Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I, along with three of our other colleagues, had a great hearing in Minnesota today. It really builds on what we have learned. I think today was the 21st State that we have gone to, the 23rd field hearing that we have gone to people at the local and at the State level. We have asked them what is working in education and then really, and we should maybe do this in future hearings, to give us a grade as to how Washington is either helping them or assisting them in getting them and enabling them to get done what they want to get done at the local level. I think one of the witnesses that we had today, I do not remember exactly which one it was, maybe the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) does, who said when one takes a look at the system that we have created here in Washington, of hundreds of different programs, hundreds of different mandates, and the number that we have heard today was, we get 6 percent of the money from Washington, we get 70 percent of the rules and the regulations. That is not outlandish. I mean, consistently when we go from one State to the next, Ohio, they have documented it. They said we get 7 percent of our money from Washington, we get 50 percent of the mandates, 50 percent of the paperwork. So that is consistent from all the States that we have talked to. But one of the people said, ``Only you in Washington could come up with a system that looks like this. If you are actually focused on kids, if you were focused on results, which is kids learning, you would have a very different set of programs and requirements. Only a system that is focused on process, you know, that this is what we want to have happen and this funding stream and a system that measures process rather than kids learning is what we have created here in Washington.'' Again, we heard it in Minnesota today. We have heard it at every single State that we have gone to; that is, the formula for kids' learning, parental involvement, number one. That is the key. A focus on basic academics. Again, we have got a charter school today talking, traditional public schools talking about a focus on basic academics. You have to provide a safe and a drug-free school. You cannot have learning go on where kids are concerned about their safety or they are concerned about what their colleagues or their peers are doing in the classroom or in the hallways. You have to focus on getting dollars into the classroom. That consistently is the formula. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) is talking about we have got this program, we have got that program, what have we learned? We learned that, when one has got hundreds of education programs, one has got streams of paperwork of bureaucracy; that every time Wisconsin, Michigan, or Minnesota sends dollars to Washington for education they have got to come back to us begging to get some of their money back. We then give it to them. We give it to them with a whole string of mandates so they end up spending it on things they do not necessarily believe are their priorities. Instead of getting a dollar back for every dollar that they send here, when one calculates all the paperwork, all of the bureaucracy, all these types of things, we believe that at most they get 60 cents back. Maybe sometime later as we go through the process there are some other things that we can talk about. We can talk about exactly how effective the bureaucracy is here in Washington. This is a Department that now, for 2 years in a row, has failed its audit, meaning that it cannot come back to Congress, it cannot come back to the American people, the people that fund this agency, and say we have been very careful in managing your money and we can tell you exactly where it goes. We know for 2 years they failed their audit. We know that for at least 3 more years, they will not be able to get a clean audit. We all know that, in that kind of environment, there have been a number of opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse. We can maybe outline what some of those are later on as we go through this process. Then we can also talk about what some of our priorities are for addressing this issue. My colleagues have already mentioned one, which is let us fully fund and meet the commitments that we have made to local school districts by increasing and meeting our commitment on IDEA. We can talk about eliminating bureaucracy and red tape through the Ed-Flex program, giving school districts more flexibility through the State, the straight A's program where we give them the money and say you decide whether you want to hire teachers, train teachers, reduce class size, or whatever, and also we want to focus on getting 95 cents of every Federal education dollar into the classroom. So there is a whole series of things that we can talk about as we continue through this hour. I yield back to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) to either build on some of these thoughts or on some other ideas that he may have.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think the best example today was we know that most States or many States, I think it is over 30, 33, 35 States, have embarked on a charter school initiative. We have gone around and we have heard and we recognize each State is different. This week we are going to embark here in Congress on a program to help charter schools. Part of that is going to be a school construction program. The State representative from Minnesota.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado for yielding me this time. I also would like to applaud the work of our colleague on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), on his strong support for the charter school movement. I think what we are talking about today is we are talking about an aspect of the total package of public education; not pointing this out and saying this is the best version of public education, but recognizing that this is a reform in public education that ought to be highlighted, as well as reinforcing the solid public education that has gone on in this country day after day, year after year, for so many years. I want to make sure that our constituents recognize that this is an aspect of the total package of public education that is offered to our children around the country. This resolution commends the charter school movement for its contribution to improving our Nation's public education system. Charter schools have made tremendous progress in improving and reforming public education. Reports show that parental satisfaction is high, students are eager to learn, teachers and administrators are free from bureaucratic red tape, and more dollars are getting to the classroom. As these innovations and these improvements are highlighted through the charter school movement, we also see that a number of our other public schools are asking for the same kind of freedom and the same kind of relief from bureaucratic red tape, so that as we learn through the charter school movement about reforms and changes that can help public education, I am hopeful that the people who are administering the rest of public education or the legislators take a look at it and say, these things are helping our kids, let us take some of these reforms and let us move them into all of public education. That is why charter schools in many cases are being seen as the force that is driving change in schools around the country. Parents are given new choice for their children, and other schools have responded by increasing emphasis on parental involvement and high academic standards. That has been going on. But I think also what has been happening is that the charter school movement has been accelerating this pace in certain of our schools. Charter schools have an unprecedented amount of accountability to parents, school board members, and State governments. A school can be closed if it does not do its job and if it does not improve student performance. This method of accountability is spreading to traditional public schools and to the Federal education program. In the State of Michigan we have 173 charter schools, educating more than 50,000 students. More than 70 percent of these schools have waiting lists. This clearly indicates the success of charter schools in these communities and the desire on the part of parents to have more options in public education. Charter schools represent reform; they represent innovation in public education. I hope all of my colleagues will join me in honoring them and also recognizing the work of all public schools for their important contributions to educating our kids and that they will do that by supporting this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the important comments that my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), will now make.