Anne Northup

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, on this day when we honor our Nation's teachers, I would like to highlight the work of one accomplished educator in my district of Louisville, KY. Jacqueline Austin spent 13 years as a classroom teacher before being named as principal of John F. Kennedy Elementary School. In her first year as principal, Mrs. Austin would arrive early at work and phone students to wake them up and ensure that they were coming to school. She says it was the only way she knew to improve the school's attendance rate, which was near the bottom of all of Jefferson County elementary schools. Kennedy could be found at the bottom of a lot of other lists, not only in attendance but also in test scores and failure rates. In fact, more than 30 percent of John F. Kennedy's kindergartners and 23 percent of its first graders had failed a grade. Located in one of the toughest housing projects in the city, Kennedy Elementary seemed to be a lost cause. But in the tradition of outstanding educators, Mrs. Austin set about finding ways to solve her school's problems. Her good friend, Ethel Minnis, wife of director of Career Workforce Education Bernard Minnis, made her aware of the Montessori style of education, which, as Jackie says, encourages students to be actively engaged in their own education. Under the direction of Ms. Austin, Kennedy became the only public Montessori school in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Now, 10 years after Jackie Austin was given this seemingly impossible task, John F. Kennedy Elementary is a model school. The student scores on the State tests have earned the school acclaim. It was recently named a Kentucky Pacesetter School for consistent academic achievement. Mrs. Austin herself was given the Milken Family Award for Excellence in Education. Students run the school's in-house TV network, WJFK. Not only do they appear on air, but they also operate the cameras, produce, direct, and stage manage the broadcasts. Students run their own post office and take a mini civil service exam, and students run the Kennedy Financial Services, which teaches skills associated with banking as well as investing in stocks and bonds. Jackie Austin's enthusiasm and work ethic have proven to be contagious. Parental involvement in the school is at an all-time high. Kennedy teacher Patti Barron says, ``When you have a principal that works as hard as she does, we're willing to work as hard as we can.'' John F. Kennedy Elementary has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of a once failing school. Jackie Austin was on the front lines of this Nation's war against ignorance. She was innovative and determined not to let the enemy win. The results she has achieved exemplify what happens when educators are allowed to be independent and creative. Mrs. Austin says, ``Every child is a learner. With all of the outside distractions, we have to make learning dynamic and exciting.'' Jackie Austin has done just that. I was honored to meet her and tour her school, a modern day success story, where education and learning are paramount.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. I want to just remind you though that even though North Carolina may not incur the higher school costs and may not borrow out of this $5 billion, this $5 billion represents the tax dollars they have paid to Washington, and they are just going to lose it for some State that does not have the foresight to be able to afford this.

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I would. I have been very interested in education myself as a mother of six children, as a member of the Kentucky State legislature, on the education and the Committee on Appropriations. I have had a long-standing involvement with the education. Kentucky had the courage and worked very hard in 1990, enacted in fact one of the largest taxes in their history in order to fund their schools. It is often pointed to as the example of school reform that we ought to look to on the Federal level.

Mrs. NORTHUP. Actually the whole key to Kentucky's education reform act is that children learn one child at a time, one classroom at a time, one school at a time, and one district at a time. The closer the effective education occurs and the decisions are made to that child and that teacher and that classroom, the more effective schools will be and the more effective the learning decisions that are made will be. Mr. Speaker, I particularly was interested in the President's America Reads program. First of all, one of the first weeks of the Committee on Appropriations on education, we had before us the National Institutes of Health. This is the research arm that the Federal Government spends so many billions of dollars on. They have done a great deal of research in the last couple of years on how children read and what the problems are with reading. They have come to the conclusion that children who have trouble learning to read, there are some children that will learn in any system, but children who have trouble need intensive phonics instruction. And yet this America Reads, one of the problems is we have so many teachers who have not come through a phonics-based system. So retraining them is a big issue. This America Reads program is almost as though the people that originated this idea did not read our own government's research. It is out of context of any phonics. It is out of context of understanding that very structured phonics is the way these children can best learn. They, in particular, found that if you mix it with whole language or not stylized instruction that it confuses the child so we are not only wasting money we are chancing that we are going to undo the very thing that our research shows is the most effective way of teaching children to read.

