George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * * Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2022.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit, with fifty-one of my colleagues in the House, the College Opportunity for a Better America Act. Higher education has long served as a critical vehicle to move the country forward and provide the opportunity for a better life to millions. But too many low and middle income students and their families are struggling with soaring college costs, taking on mountains of debt and working long hours that hurt their academics and overall college experience. And still many others cannot afford to attend college at all. The College Opportunity Act for All will establish innovative programs to allow students to earn their degrees quicker, increases opportunities for Latino families to pursue advanced degrees, and encourages the best graduates to pursue public service careers. Republican tax policy and education budget cuts have weakened American higher education at exactly the time that more people need college training to be competitive in the global marketplace. Instead of meeting that challenge, virtually every state--crippled by federal policies that increased national and state debts--is cutting college funding and raising tuitions at public colleges: a one-two punch that is closing the doors of higher education to millions including disadvantaged and minority students and those who need more education to find new jobs. And the President has frozen the major federal higher education grant program, forcing students to take on more debt or forgo college. The College Opportunity Act for All goes in a very different direction--it would increase college opportunities for millions of Americans through smart investments and innovations. The College Opportunity Act for All will: Allow student borrowers burdened with high interest rates to refinance their loans and save money; stop the unfair tax on working students, allowing students who work to save more of their earnings for college costs; double the maximum federal college scholarships (Pell Grant) to $11,600 by 2011, to help restore its buying power; establish a new competitive grant program to expand graduate-level degree programs at Hispanic Serving Institutions; greatly increase the investment in all Minority Serving Institutions, providing the resources necessary to serve the burgeoning population of minority students; provide public service scholarships to students who pursue careers in teaching, nursing, and other national high priority needs which are having difficulty recruiting and retaining trained personnel; and drastically simplify the student aid application. While we must address the problem of spiraling tuition this year, however we must not take the wrong-headed approach of Republican proposals that would impose price controls and punish innocent students for tuition raises they have no role in determining. Instead we must address the fiscal policies that result in states' cutting aid to colleges and thus forcing students to pay higher tuitions. The future of our economy hinges on the ability of young people to afford college. Nearly 2 out of the 3 new jobs that will be created over the next 7 years will require some post-high school training. If we can lower the current 32 percent gap between college participation by low and high income young adults, we could add $250 billion in gross domestic product and $85 billion in tax revenue that will help to strengthen the economy. The Republican tax cuts and budget cuts have devastated states and along with the weak economy pushed higher prices onto college students and their families and now the Republicans propose slashing funding to colleges in retribution for tuition increases. That means even more tuition increases for students, and a weakening of our higher education system. We have to work with the states, who are forcing tuition increases because of education cutbacks, to craft a solution that brings tuition costs down. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in honoring this tradition by supporting the College Opportunity for a Better America Act. It is an important step towards making college more affordable and accessible for all Americans.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, this week here in Washington, many Members of this House are joining together to commemorate the annual benefit for the Nyumbani Orphanage for HIV positive children in Nairobi, Kenya, which recently celebrated its 11th anniversary. I have spoken on this floor numerous times to note the enormous achievements and contributions of the Nyumbani program, and I know that I speak for every House Member, regardless of party, when I offer our congratulations and our encouragement for this program to continue to serve the children of Kenya. I particularly want to extend our congratulations to Father Angelo D'Agostino, SJ, MD and his outstanding staff who have built this unique facility for HIV positive children in the midst of AID-ravaged sub- Saharan Africa. I had the honor to visit Nyumbani several years ago, as have several other Members of the House and Senate, and I know we all salute Father D'Ag, his staff, and the children for the great work they are doing. I particularly want to congratulate the children who are members of the ``Watoto wa Mungu'' singing group whose recording ``Shauri Yakou'' has been No. 1 on the Kameme FM Swahili hit parade for four weeks now. The group also participated in a rock concert organized by the Kenya United States Association with some of the leading Kenyan singers