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to congratulate him on the budget work that he has done over the last number of years. What we are now taking a look at is we are taking a look at a budget that is not going to steal from Social Security. But perhaps one of the most important things about this budget is that we reinvest in education. We reinvest in education in a way that will make an impact for our kids. What we do is we take dollars away from a Washington bureaucracy, and we move the rules and regulations away from the process and target getting dollars back to our children. We get the dollars into the classroom. We get the dollars into a school district where the people who are making the decisions for our kids and for the learning process are the people that know the names of our kids. But more importantly, not only do they know the names of our kids, they also know the needs of our kids. They know the needs of the community and the school district. So what we will get is we will get more effective decision-making, we will get more dollars to the classroom where they actually make a difference.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the budget passed by this Chamber provides the framework and the foundation for continued prosperity. We know where the Republican priorities are. In 1993, I came to Washington. I came to Washington because I watched the other side spend the Social Security surplus for 40 years. We are now on our way to the 3rd year balancing the budget by not spending one dime of Social Security. The Republicans have their priorities right. We are going to strengthen Medicare by setting aside $40 billion for a prescription drug program. We are going to work at retiring public debt rather than accumulating public debt as we did for 40 years. We are going to promote tax fairness for families, farmers, and seniors. We are going to restore American defense. We are going to strengthen education in America. I want to talk a little bit more about how we strengthen education in America. We have seen one approach to strengthening education, which is creating program after program after program here in Washington, throwing $35 billion into an agency that cannot even keep its own books. It cannot balance its own books. What does that mean? It means that it does not even think enough about our kids to make sure that every dollar that we invest in education makes it into a classroom, makes it to a child where it actually can make a difference. There is a better way. Rather than having an education bureaucracy in Washington which is mandating to local school districts and to parents how to spend their educational dollars, the Republican plan, we maintain the funding, we increase the funding, but we give it to the school districts in a way that gives them maximum flexibility. We increase funding for the Individuals With Disabilities Act. As we give the school districts and local districts more money, it frees up their money to move those dollars to the areas that they feel are most important. We preserve funding for the Innovative Education Program Strategies. What is this? This is a very flexible block grant back to local school districts. It says we trust them to take some of this money and allocate it to the things that they think are most important. The President has not even requested funding for this program since 1994. We reject cuts in impact aid. This is where money flows to local school districts because they have a significant impact because of Federal programs and facilities in their districts. We increase spending for Pell Grants. The Pell Grant program helps lower income students attend college. There is a clear difference. One program says we are going to invest in Washington; the other says we are going to invest in our local schools and our local kids.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

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

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank the chairman for his courtesy. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I would say to my colleague from Wisconsin that we are developing a bill to do exactly what he has asked for, which will include comprehensive audits of all the agencies that have failed their audits in 1999. I believe that is 12 out of the 24 Federal agencies. We hope to work together with the gentleman on that bill. As it relates to the Department of Education, my colleague from Colorado and I share oversight responsibilities for the Department of Education. What we have experienced is 2 years of failed audits, 3 years where the Department of Education has made over $50 million in duplicate payments and the misprinting of 3.5 million forms. Currently there is a vigorous investigation going on into computer theft at the Department of Education. And recently the Department of Education awarded 39 scholarships to young people called the Jacob Javits scholarship. The disappointing thing is that these 39 students did not actually qualify for the awards. The Department has told us that there will be 2 more years of failed audits and perhaps in 3 years is when there will be a clean audit. Any company in the private sector that had this kind of performance would have the trading of its stock suspended. It would be in major trouble. That is exactly where the Department of Education is today. It has created an environment ripe for fraud, waste, and abuse. Now is the time to step in and do an aggressive investigation of that Department to make sure that the 35 to $38 billion that we give to that agency each and every year makes it to the place where the dollars are supposed to go: Helping our kids learn. Making sure that the dollars get to local classrooms so that our kids are learning exactly what they need to learn. Now is the time for a vigorous fraud audit of the Department of Education.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this is an issue about accountability. In 1993, this Congress voted to create the Corporation for National Service. This is not a debate about the merits of the corporation. As a matter of fact, in 1993, I voted for its formation. I voted for its vision of implementing leading edge and best business practices to this new government agency. The Corporation has fallen short. For 5 years it has never had a clean audit, despite repeated promises from its leadership to improve its accountability, its accountability to Congress and to the American people. My amendment is very simple. It moves $1 million from the estimated $100,000 overfunding from the Educational Trust Fund to the Inspector General to conduct an audit of State commissions. Our subcommittee, in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, has received testimony of lax enforcement mechanisms and financial controls at the State level. As we move more than two-thirds of the Corporation for National Service funds through State agencies, we need to ensure that we protect the investment of the American taxpayer, and that we maintain the integrity of the program itself. Five years is enough time, it is enough patience, to show to the Corporation. It is enough patience to deal with the stories of waste and abuse within the program.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, what does the Republican budget mean for you and your family? It means a debt-free Nation for our children. In education it means more dollars for our classrooms and more dollars for our children instead of dollars for bureaucracy and redtape. The distinction could not be more clear. The Democratic alternative wants to force on our local schools programs and mandates that do not work. They want to build our schools, hire our teachers, buy the technology, feed our kids breakfast, dictate the curriculum, teach our kids about sex, teach them about drugs, teach them about art, feed our kids lunch, and then they want to test them. Other than that, they believe in local control. And then they are going to move all of those programs and move those decisions for each one of those areas into a department in Washington that for 2 years has failed its financial audits, has told the American people give us $35 billion per year, but we are not going to take the time or the energy to be able to account where that money is spent. That is wrong. The alternative is providing resources to local schools to tailor solutions to meet the needs of our local school districts, to meet their particular needs, a vision that gives decision-making and discretion to local administrators, to parents and teachers, the people that know our kids' names and know their needs. The differences could not be clearer. Are we going to move decision-making to the Department of Education here in Washington, or are we going to leave the decision-making at the local level? It is time to support the Republican budget. It increases spending and investment in education, but it preserves and builds educational excellence through local decision-making, not through decision-making based here in Washington. Support this budget. It is the right thing to do. It builds on what we know works and walks away from that which we know that does not work.