure which could damage the self-esteem of our most vulnerable students. The issue of standards and testing is addressed in the cover story in the May 2001 issue of Phi Delta Kappan magazine, which is published by the International Association of Professional Educators of the same name. In his article, ``Undermining Standards,'' John Merrow discusses the dangers of high-stakes testing, arguing that ``in many places testing has gotten ahead of developing and then implementing standards.'' He also expresses a concern about the impact of testing on the classroom environment and on classroom teachers: that ``test preparation is dominating classroom time, stifling creativity and imagination, and taking the joy out of teaching.'' Merrow also addresses the annual testing program proposed by the President and included in this bill. He says, ``As I read President Bush's proposals, it seems to me that . . . about six things can happen, and five of them are bad. Such high-stakes testing may (1) lead to an even more arid curriculum, (2) drive away talented teachers, (3) tempt states to lower the bar in order not to lose federal money, (4) increase pressure to cheat, and (5) alienate educated parents. That's not `reform with results,' at least not the results those who support public education would wish for.'' Merrow continues, ``Of course, the President's plan might actually work the way he hopes it will. That is if he backs away from making test scores the be-all and end-all of schooling, his plan might just scare school systems into putting more energy into learning.'' As my constituents have told me, this proposal does scare them--but not in the way the President has intended. I urge all of my colleagues to take a few minutes to read this article. I am concerned that the emphasis that is placed on testing as a means of accountability in this bill could result in a generation of students who know how to take tests, but who don't have the skills necessary to become successful adults. I yield the floor.