Mrs. NORTHUP. I think it goes back to the theme, Mr. Speaker, that the gentleman talked about, about why spend more of our tax dollars if we cannot make effective the tax dollars we already spend on education. Mr. Speaker, I believe that Americans are committed to education, and I believe that they care deeply about children learning, particularly learning to read. So let us look at the proven ways. Let us leave education where it can be changed, according to the research, and that is with local control and local efforts. Let us not add a program that is unproven, untested, where the research shows there essentially would be no effect on kids learning.

Mrs. NORTHUP. It is important, and it is important because I think the American people would be interested in how their tax dollars are spent. What the Federal Government says is that any school that is built with a dollar of Federal money, that certain provisions in the bidding process have to take place. One of those provisions is that extraordinarily high wages have to be paid, higher wages than most of the taxpayers will ever earn. What this does is push up the cost of construction 11 to 20 percent. This makes no sense. We are talking about the desperate need to build more schools. What you do is you give the schools the opportunity to help offset some of their interest payments, but by doing that, they incur 11 to 20 percent higher costs in building every single school.

Mrs. NORTHUP. Actually there are two problems here. One is the fraudulent data. When you have a building in Washington, DC that is trying to determine construction projects and costs in Oklahoma, what you are doing is removing the two so far apart that you make fraud a very easy, very easily an occurrence. But furthermore, even if you have no fraud, what you have are extraordinarily high wage rates in places like Kentucky, places where if you were an individual, if you were a taxpayer, if you were going to construct something, you would never pay those construction wages. You would never pay those same level of construction wages. I might say that in Kentucky, when I looked over those wage scales, there were $28 an hour, $26 an hour. We are a poor State. You know, we have people that are working for minimum wage, that are working as hairdressers, that are working in gas stations, that are driving school buses, that are working on the assembly line at Ford Motor Co. None of those people make $28 an hour. And for them to pay their taxes and have their taxes pay people to build schools for their children at extraordinarily high wage rates is an absolute abuse of their tax dollars.

Mrs. NORTHUP. The best way to build a school for our children is for each school district to do it as they do it right now. They say, what do we need? We need this many classrooms, we need these certain specifications, and they put it out for an open bid process, and then all the companies that build can bid on those bid processes, and the taxpayers know they get the best price for the school they are going to build. That is what they deserve for the sacrifice they pay in their taxes, and that is the best way, close to home, to make sure that each school is built in accordance to specifications and at the cheapest price.

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to challenge the Department of Education and the President to rethink their proposal. Since they believe that schools construction is so important, since they believe the need is so great that we cannot afford it, I am going to ask them to resubmit their proposal and take out the Davis-Bacon provision, say that they will be excepted from this so that those projects that they say we need so badly will be built, there will be an opportunity for more schools for our children, and they can prove how dedicated they are to our kids by removing this very costly provision.