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I think the most important thing that we compare this budget to the budget that the Republicans have proposed is that the Republicans have proposed a balanced, common sense approach. What will this mean to the average American family? It means that we will have a debt-free Nation for our children. We have balanced the budget. The Republican budget will pay down the $3.6 trillion debt over the next 13 years. It means a more secure future for our seniors. We stop the 30-year raid on Social Security, and we preserve the Social Security surplus into the future. It means a stronger effort to find cures for cancer and Alzheimer's. We are making a significant commitment to further research in the health area. It means a safer world and fulfilling our pledge to those who made it that way. We are going to keep our commitment to our veterans. We increase funding for education. What we do in education is we target those dollars so that, when the Federal dollars get down to the local level, it gives the local entities a maximum amount of flexibility to design the programs that best fit the needs of that community, that school, and the children in that area. We increase funding for IDEA, the Individuals With Disabilities Education. We increase funding for title VI. This is innovative education programs. This is the most flexible dollars that come to a local school district. We keep our commitment to defense by ensuring that those communities that have defense installations will get the Federal assistance that they need. What does this mean? It means that we give local communities maximum flexibility. It is a very different approach than what the President is taking. The President's approach, the Democratic approach, is to develop more programs and run them through a bureaucracy in Washington and force local communities to accept programs that do not necessarily work, in many cases that do not work at all. We are running them through a bureaucracy that for 2 years has failed its audits and has told us that for 2 more years we can expect failed audits. It means that we are running $35 billion through this agency each and every year, and they cannot tell us where the dollars are going. The Republican budget says and the Republican program says let us get these dollars back to a local community, let us give these dollars to local administrators, to parents and teachers that know the names of our kids. It is not an issue of spending. It is an issue of getting maximum effectiveness for each and every dollar that we have committed to education.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. What does a Republican budget mean for our families? Very simply, it means that we start moving towards a debt-free Nation for our children. Now that we have balanced the budget, we will eliminate the $3.6 trillion public debt over the next 13 years. It means a more secure retirement for our seniors. We stop the raid on Social Security, and we protect the Social Security surpluses into the future; a stronger effort to find cures for cancer and other life- threatening diseases, and a safer world while we fulfill our promise and our pledge to those who made it that way. It also means more education dollars for our classrooms. It means more money for our kids; more money for learning, instead of bureaucracy and red tape. We are committed to funding special education. We are committed to funding Title VI. What does that mean? It means that we are going to fund innovative education program strategies, the area that gives local school districts the most flexibility in educating their kids and spending their dollars to meet their needs. We are going to make sure that we keep our commitment to those areas that have Federal facilities, military facilities, by increasing impact aid. These are areas that we are committed to because when we fund them, it gives flexibility to local school districts to meet the needs of their children and their schools. It is a sharp contrast to the President's direction. The President's direction builds on the failed Washington approach which has given us 760 education programs spread over 39 different agencies, an education department that for 4 years will fail its audits. They have already failed two audits; they are going to fail the next two. We give the Department of Education $35 billion per year to help educate our kids, and the thanks that we get is a department that does not even commit to the basics of balancing its books and providing us with a clean audit. They have failed two, and they are going to fail the next two. They have a theft ring operating within the Department of Education requiring a vigorous investigation identifying where their computers and their electronic equipment is going. They recently printed 3.5 million forms for financial aid. Only one problem, they printed the wrong ones. They recently notified 39 students that they got a great scholarship. The only problem is these 39 students did not qualify. This is an agency that is out of control. We need to move away from the failed bureaucracy here in Washington and move these dollars to people who know the names of our children and empower them to make the decision for learning environments that will enable them to learn and succeed.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk tonight about some of the work that we have done in our committee over the last few months, and I chair a subcommittee that has oversight responsibility for the Education Department. It was back in October, October 29, that me and some of my colleagues from the committee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Salmon), walked down Capitol Hill. We walked to the Department of Education. We wanted to meet with some of the people at the Department of Education, and we wanted to meet with Secretary Riley to find out if we could help the Secretary find a penny on the dollar of savings. It was when we were going through the budget negotiations and a various range of activities. One of the things that we were saying is, can we find some savings in our various departments so that we can stay within the budget caps, make sure that we do not raid Social Security and actually develop a surplus in the general fund, as well as in the Social Security fund. Well, when we went there that day, we found out some interesting things. For 1998, the fiscal year of 1998, the Education Department had just received their audit, the financial audit completed by Ernst & Young, which is a report that Congress mandated that every agency go through, that they bring in independent outside auditors to review the books. What did we find out? We found out that for 1998, the Education Department was 7 months late in meeting their statutory deadline. That is the good news. The bad news that we found was that Ernst & Young was not going to give them a clean audit. Actually, they did not render an opinion on any of the 5 financial statements that the Education Department was required to complete. So basically, their books could not be audited. What we also found out is we went and dug through this, and we found that there was an account called the ``grant-back account.'' It had $594 million. This is money that is recovered or supposed to be recovered from schools and universities who have had some problems with the grants that they are receiving. They returned this money back to Washington; that is why it is called the grant-back account. It had $594 million in it. The auditor stated that of this, only $13 million could actually be attributed to grant-back activities, meaning that over $580 million of that account could not be reconciled, that the Education Department could not tell us how the money got there, what accounts that this money had come from, or where this money was going to be used. As a matter of fact, under law, most of this money should have gone back to the Treasury, but it was still sitting at the Department of Education. Mr. Speaker, they receive $35 billion a year. As they were going through the process, the auditors had found an instance where, in 1998, as they were adjusting their books, they had made a $6 billion, that is with a B, a $6 billion adjustment in their books. Now, this did catch the attention of the auditors, and they went back to the Education Department and said, could you please explain to us why in this preliminary statement it was x amount, and why in this follow-up statement you had made a $6 billion adjustment. Can you perhaps explain to us and give us the paperwork and the background so that we can understand how this first statement was so totally inaccurate and where the documentation was and why it was not there in the first place, and the answer coming back from the Education Department is no, we do not have the backup data to explain exactly why we needed to make this $6 billion adjustment. We found out that in 1998 in the audit that there were $76.8 million in improperly discharged student loans. These are young people who had received student loans, but the Education Department, rather than expecting these students to repay these loans, had improperly discharged $76.8 million worth of student loans, a great deal for these students. The problem is, we expected these students, and these students had agreed, to pay us back and the Education Department discharged those student loans. They said well, let it go. These are kids that completed college, not a big deal. It is a big deal. The $76.8 million could have funded 20,000 new loans for students. There was $177 million in improper Pell Grant awards. That is enough for Pell Grants for 88,500 students. There was $40 million, and this is one that is very