and musicians. One of the great reasons to celebrate this year is that for the first time, the Nyumbani program is receiving enthusiastic support from the new Kenyan government of President Emilio Mwai Kibaki, who was elected last December. I know that there was a great deal of frustration in the past at the reluctance of the national government to provide leadership on the issues of AIDS prevention and treatment, and at its unwillingness to provide the program with the kind of support-- financial, land, technical assistance--that is needed to serve the very large HIV positive population. Under President Kibaki, the government has sent the first financial assistance to Nyumbani to help with its medical and education programs. I also understand the government is working diligently to acquire the anti-retroviral drugs needed to provide effective treatment to the HIV population. President Kibaki and those in his Administration should note that we in the Congress recognize and appreciate his leadership in helping to address the very serious AIDS problem that confronts not only Kenya, but much of sub-Saharan Africa. It was not long ago that it was a challenge to even operate such programs in many African nations, including Kenya. ``When Nyumbani was first established,'' Father D'Ag has written, ``very few of us thought these children would grow to adulthood, but through all your love, prayers, care, attention and valued contributions and donations, we are keeping the kids alive, happy and educated. We expect them to become valued members of Kenyan society.'' To the extent that AIDS awareness, prevention and treatment becomes a critical initiatives of these governments, the children of Africa face a very different and more hopeful future, as do their countries. Now it is the turn of the United States to follow through on our commitment to greatly expand our AIDS assistance programs to Africa. Although this program was cited as a primary foreign policy and humanitarian initiative by President Bush earlier this year, there are many concerns that insufficient funding will flow to the frontline efforts, like Nyumbani, that are delivering services and health care, but are close to being overwhelmed by the need. We have promised to substantially increase aid to Africa for AIDS prevention and treatment, and I know that the child of Nyumbani, and we in this chamber, are waiting to see if that promise assistance actually reaches the people in need. The people of Nyumbani continue to raise money through their ``Nyumbani Gift Shop'' that sells locally made items and gives all profits to the Nyumbani project. And of course, efforts to secure private contributions and donations to enable Nyumbani, like the dinner Wednesday night, continue in the United States and worldwide. More assistance for this program is always needed, and welcome, as are instruments for the band the children want to form. So while some have offered rhetoric about addressing the AIDS crisis in Africa, Dr. D'Ag and the men and women of the Nyumbani program continue to achieve dramatic results on the ground, every day. They are receiving important new assistance from the Kenyan government, and hopefully will soon benefit from the promised U.S. assistance for the Africa AIDS initiative. Visiting this program was a moving and inspirational day, and I hope that every Member will do whatever is possible to ensure that the Nyumbani Orphanage, and the Lea Toto community outreach program, are able to continue their work towards making Africa AIDS-free and assuring that those who have become HIV positive live longer and more productive lives Congratulations to Dr. D'Ag, the Nyumbani and Lea Toto staff, and especially, to the children and families of Nyumbani.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to thank him so much for his battle on behalf of American working families and retirees for pension protection and safety that he has led in this Congress now for a number of years. Mr. Chairman, we are here again because of the relentless effort of this administration to empower corporations to cut the pensions of older workers in this country. If this amendment does not pass, the Treasury Department will go forward and provide a ruling that will make it safe for corporations to cut the pensions, the defined pension plans of older workers. Hundreds of corporations already have filed notice that they want to do this, they are simply waiting for the Treasury Department to make the ruling. We were here once before, and the Congress made a determination that this was unfair, it was inequitable, it was mean-spirited and it was damaging the economics of retirees and their ability to provide for their retirement. The last time the gentleman led this effort, the General Accounting Office came forward and studied the impact of that effort and found that, in fact, many of these pensioners risked losing half of their pension. So the situation today is much the same as when the gentleman from Vermont first sounded the alarm a couple of years ago. But what has changed is, in fact, we now have a court opinion from the Federal District Court in the Southern District of Illinois that ruled, in fact, that IBM had violated the age discrimination protections when it changed its pension plan to accept a cash balance plan. What they did there was they ruled against older workers. They were going to deny older workers the pension benefits that they were entitled to, and they were going to get far less than younger workers were going to get, and that is age discrimination, because that is what they are doing. They are discriminating against older