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to realize that there will be a lot of rhetoric about this. I know that I have heard the debate that what you get is more efficiency when you use higher- price labor, but the true effect is if you got more efficiency, those companies that used the $28-an-hour workers would be able to bid on the job and get it without prevailing wage. If you actually save money by using higher price labor, then you could come in with lower bids, you would win the bid contract. So I think that you are going to hear some misinformation. The other question is that if you do not set those wages high, that you are going to take advantage of people who are very poor. The truth is the people who are very poor, the people who have modest incomes, middle-income America, are going to subsidize with their tax dollars extraordinarily high pay rates for those people that work on the schools. It is not the workers who are talking advantage of on the schools, but all the other workers in our States and across this country that are going to pay higher taxes in order to get school projects they could get at a cheaper price.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I think on the floor today when we think about how much time we spend discussing building roads, building schools, building businesses, it is really wonderful to take a day and talk about building families. Families with children are created in two ways. The children come by birth and they come by adoption. In our family, my husband and I have six children. Two of those children, our third child and our fifth child, are hard-to-place children that came to our family years ago. They have brought such wonderful gifts to this family. They have brought such diversity, diversity of talents, diversity of interests, and diversity of race. It is a team of six children that are full of life, full of noise, full of interests. I wish those two children that have brought such a wonderful presence to our home could be with us here today and that I could introduce my colleagues to them. Twenty-one years ago, when my husband and I adopted the first of those two children, we had a lot of love and energy. We had a ready- made family. We had no money. So it was quite a decision, quite a strain, to make the decision that we could, in fact, adopt that child. The bill that is before us today will give to families across this country the opportunity to have the wonderful gifts that adopted children bring to families. In fact, it makes me very emotional to think of the special blessings that will come to so many families because of this bill. There will be no building that we can do in this Chamber any time that will be more important than the building of families that are part of this bill.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago, a number of female trial lawyers approached Members of Congress to press the message that product liability reform is bad for women As the House Committee on Commerce begins to hold hearings on product liability reform tomorrow, I want to enter into the Record information and documents that show not only is that message false, but it is being organized by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, a group that strongly opposes even modest product liability reform. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there is no group that is more harmed by the current product liability laws than women. This is true for two reasons. First of all, in terms of health, the fear of lawsuits has halted research and kept products off the market that would give many women better opportunities and remedies, things like contraceptives, breast reconstruction, and other products that are badly needed for women's health. Second, the majority of newly created small businesses today, for the first time, are women owned. There is no group that is more impacted by product liability than small business owners. So this system is a threat to women who are beginning small businesses. Mr. Speaker, I hope for these reasons that we will soon be able to consider and pass product liability reform. How Product Liability Reform Helps Women Federal product liability reform legislation includes modest reforms on key issues of product liability. These reforms will help to solve some of the problems inherent in our current liability system. The reforms apply across the board and do not impact any one group--especially women. Women will benefit in many ways from the enactment of these fair and well-reasoned reforms. federal product liability reform will reduce gender bias in research and product innovation Women in America have been deprived of a drug (Bendectin) approved everywhere in the world to prevent morning sickness because of a liability system out of control. Contraceptive research is often put on hold due to liability concerns. The Committee for Contraceptive Development, jointly staffed and administered by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, notes that only one major U.S. pharmaceutical company still invests in contraceptive research due to liability concerns. The Committee cited a hostile legal climate as the reason contraceptive manufacturers are abandoning this market. Reports published in the New England Journal of Medicine (July 22, 1993) concluded that manufacturers' liability concerns are contributing to the exclusion of women from clinical studies. Phyllis Greenberger, Executive Director of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in the 104th Congress that ``liability concerns are stifling research and development of products for women.'' product liability reform will help women in business Women-owned businesses increased by almost 58 percent from 1982-1987 and currently account for 30 percent of all U.S. firms. The U.S. Small Business Administration predicts that women will own 40 percent of all small businesses by the year 2000. Small businesswomen will run up against the same insurance and liability pressures that face all small businesses. Federal product liability reform legislation will help ease those barriers to commerce and competition. In Senate Commerce Committee testimony, Schutt Sporting Group CEO Julie Nimmons--one of two remaining U.S. manufacturers of football helmets--stated: ``our employees hold their breath every time a case goes to the jury, because a runaway award could mean the end of our company.'' In House testimony, Livernois Engineering Co. President Norma Wallis stated that her company and the entire U.S. machine tool industry as a whole ``is made less competitive by the product liability system.'' victims of des will be helped, not hurt by federal product liability reform In over 20 years of litigation, punitive damages have never been awarded