interesting, there was $40 million in duplicate payments in August of 1998 alone. What does that mean, duplicate payments? It means that the Department of Education has a list and says, hey, we have to cut checks. We have to write checks to these students, to these organizations today. They cut the checks, they cut checks for $40 million, and they run it through again, and they run another set of checks for $40 million. In many cases, they find these duplicate payments. But the problem in this, and we will talk about what happened in 1999, is that these duplicate payments have now continued for a period of over 13 to 15 months, meaning that on occasion after occasion after occasion, the Department of Education continues to make duplicate payments. I believe in most cases they are catching them, but we do not know if they are catching them in all cases or not. Again, it is gross mismanagement of taxpayers' dollars, of some of perhaps the most important dollars we are spending in Washington: It is the dollars we are spending and investing in our kids' education. So what do we find now in 1999? There was a hearing, and probably one of the more disappointing hearings that I have had since I have been here in Washington. It was last week. We will also talk about a hearing that we had on Friday, because it was one of the most exhilarating hearings that I have had and have had the opportunity to participate in since I have been in Washington, but it is a sharp contrast. On Wednesday, we brought in Ernst & Young, the auditors. We brought in people from the Department of Education. We brought in people from the General Accounting Office and the Inspector General's office to tell us about the results of the 1999 audit: Could the Department of Education now account for where their $35 to $38 billion of money went that the taxpayers gave them to invest in our kids in 1999? That was on Wednesday. On Friday, we brought in some individuals who are having an impact on education at the local level, three people who are running charter schools in their local communities, one from the Los Angeles area, one from Colorado, and another from Washington, DC. What a sharp contrast between the answers that we got from the Department of Education on Wednesday as to what they were doing with their $35 billion, and these individuals who are running charter schools in their local communities, in some areas going to some of the toughest neighborhoods in the communities and reclaiming those kids, those schools, and those neighborhoods through their activities. Obviously, what happened on Wednesday was not good news. The Department of Education came in and said, well, we have made progress. At least this year our report is not 7 months late. Actually, it is the Inspector General who is responsible for doing the audit work. They came back, and she hit the date. She was supposed to be done by the end of February, and she worked with Ernst & Young, and the Inspector General did a great job to inform Congress as to the status of the Department of Education books for 1999. The good news is they hit the target. The bad news is, the books cannot be audited. They have to, again, do five statements. Four of the statements have qualified opinions. The fifth statement the auditors did not render an opinion on, meaning the fifth statement again cannot be audited. On the other four statements there were serious concerns about each one of those statements that would lead one to question the accuracy of the numbers as to what they represented, as to whether they accurately represented what went on in the Department of Education in 1999. They call these material weaknesses. Some might say, it is a material weakness, but you have the statements. What are you worried about? What I am worried about is that if this would happen in the private sector, if there were a company that was listed on NASDAQ, a publicly- held company, and they came back and said, here is what our auditors say about our books, we asked the auditors what would happen. They said, this would be a huge problem, because what you would be telling your shareholders is, we cannot really tell you what your investment is worth because your earnings per share, your costs, your net worth, and all of those types of things, are not accurately reflected in the statements. Most likely what would happen is that the trading of the stock would be suspended until the company could get its financial house in order. In 1998, the books cannot be audited. In 1999, a failed audit. What the Department and what the other people told us is that the reason they are failing their audits is because they do not have systems, automated systems, in place that provide protections that indicate that the way you are spending the money is an accurate reflection of actually what is really happening. How does this then manifest itself? How does this make a difference to the people back in Michigan, the people back in Colorado, or whatever? It is kind of like, well, the money is coming out of Washington. It is getting to my schools, right? If they are just a little off on their numbers, what are you worried about? Number one, I am worried about it because it is $35 billion. It is a lot of money. The second thing that I am worried about is, coming from the private sector background, we know that when we have an organization that does not have the correct systems in place to manage its business and its activities, we are creating an environment that is ripe for fraud and abuse, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and mistakes. Do we see any of that in the Department of Education? Here are just some recent examples: In 1998, duplicate payments. What did we see in 1999? In December, because their fiscal year starts on October 1 of 1999, they had duplicate payments in 1998, they had them in 1999, and they have had them in this current fiscal year. They had them in December and January of what would be their fiscal year 2000. Duplicate payments are continuing. Sloppy management leads to mistakes. The Department, for student loan applications, printed 3.5 million forms incorrectly. They need to be scrapped. We know there is fraud in the student loan program. The auditors have reported that as they have tried to work with the Department of Education to try to identify how this money got into this grant back account, this $594 million, and they have asked for the backup data. The Department of Education still cannot provide the appropriate backup data to say how money flows in and out of this account. Fraud? In our hearing on March 1, the IG, Inspector General, and the Department of Education indicated that they have, and we cannot go much beyond this, but they currently have a vigorous investigation that is ongoing to investigate the theft of computers within the Department; that the controls for maintaining their capital assets, for the purchasing of computers, technology, software, that the controls were not in place to enable the Department to track and monitor its computer equipment, so they currently have a vigorous investigation that is ongoing. Perhaps one of the most disappointing things that indicates how sloppy management, failed audits for a $35 billion agency, translates itself into having an impact on an individual within one of our districts, here is an example of what happens when we have sloppy management and we do not have good controls in place. The Jacob Javits scholarship program, this is a program that is awarded to students who are graduating from college and provides them with the opportunity to continue their work in graduate school, it can be up to a 3- or 4-year program, and in some cases providing benefits to the students of up to $30,000 per year, because there is a living stipend along with an agreement to pay for the student's tuition. So we have these students out there. They see this Federal program out there, a Federal scholarship program, the Jacob Javits scholarship program. They are going to go out and compete for it. I know what is going on because I have an 18-year-old at home who is looking at going to college next year, and she is competing for some scholarships. I know the excitement on her face when I call her at night and she says, hey, Dad, I just got notified last night that if I go to XYZ college, I have a $3,500 scholarship for each of the next 4 years. She is excited. She feels great. I feel great because it means that maybe my investment will be a little bit less, but she is excited because of the recognition that institutions and others have made on her achievements. What happened with the Jacob Javits scholarship this year? Failed audits, $35 billion, an agency that does not have proper controls in place, how does it affect these students applying for the Jacob Javits scholarship program? It was not all that long ago, in the last few weeks, that 39 students, college students who had applied for one of the nicest and most plum scholarships that one could get, 39 students were notified that they won the Jacob Javits scholarship. The bad news is that two or three days later, these students were notified and were told, sorry, it ain't so. Really, you didn't qualify. You didn't win the award. You have really just been selected as