workers, 50, 55 years old, who have 15, 20 years at a company. Now, all of a sudden, they are going to find out that their pension plans have been cut in half. What does that mean? That means that those people who have worked hard, made their plans for retirement, tried to develop their retirement nest egg so they could have a standard of living to carry them through their retirement years. All that is now threatened, and, essentially, it is gone. Because where does an older worker go to get back that pension benefit when they are 50, 55 years old with that company? They cannot do that. They cannot do that. That is the unfairness of this. That is why AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, supports our amendment. That is why the Pension Rights Center supports the Sanders-Miller amendment. That is why they support this effort to bring equity to this effort. What are we trying to say? Let the worker make a choice. Let the worker choose which benefit would help them the most. Companies under our legislation would still be allowed to convert to cash balances, but what they would not be allowed to do is to harm older workers and their families in the effort to do that. That is a significant amount of money to these workers. We have heard from workers all over the country who have e-mailed our office because they have heard that their company is thinking about this. We have heard from people in the financial industry, in the airline industry that have been through this, the telecommunications industry, industrial companies from all over the country who are now being made aware of the fact that they may lose their pensions. Mr. Chairman, American families are reeling in this economic downturn. They are reeling from long-term unemployment, from rising health care premiums, from steep declines in their savings and the 401(k) investments that were lost in the bursting of the stock market bubble. These people are scrambling to keep their health care benefits, to keep their pension benefits and to keep their jobs. This Congress should not now come along and tell them that we are going to put their pensions at risk. We know that Americans, the baby boomers, people my age and others, who are thinking about retirement over the next 10 or 15 years are now starting to focus on whether or not they will be able to do that. The pension plans that the administration has in order, that the Treasury Department is trying to put in place, put all that at risk. I would urge my colleagues, as they have in the past on a bipartisan basis, to support the Sanders-Miller-Emanuel-Gutknecht amendment to make sure that, in fact, those pension plans are not put at risk and those families are not put in that economic difficulty.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, within the next few months the people of my district and the San Francisco Bay Area will be celebrating the opening of the new Carquinez bridge span across the Carquinez Straits. This event will be more than the opening of a new highway bridge; it will be the celebration of a man's life, the revitalization of a community, and the ongoing building of America. The new bridge will be named the ``Al Zampa Memorial Bridge.'' It celebrates the life of a great American, Alfred Zampa, an ironworker, his family, his son Dick Zampa, and his grandsons, Dick and Don Zampa, who carry on his great tradition. It is my privilege to share with my colleagues the account of this achievement in the San Francisco Chronicle, August 31, 2003: [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 31, 2003] Bridge to the Future Crockett counting on new Carquinez span to make it a destination town (By Jenny Strasburg) There's big talk these days in the small town of Crockett-- in its corner taverns and grocery marts--about plans for a November fireworks show, memories of a departed ironworker named Alfred Zampa and the opening of the bridge that bears his name. The four-lane Al Zampa Memorial Bridge is nearing completion over the Carquinez Strait, the first major suspension bridge to be built in the United States in 30 years, and the longest one built in almost 40 years. Labor Day weekend lends an appropriate bit of timing for the home stretch of a $300 million-plus project constructed by union hands and named after a Bay Area labor legend. For more than three years, traffic disruptions, dust and the din of jackhammers, pile drivers and earthmovers have tested residents and business owners in the unincorporated burg on the southern edge of the strait. Now, Crockett is ready to get its freeway ramps back. But it's looking for more than just relief from the noise and detour signs. Many see the eye-catching new bridge as a welcome gateway to revitalization opportunities for the town of 3,200--home to a C&H Sugar refinery in operation since 1906. Crockett grew up a company town. But looking forward, it has bigger aspirations. It wants day-trippers from San Francisco and Oakland. It wants streams of out-of-town customers for its handful of art galleries, antique shops and sandwich delis. Toot's Tavern, Club Tac and Ray's Corner Saloon--survivors of a once-teeming population of watering holes that served thousands of plant workers in a bygone era--wouldn't mind seeing a few more rear ends on their barstools. ``Nobody stops in Crockett the way they used to. You have to go 3 miles out of your way'' because of Interstate 80 off- ramp detours, said Ken McBee, who owns Club Tac on Pomona Street, the main artery. ``Crockett hasn't really been publicized,'' added McBee, a Crockett resident for 28 years. ``Nobody knows it's here. They know about C&H, but they