in a DES case. In fact, because DES manufacturers have not been shown to have acted in conscious or flagrant disregard of public safety, no judge has even put the question of punitive damages before a jury in a DES case. Consequently, the punitive damages reforms will not have an adverse effect on DES plaintiffs. On the other hand, DES victims who discovered their injuries after expiration of their state's statute of limitation would have court house doors opened to them. Under the proposed federal legislation, a woman would have up to two years to file a lawsuit after she discovers or should have discovered both the injury and its cause. Because many effects of pharmaceuticals used by women may not be readily apparent, this provision is especially important in preserving the rights of women to recovery for injuries. the proposed bill does not discriminate against women Federal product liability reform legislation follows a provision of California law on the topic of joint liability. The provision was voted into California law by over 60 percent of those voting in 1986. It has been argued by opponents that the provision is ``anti-women'' because their economic damages may be lower than men and, for that reason, they depend on noneconomic or so-called ``pain and suffering'' damages. However, there has been absolutely no showing in California, a large and litigious state, that the California approach discriminates against any sex or any group. In fact, noted California trial attorney Suzelle Smith has testified that the California law is fair and has worked well for consumers. The California Supreme Court has upheld the California law on equal protection grounds under the California and the United States Constitutions. Nebraska enacted the same reform in 1991 after carefully studying various joint liability reform alternatives. Several states have enacted limits on punitive damages and those laws have never been challenged by women's groups because they do not discriminate. The proportionality requirement in the proposed federal legislation is similarly gender-neutral. Phyllis Greenberger, Executive Director of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in the 104th Congress that U.S. companies are shying away from the contraceptive market because of the unpredictable nature of litigation combined with the enormous cost and limited availability of liability insurance.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I thank my honorable friend from Missouri, Mr. Hulshof, for the opportunity to share with my freshman majority party colleagues that are talking about taxes and the tax burden that so many of our constituents have told us that they have become very angry about. The truth is, if I had to describe the one issue that is the most uniting issue in my district it has become taxes. I really think that that is unique to this year. I think that there have been questions about taxes, complaints about taxes as long as people have been paying them. Over the years there have been a variety of concerns, but somewhere over the last 4 or 5 years the American public began to believe that truly Congress was going to direct their attention to the tax burden that we pay and that we were going to address that issue, resolve that issue, and find a way to lower their taxes, a variety of their taxes. There are particular taxes that are very unpopular in this country. As Congress has moved into its third year under the direction of this leadership, there seems to be some frustration and some concerns that we have not addressed the issue yet. So tonight I would like to take this opportunity to make some suggestions about how we might go about in a government of bipartisan control, of bipartisan work, to resolve the impasse of tax cuts and government spending so that we can truly address the questions and the concerns that so many of our constituents have. First of all, public policy and dealing with public policy is a very imperfect world. I think most of us, when we were elected, we came to Washington and if we had a perfect world we would wrap up in one tight package a spending bill that would substantially reduce spending, and we would also reduce taxes for the American people. We would put it together in one package, we would send it to the President, and it would be passed. I think that we could look into the last 2 years of history and know that that is a very difficult thing to achieve. In fact, bill after bill was vetoed. There never was any agreement, and the issue is so big, when we package it all in an omnibus bill, that it is very difficult to discuss with the American people all of the ways that we are trying to comply with their wishes. So maybe we ought to go about, as has been discussed recently, separating the issues of the budget and the tax cuts, not because we do not believe in both of them and not because we believe that one should foreshadow the other, but because we believe both of them on their own merit have the support of the American people. First of all, let us look at the budget and the budget that we need to pass. It is our responsibility to pass a budget and to decrease spending. Most people that have run for Congress in the last couple of years have said that the Government spends too much money. Then let us scour every agency. Sitting on the Committee on Appropriations, I can look at the agencies that come before me and see the terrible waste, the millions, the billions of dollars that are wasted. Mr. Speaker, sometimes we keep spending that money because there is the idea that somehow it is there. It reminds me as a mother of six children what it would be like to give each one of my children a $10 bill to go into a candy store. There would be no limit. They would not stop buying until every last cent were spent. That is what we are doing in government today, but the money is just not there. Somebody is sacrificing and paying and writing that check to the Federal Government. So because we agree the Government is too big, because we believe there is too much bureaucracy that is a part of our programs, because we believe there are many areas where we could block grant this money to States and local governments and have more effective programs that better address the problems, because we believe there are obsolete programs, because we believe there are overlapping programs that could be combined, because we believe there is waste that is costing all of our people money, let us go back to the budget with the idea in our minds that we are going to eliminate every excessive program, every program that can be eliminated, not because we are looking towards tax cuts, but because the American people and we believe government is too big and that we need to make it smaller, make it