alternates, and if some of the real award winners have gotten other scholarships or have decided they are not going on to graduate school at this time or whatever, then you are in line to be eligible for a Jacob Javits scholarship. Can Members imagine these 39 young people and the excitement that they must have felt on the day they got the call that said, you have qualified for a 3- or 4-year scholarship of $30,000 per year? It is like, yes, the work that I have done for the last few years has been recognized and the dream that I have for the next 3 or 4 years of continuing my education has been realized, and all of a sudden, you are knocked off the pedestal and your dreams are shattered when someone calls you back and says, I am sorry, we made a mistake. You really did not qualify. Now, the Department of Education is going to make it right. They are going to provide these students with the scholarships that they promised them. That is probably the right thing to do. But the problem is, they do not have the money to do it. They award x number of scholarships because that is how much money they have. If they are now going to give 39 more, they are going to have to come up with this money from someplace else. They are probably going to come back to Congress and say, well, it is only $1 million. Yes, for Jacob Javits, it is only $1 million. But how much have the duplicate payments cost? How much have the 3.5 million forms that were printed incorrectly, what has that cost us? What has the computer theft within the Department, what has that cost us? What is the cost of the fraud in the student loan program? What is the cost of the grant back account? What we are finding here is that this is an agency that gets some of the most important dollars and is focused on one of the most important issues that we are dealing with in Washington, and they are not meeting the basic test. They cannot keep their books, and they cannot even tell the students which ones received a scholarship and which ones have not qualified. The bottom line when one takes a look at the Department of Education is that, what this is, and we ask ourselves the question, is this an agency that educates kids? How many kids are enrolled in schools run by the Department of Education? Zero. The Department does not educate kids. The Department does not run any schools. What the Department does is it distributes roughly $35 billion around the country. What we are now finding is that, after the last 2 years, and based on the feedback from the external auditors, that for at least the next 2 years, there is a high probability that they will fail their audit for 4 years in a row. What the Education Department is, it is not a school educating our kids, it is a bank, it is a financial institution; and it is not doing that job very well. It is failing some of the basic tests. It is failing some of the basic tests at a time when the Education Department should be one of the most exciting places to work in in Washington. Why do I say that? I say that because of the hearing that we had on Friday. The hearing on Wednesday was an absolutely miserable hearing where the Department of Education came in and told us that their books could not be audited. On Friday, we met some people where the rubber hits the road. These are the people who are running some public schools, in this case, they were running charter schools, in Los Angeles, in Colorado, and in Washington, D.C. To listen to what they are doing in their communities, in Los Angeles, this is a group of teachers and administrators that went out and said, we are going to take this school, and we are going to turn it into a charter school. It is going to free us up from some of the bureaucratic red tape and the rules and regulations that just encumber, at least in that case, encumber them from achieving what they wanted to get done in their local schools. What did they do? They went in, they formed their charter school, and their kids' test scores have improved. They used to have a high turnover rate. The families would move and the kids would just transfer from one public school to the other. Families are still moving. But the kids in some cases now are traveling an hour to go to this school because of the results that they are getting. Significant improvement in the test scores and in the performance of the students in these schools. It is the same story in Colorado, and it is the same story that we have heard about Washington, D.C. Committed teachers, committed administrators, committed parents, and committed communities going out and making a difference in their kids' lives. The other exciting thing is, in many cases, they are all breaking the mold of education for their kids. In Los Angeles, again, they have embraced technology. The computer-student ratio in this school is one to one in the seventh grade. They are taking new models of learning for their kids. One can see the interaction as these individuals who are running these schools, as they were talking to each other, and as they were sharing with the panel, the excitement that they felt as the woman from Los Angeles was talking about the one-to-one computer-student ratio, as she was talking about the learning that was going on, as she was talking about the improved test scores, and how kids were commuting up to an hour to come to that school. One could see the excitement and the enthusiasm in the other two as they were saying, when we leave here, I have got to call her and find out exactly what she is doing because I think there are some things that I can maybe learn from her that I might want to take and put into my charter school. Then as the other two talked about the programs that they were running, the woman here in Washington, D.C. talking about the 15, the 20, the 30 students that they take to Cornell in the summer because, for many of these kids in this neighborhood, going to a prestigious school never even was a dream that they could think about. It was the impossible dream. It was the impossible dream because they could not even think about escaping the environment they were in or believing that, when they graduated from school, when they graduated, that those kinds of opportunities would be available to them. Now, what they are doing is they are going there for a week in the summer, and they are experiencing it, and they are also learning that, when they go, they are knowing they have got the background, the knowledge that they have completed the learning that will enable them to be successful when they graduate from high school, that they can dream about going to Cornell, that they can dream about going to some of our prestigious universities, or they can just think about going on to college. They will know that, when they get there, they will be successful. That is what education is about. I think, as we take a look at the Education Department and where it needs to go, I think there are some things that we need to recognize, that there is a role for a Department of Education. But what the role of the Department of Education should not be is distributing dollars and managing dollars. We do not need an agency that is just distributing and trying to be a bank and not doing a very good job. What we need is we need a Department of Education that can be a resource to the types of individuals that testified at our committee on Friday, that they can be a resource so that, as people at the local level either are dealing with challenges, opportunities, or have some significant breakthroughs, that they can communicate with the Department of Education and say, you know, we just did this great program, we have got a great model for integrating technology into the classroom for seventh graders, here is how we are doing it, you know, please share this with other schools so that, if they have got some questions or comments, we have got a great resource here. Or if they have got a great challenge that they are facing, perhaps the community, the face of the community is changing, and the school board or the administrators are struggling with how do we change this or how do we face this changing face of the community, how do we deal with it in our schools, that they can go to the Education Department and say, you know, have you got other school districts that have faced these kinds of challenges or these kinds of issues that we can talk to, not for them to tell us what to do, but that we can talk to them, and they can tell us what they tried, what worked, what did not work, so that, as we design a school and a school system that meets the needs of our community, we can learn from others that have already done that. An Education Department that funds basic research in to learning. We see a lot of the people now talking about how technology can impact the learning process. Have we fully researched the broad, new avenues of learning that technology opens up for us? I do not think so. But that is an area where Department of Education, perhaps through grants to the private sector or whatever, can foster the basic kind of research so that, as schools are contemplating integrating technology, they can go somewhere and get the latest research that says, if you are going to try to teach reading in this kind of environment, here is