don't know what's around it.'' During the past few years, a steady flow of iron- and steelworkers, painters, engineers and other bridge crew members, most of whom commute from other towns, have brought some business to Crockett. Several shop owners, however, said they're still scraping by financially. ``Construction workers--that's all the business we get at lunch,'' whereas more highway travelers used to stop over, said Chris Choo, owner of the Pomona Deli downtown. ``Access is closed here, closed there. You don't understand how hard it is to survive.'' To drum up business for his bar, McBee started serving Mexican dinners on Mondays and steak dinners on Wednesdays. Ten dollars buys a New York strip or rib-eye with a baked potato and dessert. Maybe word will spread when the new bridge opens, McBee figures, and more city dwellers will find their way to his tavern for dinner in a charming small town. ``I certainly hope so,'' he said. ``I'm hurting.'' It's clear elsewhere in town that Crockett, as soon as possible, wants a bit of the spotlight being shone on the bridge that pays tribute to the life of Al Zampa, who as a child lived down the road in the now-defunct town of Selby. His family moved to Crockett when he was a teenager. ``This truly puts Crockett on the map in a way that's never been done before,'' said Gene Pedrotti, who lives in Crockett and runs a store that started there, Pedrotti Ace Hardware, now located in nearby Benicia. A tireless Crockett promoter, Pedrotti is the central organizer of a dozen bridge-opening committees that pull members from Crockett, Vallejo and other nearby towns. For months they have worked to line up sponsors, fireworks, speeches, a parade and other events to coincide with the bridge's grand opening. The main events are tentatively planned for the weekend of Nov. 8 and 9--though a hard-to-predict construction schedule could change that, a Caltrans spokesman warned. Caltrans is overseeing construction of the bridge, which is expected to carry 120,000 vehicles per day west bound on Interstate 80 toward San Francisco. Pedrotti says that one of the biggest draws regionally, once the bridge-opening fanfare has passed, will be its two- way pedestrian and bicycle path. The Al Zampa Bridge will introduce pedestrian access to the Carquinez span, closing a gap in the Bay Trail that's being developed in encircle San Francisco Bay. Traffic could flow on the new span within days of the November opening ceremonies. The pedestrian and bicycle path might not be open for several more weeks after that, according to Caltrans. A 5-acre landscaped park is planned for the hillside leading down to the waterfront underneath the bridge. ``I think a lot of people are going to suddenly discover Crockett when they realize there's a cool bridge to walk across on a nice summer day,'' Pedrotti said. Already, town boosters have worked the name and design of the Zampa bridge into a logo that shows up on T-shirts and ball caps for sale at small businesses in town and on the Internet (www.alzbridge.com). The same logo decorates banners on light poles in the center of Crockett. Zampa, during his storied career, worked on both the 1927 and 1958 Carquinez spans as well as the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Martinez Bridge and Richmond- San Rafael Bridge. He became a celebrity of sorts after he survived a fall from the Golden Gate in 1936. He landed in a safety net--at the time a new feature of bridge construction--but the net sagged. Zampa, according to his recollection in interviews, hit the rocks below and paid for the trip with four broken vertebrae and three months of hospitalization. He returned to bridge work after a long recovery. In Crockett and nearby El Sobrante, Pinole and other towns, Zampa was known as Al, Husky, Zamp or Gramps, depending on who was talking, relatives said. He helped form the first Little League program and coached boys' teams in the 1940s, said his son, Richard ``Dick'' Zampa, 67. Al Zampa retired in 1970. He died in April 2000 at age 95. He was alive when construction began on the new Carquinez span, but he did not know it would be named for him. ``He was at the groundbreaking, and he was starting to go down-hill, to feel pretty ill,'' said Dick Zampa, who is first general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers Union and president of the state's District Council of Iron Workers. Dick and his brother Gene worked alongside their father on the 1958 Carquinez Bridge. ``This is a recognition of all blue-collar workers,'' said Dick Zampa, whose sons Dick Zampa, Jr. and Don Zampa also carry on the family's labor tradition, as apprentice coordinator and business manager, respectively, of Iron Workers Local Union 378 in Oakland. ``It's a tremendous honor for working people as a whole,'' said Don Zampa, 44. ``My gramps, he'd have been pretty baffled by it.'' Al Zampa's story, recounted over the years by Charles Kuralt, among others, is a dramatic one. And the bridge is impressive in its own right. A joint venture of FCI Constructors and Cleveland Bridge, the effort is multinational, pulling workers, prefabricated pieces and building techniques from Britain, Japan and other countries. The bridge is a smaller-sister of the Golden Gate Bridge, with dual towers rising 410 feet above the water. By comparison, the Golden Gate's towers reach 746 feet above the bay. It's expected that the new 2,390-foot span, a replacement for the 1927 bridge, will attract visitors from around the world--though some considered that wishful thinking just a year or two ago. ``I was one of the last people to be convinced,'' said Sharon Clark, an