more streamlined, make it more effective. Let us put those ideas before the American people. Let us write them up in a budget, let us send them to the Senate and to the President and let us see if he will sign a bill that reflects what we are all talking about: smaller government. Let us deal with programs that are insolvent and make them solvent. People believe Medicare should be solvent. People believe Social Security should be solvent. Let us deal with those problems, separate from tax cuts, and make those programs solvent, all of those things, because they are the right thing to do. The American people are clamoring for it. At the same time on a parallel track, let us start talking about each and every tax cut that have been mentioned to the American people, what they are talking about and asking us for. Let us talk about the $500 tax credit for families with children. That is the most pinched group of people in our society today. They have young children. They have not had a time in their life where they could save money and build a nest egg. They drive their car all the time to get their children to school, to get to work, to get their children to the doctors, all of the things, the demands that are on young families. They are the people that go to work, they pay their taxes, and they wait to buy tennis shoes for their children until they have the money in the bank. Those are the families that are most concerned about how they are going to make it. They are the most frustrated about the fact that they get up every day and they go to work and they do all of the responsible things, they pay for day care for their children, they pay their taxes, and they do not know whether there will be the money to take their family on a camping trip this year. Let us give them that $500 tax relief. Then let us move to capital gains. Let us send that to the President, in every form. We can start with the perfect form. If that is not what he wants, then let us move to a phase-in, let us move to the different kinds of capital gains tax, and let us move to every form that hopefully the President will eventually sign. Mr. Speaker, I believe that if we put both of these issues separately before the American people that there will be strong support for both of them, and that we can describe them and communicate with the American people in a way that will build the consensus we so badly need.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Miller substitute and in support of H.R. 1. While the Miller substitute claims to offer the option of comptime to workers, the truth is it would continue to deny them that option. Under the Miller substitute, huge groups, basically anybody that the Secretary of Labor deems should be excluded, would be prohibited from receiving the benefits of this comptime law. In addition, the Miller substitute creates such a regulatory maze that no employer would ever offer comptime at such an option. In a time when the American public is calling for smaller government and less regulatory burden, this substitute is a major step backward. The only real comptime proposal here is H.R. 1. Mr. Chairman, I have six children. As a working mother, I know the challenges of balancing a family and a career. I know what it is like not to be able to attend your daughter's swim meet or your son's soccer game because you have to work. With this bill, an employer could give a mother or father the opportunity to bank comptime. When a child got sick or had a recital or had to go to the dentist, she can take time from that bank and spend that time with her family. If she would rather receive overtime pay, she has that option. If she decides to cash in those hours, her employer would have to pay her within 30 days. This is not a new idea. The public sector employees have had this opportunity for years, and we need to give it to the private sector employees. I understand there are some workers that are afraid this will end overtime pay. This simply is not the case. When I explain to constituents what this bill means, they endorse it wholeheartedly. It is too bad that some Members, for political gain, have once again attempted to mislead hard-working Americans using scare tactics and inaccurate information. I believe the public is too smart for this. They support this bill, and they want that flexibility time. Mr. Chairman, the President himself has talked about the need for flexible work schedules. This bill supplies that.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, Congress passed the Wagner-O'Day Act in 1938 to provide employment opportunities for Americans who are blind. Amended as the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act in 1971, today, this program continues to provide employment and other support services to thousands of people who are blind or have other severe disabilities throughout the United States. Many of the individuals who participate in the Javits-Wagner-O'Day [JWOD] Program are not capable of competitive employment, or do not desire competitive employment. The JWOD Act has been a successful initiative which has provided gainful and renumerative employment to many people who would otherwise have had no employment options. Many of the persons served have overcome obstacles to lead fulfilling lives. Each year the National Industries for the Blind [NIB], the central nonprofit agency for industries for the blind participating in the JOWD, selects one outstanding worker as the Peter J. Salmon National Blind Employee of the Year. This year one of my constituents, Mr. Searchy Marshall, has been nominated to receive this impressive honor. I applaud Mr. Marshall for his determination to succeed and his dedication to his work. He is truly an inspiration to us all.

Mrs. NORTHUP

Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Speaker, I rise in this historic Chamber for the first time to discuss an issue that I consider infinitely important. Almost every Member of Congress in the last 30 years has run on the their pledge to balance the Federal budget, and yet what we have today is a Federal budget that is a $5 trillion in debt. Truly, promises to balance the budget have not worked in the past. I come from a State where we have a balanced budget in our constitution, and it has required the legislature every year to make those tough, hard decisions that have to be made each year in order not to go more and more in debt. That is what we need at the Federal level, so that the promises we make in our campaigns, the promises we make to the American people, will in fact become a reality. I want to urge the Members of this body to pass a constitutional amendment so that the legacy we pass on to our children rather than be a crushing national deficit will be a fiscally responsible Nation.