how perhaps you can integrate technology. Here is how you can use technology for math. If you have got a problem with class size, maybe technology can deal with an issue of large class size. So there is a wonderful role and a potential role for the Department of Education to kind of like become the National Institutes of Health, a research-based, a learning organization that is on the cutting edge that others can learn from and that others can take the research and apply to their learning opportunities in their local community. What a different vision for a Department of Education that is a cutting edge, research-based department that helps local parents and school administrators learn, learn about how most effectively to teach our kids. That I think is a future vision for the Department of Education, compared to a Department of Education today which has $35 billion per year going through it along with another $80 billion to $85 billion in student loans; and what they actually cannot do is keep their books. An organization that consistently is failing their audits versus one which is on the cutting edge, which is a breakthrough type of agency. There is a role. It is time to reform that role. Why is it time to reform that role? It is time to reform that role, number one, because the current model is broken. The other is that we are not doing nearly well enough with our kids' education. The TIMS study, this compares our kids with kids on an international basis in the 12th grade. How do our kids rank? In math, out of 21 countries, our proficiency, we are 19th out of 21. That is not good enough. I spent a lot of time going to high schools and different schools throughout the district over the last 9 months. Actually, I have been doing it much of the time I have been here in Washington. But when looking at these kids, they want to learn, they want to be successful, and they are going to be competing against other kids from around the world as they enter the job market. What is their vision about their educational system? Being 19th out of 21 is not good enough for them. Whether we are in the Bronx in New York, and we have had hearings in 19 different States with our Education at a Crossroads Project, whether one is in the Bronx, whether one is in Cleveland, whether one is in Milwaukee, whether one is in Muskegon, Michigan, whether one is in L.A., whether one is in Albuquerque, these kids all have the same vision. They want to be number one, not selfishly, but what they want to have is they want, as they are going through the education process, they want to be the best educated kids in the world; that when we put them through a battery of tests on math or reading or any other kind of measurement, they want to be at the top. Because they know that, if they are not at the top, they may not be prepared to compete in a global economy. The TIMS study for reading, how did we do in reading? We did better than what we did in math. In math, we were 19th out of 21. In reading, we moved all the way up to 16. We were 16th out of 21 countries. What else is going on? We know that at the fourth grade in reading, 38 percent of our kids are below basic. In eighth grade, 26 percent are below basic skills. At 12th grade, still 23 percent are below basic. That means that they have not achieved what we consider the basic skills necessary or required at that level. How about in math? In the fourth grade, 36 percent of our kids are below basic. In the eighth grade, 38 percent of our kids are below basic. By the 12th grade, we are still at 31 percent, or roughly one out of every three of our kids are below basic levels. That means we are in danger of losing almost a third of our kids because we have not provided them with an environment of academic excellence that will allow them to achieve, not only at the basic, but well beyond the basic. Thirty-one percent of our kids at the 12th grade in math are still below basic. Is it any wonder that, as we have gone around the country with our hearings, Education at a Crossroads, that one of the fastest growing programs in our colleges is remedial education. We talk to different college administrators, and it struck me when we started this process 3\1/2\, 4 years ago, some of the first hearings that we had where the college administrators came in and they said, you know, whatever you do, do not cut out remedial education. If anything, we need more money for remedial education. They told us that in California. They told us that in Arizona. They have told me that in Michigan. Finally, one kind of steps back and says, you know, why do you need remedial education? These are kids that you have accepted into your college programs. What is the need for remedial education for kids going into college? The answers come back reflecting the test scores. Well, 23 to 25 percent of the kids coming into college are not proficient in reading at 12th grade proficiency when we get them. So we need to catch them up in reading. A third of the kids coming in are not at 12th grade proficiency for math. So what we have to do is we have to catch them up. Those are roughly the numbers. Roughly somewhere between a quarter and a third of the kids entering college have to go through some type of remedial education. So we are seeing the standards. We are seeing how our educational system and our students are stacking up. On an international basis, we rank 19 out of 21 in math and rank 16 out of 21 in reading. And then, as we compare our kids to a standard that we have established for reading and for math, we consistently find that by the 12th grade we are still having a quarter to a third of our kids leaving our high schools without basic proficiency in reading or math. It is not good enough. And the Washington response has been an education department that does not give our people at the local level a lot of information about how to improve their systems. It just funnels money back and forth and ties a lot of strings and a lot of red tape to it. It is not working. Washington has hundreds of programs in the education area, each of these going back to a local level, telling people at the local level that if they want this money this is what they need to do. These are the forms that need to be filled out so that we can see that you actually did what we said had to be done. And, by the way, at the end of the year we will send an auditor in to make sure your books are auditable even though ours cannot be. There is a better way to do it. We talked about one of the elements of a new vision for an education department and a reformed education department, which is that we have an education department that is a leading-edge educational department; that it can identify best practices so that it can be a resource to parents, teachers and administrators at a local level. What is another part of our vision? Another part of our vision says that perhaps we can increase funding not by spending more but by being more efficient in how we spend it. What if instead of having 200 or 300 K through 12 education programs in Washington that really control how local schools are run, what about consolidating some of those programs and giving States and local schools a tremendous degree of flexibility in how they can spend those dollars and on what programs and in what areas they will spend those dollars? By consolidating, perhaps we can save 5 percent of the dollars that we spend on education and ensuring, in the process, that rather than spending this 5 percent here in Washington, we spend 5 percent where the real leverage point is; that we spend 5 percent in the classroom, with a teacher that knows our children's names. That is one reform that we can make: getting more money out of Washington and getting it into the classroom with a much higher degree of flexibility. A second thing that we can do is eliminate some of the red tape. As I said, when we have all these programs, local school districts have to find out about the programs, they have to apply for the programs, then they have to report back, and they have to be prepared to be audited. What if we can cut out some of that red tape and some of that bureaucracy through that process and give those local schools a whole lot more flexibility. And, really, what we are going to be focusing on will not be on the process of how they spend the dollars; we will not focus on the process of did they do the right reports at the right time and get the money back and report everything correctly. But what we are going to do is we are going to focus on whether they actually improved the learning of the students in their school. Has their performance improved or has their performance declined or has it stayed the same? Where we still have young people at 31 percent below basic in math, where we have 23 percent below basic in reading, are we turning out students where we have 95 percent at basic or above in both reading and math so that we are not letting kids fall behind? Let us focus not on the process. It is time to focus on the results. We should not have a department focused, and we, as a Congress, should not be focused on telling local schools what to do. We ought to be talking to States and local school districts and holding them accountable for what they have