agent with Signature Realty in Crockett. Now the possibilities seem more real. ``We would like to be someplace (that makes) the average Bay Area citizen say, `Wow, what are we going to do this weekend? Let's see what's going on in Crockett.' It's feasible,'' Clark said. Many mornings on the Crockett hillside, someone such as Carl Peters, 83, of Pinole, can be found parked in the lot of the Dead Fish Restaurant enjoying the view of a new suspension bridge coming together below. ``To the people here, it's a big deal,'' said Peters on a recent morning, standing beside his blue Chevrolet pickup and eyeing the latest developments below on what he called ``a new symbol for Crockett.'' The retired diesel-engine mechanic has stopped by most days for about two years. ``There's only one Golden Gate,'' he said, ``but this is pretty slick.'' A combination of ingenuity and humor helped the proprietors of the Dead Fish survive the challenges of temporarily losing the highway off-ramp by which most of their customers arrived, said Dante Serafini, a partner in the restaurant. One of two full-service seafood restaurants in town--the other is Nantucket, on the waterfront--the Dead Fish is still referred to by some locals as Vera's. It formerly was Vera's Villa Valona, a family-style Italian joint. Valona has roots as the community next door to Crockett, with boundaries that are now indistinguishable. Early residents, including Italian, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants, came to call their town Sugar City after C&H took over the waterfront flour mill in 1906. Through the Depression most of the C&H plant workers lived in town. Few of them do now, and the town feels different as a result, according to longtime residents such as Don Zampa. ``Less and less people are there for generation after generation. People grew up, and there's less work in the immediate area,'' he said. ``Generations of people in Crockett worked at C&H. My grandfather was an exception.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the past few decades have posed some difficult challenges for America's workers and some hard choices for those who seek to guarantee them a brighter future. I can think of no area that is simultaneously as broadly important and increasingly complex as pension and health benefit issues. As Congress struggles with the challenge of ensuring the health and pension benefit promises made to tens of millions of workers and retirees, I want to thank the Employee Benefits Research Institute for its considerable contribution to providing education and information to members of Congress and the Nation. As EBRI marks its 25th anniversary, I want to thank them for helping us understand the issues and say that we all look forward to their counsel in the future. EBRI is one of the only organizations dedicated to gathering employee benefit information and presenting it to the public in a timely fashion. Regrettably, on a subject that affects almost every individual in the country, there is no government agency that collects and distributes information about workplace benefits. EBRI deserves our deepest commendation for consistently stepping into the gap and attempting to provide information that is critical to the decision- making ability of public policymakers. EBRI's strength is that it is a non-advocacy organization so that legislators on both sides of the aisle can use its resources. America's pension system has changed a lot since ERISA was enacted and EBRI was created. Often workers don't fully understand the changes that can have a big impact on their retirement. Sometimes legislators fail to fully grasp the magnitude of the adjustments we're called onto make. Educating both groups is both a full-time job and a worthy goal. Because of EBRI's work, we know more than we otherwise would have. I hope they continue shedding light on workplace benefits in the decades ahead because I think that will improve the odds that legislators like us will be able to make enlightened important decisions that benefit working men and women.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I find it incredible that the gentleman on the other side of the aisle would suggest that somehow these are not responsible people, that they accept the privileges of living in this country, but they are not responsible because they do not pay income taxes, so they are not entitled to the tax credit. These people would love to pay more taxes. They would love to be rich. They go to work every day hoping that someday they might get rich, might get a benefit. They would love to pay more taxes, but the gentleman says they are not responsible. I guess that extends to the soldier who is putting his life on the line to defend the privileges that the gentleman talked about, and because he gets tax-free income while he is in battle risking his life, his family should not get a tax credit? I think that soldier is a fairly responsible individual, and I bet his family is fairly responsible. But he does not pay much in taxes because we do not pay him much to do his job. That is your idea of the trade-off in America between those who are entitled in America and those who get privileges? This tax cut is denigrating families who work hard every day, and their children, and the military.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for bringing this matter before the House. On June 9, the President made it very clear that he wants this tax credit for low-income working people, the tax credit for their children to be passed and put into law. He wants the Senate provision passed. That was 2 months ago. In those 2 months, the House and the Senate have done very little to advance this ball. Why? Because the extreme radical position of the Republicans in the House of Representatives has essentially kept a conference committee from taking place because they have decided that to take care of a $3 billion oversight in the tax credit, they want to spend $80 billion to get there. That is unacceptable to the President of the United States, that is unacceptable to the Senate on a bipartisan basis, and it is certainly unacceptable to many of us in the House of Representatives. They made a conscious decision in the last hours in the middle of the night in the consideration of the last tax bill that these children of low-income working parents would simply not get this credit. They had to make a decision between the millionaires who would get $44,000 a year in tax rebate; or if they gave the tax credit to low-income children's families, they would only get $38,000 in a tax rebate. The person making that decision was one of the big beneficiaries, Vice President Cheney. The children had the tax credit when Vice President Cheney walked into the room; when he left the room, he had the tax credit and the poor children's families didn't have the tax credit. That is the history. Yesterday as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) pointed out, the President was in Dearborn, Michigan, where he was hailing the first checks to go out to families seeking the tax credit, deserving of the tax credit; and once again, he asked Congress to pass legislation, to pass the Senate bill. He said he wants to extend it to all spectrums of society. Now maybe the Republicans in the House of Representatives think that President Bush is a wild-eyed, radical liberal who wants to take care of some families who are undeserving. I do not think he is. I think what he recognizes is that this is a matter of equity. This is a matter of whether or not people who go to work every day, work their tails off, and at the end of the year end up poor, and that this Congress decided we were going to place an additional value on the cost of raising these children, and we were going to help America's families with a child tax credit. But the Republicans in this Congress decided the poor children were not going to be worth as much. Just a cold-hearted calculation, stone- cold decision that these poor children just are not worth as much. That somehow, their parents are not as noble when they go to work every day as millionaires are when they go to work every day. Mr. Speaker, that is the calculation that this President has asked this Congress, these Republicans to reject, and to pass the tax credit so that these children will get their share of equity in American society.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. * * *

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I rise in strong support of defeating this rule and keeping our promises to our veterans.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of defeating the previous question so we will have an opportunity to properly fund AmeriCorp. AmeriCorp is desperately in need of $100 million to make sure we do not provide the kinds of cuts that can be devastating, not only to the AmeriCorp volunteers, but to our communities. In my own State of California, we are talking about cuts if this funding is not realized of some 64 percent. That means some 2,000 service members in AmeriCorp, young people volunteering, will not be eligible to have their positions continued. This is not just about them; it is about the work they do in our communities, in after-school programs, building affordable housing, to help the communities respond to disaster, and helping to train a new core of teachers. Those are the services they provide. That is the multiplier that they provide. Many of us have witnessed AmeriCorp workers at work. We spend time with them at social occasions and you start to appreciate their infectious enthusiasm and their desire to help their country and help our communities and help young people and older people. They provide a huge amount of services. And yet because of a squabble, because of a mistake by the executives in the corporation, we are now going to hold these young people liable. We are going to decimate this program. And we do that in light of the fact that the President of the United States asked us to increase AmeriCorps from between 50,000 to 75,000 new volunteers, recognizing the spirit and the contribution that AmeriCorps makes to our communities and to our Nation. But now, what we find out is that this supplemental, if we do not defeat the previous question, will provide for 28,000 positions. That is an anemic form of AmeriCorps in a country that has so many needs and has the ability to attract the best of these young people with their talents, with their education, and with their desire to help our communities. So I would urge my colleagues to vote against the previous question so that we can open up this supplemental to provide fpr the funding for AmeriCorps that is so urgently needed.