achieved. Because this is not about managing process. If it is, we know this education department cannot do it. This is about something much more important. It is about educating our children. So we give the schools more flexibility, and we eliminate the red tape, which gets more dollars into that local classroom. And from a practical sense, what does this mean? It means that a school, rather than getting money for class-size reduction or hiring teachers and getting another pot of money for technology, getting another pot of money for some school construction or school modification, getting some other money for the arts, getting some other money for some other kind of training and these types of things, it is giving the money to the States and to the local schools and telling them that if they need to focus on technology, if they think technology is the answer, that we will give them the flexibility to improve the technology within their school. That may be exactly what some of the schools in my congressional district would need, and they would have the flexibility to go out and do that. For others, they might say that they have invested in technology; but when they did, they found out that what they really needed to do, in addition to that, but they do not have the money to do it, is they need to invest in teacher training so that they could use these tools to be most effective with our kids. Let them use the money for teacher training. If they need to use some of the money for school construction, let them use the money for school construction. But allow them the flexibility of designing the programs that are most effective for the problems, the issues, and the opportunities that they have in their local schools. Because this is about our kids. It is not about process. It is not about the education department. This is about how do we get the maximum impact in learning for our kids. Are we going to get it by mandating from Washington and controlling from Washington; or is it going to be by continuing to invest in education through Washington, through an education department, but allowing a great degree of latitude and flexibility to the people at the local level? The local people know our kids' names, they are the people that know the school, the problems, the opportunities, and the issues that they face. The local people know the neighborhoods, know the communities, knowing exactly, maybe not exactly, it is not a science, but the local people will have the best idea as to how they could improve education in their local community. And if they then had a resource of a Department of Education where they could go to for best learning practices or best teaching practices, what a great partnership that might be. Local decision- making; research-based data and information to empower people at the local level to make the best possible decisions for our kids. It is not an issue about money. We have spent and invested a lot of money in education over the years. This is a question of how we invest that money most effectively. Not even necessarily most efficiently, although that would be nice, but how do we invest it most effectively. Do we invest it through a Washington-based model or do we invest it through a locally based model? The difference was so striking last week. The Washington-based model, with quality individuals working at the Department of Education, who have the best interests of our kids in mind, but for the second year in a row cannot even be held accountable for how they spent these education dollars on our kids. Compare that picture with the education department who cannot even take the time to put in place the policies, the procedures and the practices to track $35 billion. Compare that to the caring and the passion that we saw on Friday where we had these individuals coming in and talking about what they were doing, improving test scores; integrating technology; reclaiming their kids; reclaiming their neighborhoods; and making a difference in their communities. There was a concern demonstrated in attention to detail. A Department of Education that does not have the right policies and practices in place sends out erroneous information to 39 young people telling them they have a scholarship, when they really did not and then has to call them back, versus the local decision-making where the people that we saw last Friday are concerned about each and every child in that school and making sure that each and every one of those children is going to be successful, and doing what needs to be done to ensure that that is the result, forming the partnerships with business leaders, forming the partnerships with parents to make a real difference in their communities and these children's lives. It is a really sharp contrast; a department that erroneously identifies scholarship winners, a department that makes duplicate payments, a department that prints forms wrong, a department that currently has a vigorous investigation into computer theft, a department that has fraud in a student loan program, and a department that has an account with over $500 million in it, or at least in 1998, that they cannot tell us how it got there or where it is going. Then compare that to the passion that, in many cases where these are charter schools, they are facing a lot of odds against their success. They have to build those schools. They do not get construction dollars. They just get their per-pupil funds. And in many cases they do not even get all the Federal dollars. The Federal dollars do not follow these students. But in each one of these cases, they are people passionate for what they are doing in their communities. I think the final element of a reform package in education is reforming the Department of Education into a research-based learning think tank that is a resource to the rest of the country, freeing up dollars within the bureaucracy to invest in our kids. So taking money out of Washington and putting it back in the classroom, that is the second step. The third step is taking money out of the process and moving it back to the local level, out of the red tape. And the fourth part is investing more in education by providing parents and businesses the opportunity to take credit, tax credits, for investing in education. There is a formula for improving education, but it is taking decision-making out of Washington and moving it back to parents and local school districts where we can really make a difference.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. First I would like to express my appreciation to my colleagues for moving that bill through the committee, moving it to the House floor and being able to come out on the floor of the House and getting unanimous support.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. When this bill gets signed by the President, it will in effect be retroactive, a retroactive tax cut for workers for this year. It fits in perfectly. It was 2 weeks ago that we had a hearing in my subcommittee about the shortage of workers that we are facing. So whether it is the school teacher and qualified teachers in Fremont, Michigan or whether it is other industries around the country today, we know that there is a shortage of workers and that seniors have so much to add in terms of their skills and their expertise to filling that need that it is not only the fair thing to do, it is the right thing to do. We need these workers if they want to. We need them to stay in the workforce. The least we could do is make the tax code neutral to that decision rather than penalizing them for staying in the workforce, at least now as they consider whether they are going to work or whether they are going to enjoy their retirement, they do not have to take a look at the tax code and see, now, what does the tax code want me to do and how many hours does it want me? What a ridiculous process to go through. It is the fair thing to do; it is the right thing to do. Again I think as the chairman pointed out, when you take a look at what we are doing with Social Security, the lockbox this past year, not spending one dollar of the Social Security surplus and dedicating that all to paying down the debt, we are doing a number of things that are starting to shore up and save Social Security so that we can address the next issue which the chairman is also working on with a great passion which is doing the fundamental reforms to ensure that this program will not only be there for the seniors of today but for the baby boomers of tomorrow and for our kids. So we really are taking a step by step approach. I again appreciate the work that the chairman is doing there and also appreciate the chairman's support for one little thing, we call it the worker right to know. Again it is an issue of the American people deserve to know how much money we are putting into Social Security and one of the things that is kind of a little bit of misinformation out there is all the workers get their W-2 at the end of the year and they see the portion that they have paid in and it is a pretty good size number, it is 6.5 percent of what they have made, they say, wow, that is my Social Security contribution. That is the money that was sent to Washington for me. What they do not recognize and what they do not know is that for every dollar that they paid in, their employer was forced to match that, and so really it is 13 percent of their income is coming here for Social Security, supposedly with their name on it.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Again I would like to express my appreciation to my two colleagues for sponsoring it and moving this bill forward. I think the reason we had such a great debate on the floor today is that Members on both sides of the aisle recognized that it was the right thing to do. The end result is we have provided seniors the opportunity to continue doing what many of them want to do, which is to continue working because they love their jobs and in many cases they are in professions where they can mentor, train, and teach young people. This provides a wonderful avenue to keep those skills and those resources in the workplace. Congratulations to my colleague from Texas for spearheading this effort and getting it done. Now we will watch as we see what we can do to move it over to the other body.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. A unanimous vote, bipartisan, all the right characteristics. I think you are going after one of the most unfair things in the tax code. You have identified that. I did nine town meetings last week. In my first town meeting, it is the exact issue that came up. There was a gentleman who had retired from teaching, had been substitute teaching and said, I reached the threshold. The school wanted to keep me in the classroom. I wanted to stay in the classroom. It is one of my rural communities, Fremont, Michigan. He said I wanted to stay in the classroom but I looked at it and it made no sense for me to stay in the classroom, in effect, it would almost cost me money for the privilege of being in the classroom to teach those kids. That gentleman now is going to be able to come back and he will be able to do it this year. He will be able to call up that school district and say, I can teach as much as you now want me to teach this year and as much as I am available to teach because the other nice thing about this bill is that, as you said in your closing statement today on the floor, the bill goes into effect on January 1, not of 2001 but of 2000, correct?

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, today we are considering very important legislation which will eliminate one of the most unfair tax burdens even placed on Americans and give our senior citizens the freedom to work. The high tax rate on the earnings of older Americans has created a significant roadblock at a time when workforce participation by these individuals is extremely important to the continuing growth of the U.S. economy. Economists and Federal Reserve Board officials, including Chairman Alan Greenspan, have expressed concern that the shrinking pool of available workers cannot satisfy the surging quantity of goods and services demanded by the American people and people around the world. I have heard a number of stories, some during a hearing I held as Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee for the Education & Workforce Committee, and others more recently during town hall meetings I held last week in West Michigan. In each case the message was the same: the current system discourages older Americans from re-entering or continuing in the workforce. We need to keep these individuals in the workforce and the repeal of the earnings limit will be an essential step in encouraging their participation. Mr. Speaker, I should also note that as seniors and others enter the workforce, there is one thing they do not know--the true costs of Social Security and Medicare. Currently, an employee's W-2 lists his or hers withholdings for Social Security and Medicare. What the employees don't know, is how much their employer also pays for these programs. This is another unfairness we need to correct by passing the Right To Know National Payroll Act, which would require the employers share of Social Security and Medicare taxes to be disclosed on each employee's annual W-2. American workers have a right to know the true costs of Social Security and Medicare.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege of first meeting Cardinal O'Connor in New York in 1996. I was drawn to meet with Cardinal O'Connor because of an outstanding offer that he had made. He had made an offer to the city of New York and to the New York public schools that the Catholic schools of New York would take the 5 percent lowest performing students in all of New York's public schools, and that he would embrace those students and take them into the Catholic school system, and that the Catholic school system and he would take responsibility for educating those children. We had an awesome meeting in 1996, a group of four or five of us meeting with Cardinal O'Connor and sharing his view on education. In 1997, we went back to New York, and Cardinal O'Connor testified in front of our Committee on Education and the Workforce about his view and his vision for educating all of the young people in New York City and all of the young people in America. But perhaps what had the biggest impact on me was actually going to the Catholic schools in New York City. Having listened to what Cardinal O'Connor had to say, and then having the opportunity to take a look at what he was actually doing was awesome, educating kids in some of the most difficult areas of New York City and providing them with hope and opportunity, and providing them with a foundation to move forward. In a diverse neighborhood, the Catholic schools were not talking about diversity, but they were talking about what brings us together, the saving grace of Jesus Christ. In an area of high poverty, high unemployment, high crime, they do not teach self-esteem, they talk about that every individual is created in the image of God. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this legislation to honor Cardinal O'Connor. I only saw a small part of what he did, but was impressed with his commitment and the results that he made to all Americans, and the impact that he has had in the lives of many people in this country and probably around the world. I wish him the best as he enters his retirement, and thank him for his years of dedication and service.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. So the Secretary of Education will stand up and say I cannot find a half a penny or a penny out of my budget in waste, fraud and abuse, and at the same time, on Thursday, I do not think he will be at that press conference.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I know this is why my colleague from California invited me down here tonight. I really appreciate that. But as the gentleman from Colorado and I heard 2 weeks or 2\1/2\ weeks ago when we went to the Department of Education, which we heard last week when we met with the Inspector General and which will finally come out, I believe, on Thursday for 1998, in 1998, we entrusted the Department of Education with $35 billion in discretionary spending. They loan out another $85 billion. So they are basically entrusted with $110 billion annually of American taxpayer money. That is a big agency. What are they going to tell us on Thursday? This is not for 1999. This is now November of 1999 for the fiscal year which ended on September 30, 1998. What are they going to tell us?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think we ought to really put this in context. Because we are not talking about taking the dollar that they had last year and making it 99 cents. We are talking about taking the dollar that we gave them last year plus the 4 cents, 3 to 4 percent increase that is in the budget this year. At the beginning we asked them to save a penny so they can only have $1.03. But I think now, as we are negotiating in the White House and some of the other offsets, we are asking them to find a half a penny. So that this year they have $1.03 and a half cent instead of $1.04. We are going to find them a half a cent of waste, fraud, and abuse out of the $1.04 that we gave them over what they had last year.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding. What we have worked on so hard in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado, referenced it, the leverage point on giving kids a good education is moving the decisions closest to the kids in the classroom and the people that know our kids' names, the parents and teachers. The money we are spending, let us make sure we move the flexibility for making those education decisions as close to those kids as possible.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Somebody just handed it to me and said the President earlier this year proposed 75 use taxes and fee increases, totaling $150 billion a year. When we take a look at how much progress we have made, we have moved to the point of no tax and no fee increases. In that way, we have eliminated $150 billion of new spending that this President wanted. We have also moved from saving 62 percent of Social Security, we are now within a half a penny in this budget of saving 100 percent of the Social Security surplus. We have come a long way. Thankfully, we have taken the President all the way to 99\1/2\ cents.