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, tonight we have a choice. We have a choice about whether or not we can build upon the continued and improving success of the Head Start program, and whether or not we can provide the kind of quality assurance and performance standards that this generation of children, of impoverished children, of many children who have not had opportunity up until the day they walked through the door of a Head Start center, whether we can provide that kind of quality program and performance standards to assure that they will, in fact, have the opportunity to exercise the education that they will be given. The gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) pointed out the chart that showed these children were improving a few percentiles during their time in Head Start; then he suggested in his earlier remarks, not in these remarks but in the earlier remarks, that these children were performing so poorly that for all intents and purposes, they are done educationally. Well, that obviously does not jive with some of our colleagues who talked about their own success as Head Start students and our own experiences in our congressional districts; nor does it jive with the rest of the study which the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) cited, which is, by the end of kindergarten, these children are performing at about average. What does that suggest to us? It suggests to the researchers that Head Start, in fact, did lay down the foundation, did lay down the basis by which these children, compared to other children in kindergarten, are able to achieve in that 1 year the average of those children. That is against all children in that kindergarten. How does Head Start work against their peers, other poor children who do not have the opportunity? We see that these children have substantial gains, IQ gains over the children who did not get to participate in Head Start. Their reading, writing, and math skills are superior to those children who did not get to participate; a much higher level of high school graduation. They are not doomed because they are not doing as well as we would like in Head Start; they are doing better than their peers. Special education, many fewer held back in school, and fewer put into special education and, of course, a lower incidence of participation in crime. So it is working against their peers, and it is providing them an educational opportunity against the average children. We have already agreed, and we have said on both sides of the aisle, that there is much improvement in this legislation. But again we go back to the fundamental principle that the improvements that we make in title I, the improvements in the performance standards and in the law, are then undermined by the block grant. It is interesting that the gentleman from Delaware, and I can understand his experience, because his State has basically adopted the Head Start performance standards for State pre-K programs, as has Ohio, the chairman; and I guess, apparently, of Oregon. But in this block grant, the very things that strengthen and provide for the success that the gentleman from Delaware talks about are not included, because when you say it is extensive, you do not have to take the body of regulations that have provided the quality and the continuous improvement of this program over 35 years. The States do not have to take that, and that is the big difference. And that is what we see when we talk about the erosion that the block grant leads to. We can take the block grant and we can reduce program hours. We can exclude 3-year-olds. We can increase child-teacher ratios. We can provide unproven curricula. We have spent a fortune trying to get Head Start doing something with the massive amounts of research that we have been involved in, and yet we can cast that aside and go out to some vendor who promises us something for these children. We can run half- year programs and we can serve more children by running the half-year program. These are the core elements that have separated Head Start from so many other State-run programs where they do not have the quality and they do not get the results. That is why there is such a strong adherence by our communities to the Head Start program. That is why there is such strong adherence by the Members of Congress to the Head Start program, because we understand that they are being measured by their compliance, by their compliance to those standards. Yes, many of them are out of compliance in one fashion or another, but we also know that many of those are just minuscule, tiny, tiny factors that they are out of compliance with. Because in that same study, again, 85 percent of them were high quality. And then it comes to the question of the comprehensive services and the direct access, and the body that we have built up, services that are not provided in many of the State programs. That is why we ask our colleagues to accept this bill and all of the hard work that has gone into title I and to reject title II. Finally, let me say that all of this improvement and all of these children that are supposed to be served are all essentially going to be served with less money in a few years because of the capped authorization in this legislation. For the first time, this Congress will reauthorize a bill that will not allow for the expansion over the period of that reauthorization of this program. That is the first time any Congress has done that, and that is the first time any administration, Republican or Democrat, has suggested that that is the right way to go. We know it is not the right way to go. We are only serving 60 percent of the children, and yet we are going to knock out in the next few years some 5,000 to 10,000 of those children because the authorization does not provide sufficient funding. Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of this amendment, and rejection of the block grant and the undermining of the Head Start program. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez). (Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). (Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen). Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).