Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I swear that the previous speaker has not read this amendment. This amendment says, instead of spending $700 billion dollars on tax cuts, instead of spending $90 billion in tax cuts for people who make more than $300,000 a year, instead of giving $200 billion in tax cuts to the richest 400 people in this country, instead, do two things: provide an increased number of teachers so you can have smaller classes and it says provide more teacher training. The gentleman who just spoke acts as though we do not have anything in here for teacher training. Under the law, under the 100,000 new teachers effort which the President is trying to move forward, 25 percent of that can be used for training; and if you reached 18 kids per classroom, you can use it all for teacher training. This amendment that we are trying to add would add 1 billion additional dollars for teacher training, not for class size, for teacher training. We add $690 million to help upgrade existing teachers in the classroom, and we use the other money to help recruit and retrain new teachers in high-poverty areas. That is what it does. We are taking the criticisms from that side of the aisle last year and responding to them. We are saying, do not just do smaller class size, do both smaller class size and additional teacher training. The question really is, when you blow the smoke away, are you trying to save this money for your high-roller friends on their tax cut, or are you willing to put it into the classroom, recognizing we have got a million more kids that we have to teach and we need the best teachers in the country to do it? So it is a choice between your high-rollers and your kids, and I think you know what side you ought to come down on.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Mrs. Mink).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, last year during the debate on education issues, Democrats focused primarily on the need to reduce classroom size. On the Republican side of the aisle, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) said, and he made a good point, he said, look, it does not do any good to have smaller classrooms if the teachers in those classrooms are not well trained to teach. I happen to agree with that. So this year, President Clinton added $1.1 billion in his budget for teacher training and $1.7 billion to reduce classroom size. In my view, there ought to be room in this budget for both Republican and Democratic priorities. This amendment adds a little over $1 billion to teacher-training programs and to teacher-retention programs. It strikes the action that the committee has taken in block granting teacher training funds into a solid single block grant rather than identifiable programs. Why do we do that? Because we have seen what happened before. What happens with this Congress is that, if they take individual programs and block grant them, then the next time down the road, they cut them. They do not have to take the heat for cutting the individual programs because the effect of those cuts on those programs are masked. So we want that to remain visible. Secondly, I offer it because one out of every 10 teachers in this country is teaching a subject that they are not trained to teach. We are about to lose 20 percent of the teachers that we do have in the country to retirement. When parents get up in the morning and they send their kid to school, it seems to me they have got a right to know four things: first of all, that their child is going to spend that day with a well-trained teacher; secondly, it is going to be in a decent school; thirdly, that school is going to be equipped with modern 21st century technology; and, fourth, the class size is going to be small enough so that you have got enough discipline so that the kid can learn. I think that is what they are entitled to. Now, we have heard a lot of talk about the need for special education. I agree with that. What we have to recognize is that these funds that we are trying to add today help teachers prepare themselves to be able to deal with children with disabilities who are mainstreamed in regular classrooms. As this chart demonstrates, we are going to see an increase in the number of students in high schools from a little less than 15 million children to a little over 16 million children over the next decade. This budget needs to respond to that increase, and we are not doing it. I would suggest that, if our schools work, that our society will work. I happen to have the old-fashioned belief that, if our churches are able to function, if our schools are able to function well, that everything else in society will take care of itself. Then if our schools do not work, nothing will eventually work in this society. Our schools cannot work without well-trained teachers. Our schools cannot work without having the resources to put an additional 100,000 and even more teachers in the classrooms, every one of them well trained. So that is what we are trying to do. We are trying to double, essentially, the Eisenhower training programs. We are trying to increase technology training so teachers know how to use technology in educating, and we are trying to put an additional $270 million in to help the highest poverty schools in the country to recruit, to train, and to mentor qualified teachers. We will not be able to get a vote on this amendment today because of the rule under which it is being debated. The issue to me is very simple. Do my colleagues think it is more important to respond to this coming challenge in the classroom, or is it more important to give away $90 billion in tax cuts to people who made over $300,000 last year? That is the choice. I think my colleagues ought to be on the side of the kids.

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

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, the issue is not what the Congress and the President did on this issue in the last decade. The issue is what we are going to do in the next decade. This bill appropriates $2.7 billion above last year to the National Institutes of Health. But then it has a provision in the bill which says it can only spend $1 billion of that, so the committee has it both ways. It can say yes, we have provided $1.7 billion when they pull this piece of paper out of their pocket, and then they go to the other pocket and say, oh, no, we did not spend that much money, we held the budget down. The result of this budget is that it cuts $439 million below current services, and that means that it reduces the new and competing grants that go out to scientists to do research on cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and everything else, by about 15 percent. In real terms, this bill is a reduction from last year. A lot of people on that side of the aisle keep saying, well, this is just the second step in the process. Do not worry, down the line we are going to try to fix this. What we are saying is that it makes no sense for them to say, well, at some point somebody else is going to be responsible. We are asking the majority side to be responsible now. They keep talking about fiscal responsibility. Two weeks ago I was at Marshfield Clinic in my district. I had a number of senior citizens talk to me about the miracles that had occurred when they had strokes that disabled them, and they were able to recover from those strokes because of new medical research. My question to them and my question to the Members today is this: What is more important to this country, to have more success stories like that, more success stories, like the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), or instead to continue the path that the majority party has been following in providing huge tax cuts, with over 70 percent of the benefits aimed at the wealthiest 1 percent of people in this society? Members gave away in the minimum wage bill $90 billion in tax cuts to people who make over $300,000 a year. All we are saying is they could finance this amendment on health care, they could finance our amendment on education, on child care, on all the rest if they simply cut back what they are providing in those tax packages by 20 percent. Leave the middle-income tax cuts in place, just take the tax cuts that they are providing for the high rollers, cut them back by 20 percent, and they can meet all of these needs. It is not enough to have budgets at last year's level, or around last year's level. This is a growing country. It is a growing population. We have new medical discoveries. Every time we make a new medical discovery, we ought to build on it, not use it as an excuse to slack off. That is what we are saying. To me it is outrageous that this amendment cannot even get a vote on the floor of the House today.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to accept the amendment on this side of the aisle. I think the gentleman is correct.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, we are informed by the Secretary of Education that they have no intention of trying to prevent this kind of activity. In fact, the Secretary indicates he sent a letter urging them to emphasize the value of military service as a post high school option. So, since it does not really do anything that I know of, I have no problem with accepting it.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. Who has the right to close?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that when we talk about the Job Corps, we are talking about young people who up to that moment in their lives are 100-percent failures and the Job Corps manages to salvage about 50 percent of those young people. That is a better batting average than Babe Ruth had. I must say, I am amused by the fact that just 3 days ago we saw on the floor a chart by one of the Members of the majority side and that chart was used to brag about how much the Job Corps was being increased by the majority party; and now this amendment seeks, I guess, to rip up that chart. And I guess maybe those speeches on behalf of the Job Corps that were given on the other side would have to be ripped up, as well. This just is not something we ought to do. It goes at people who have no hope without help, and I think we ought to turn the amendment down.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa). (Mr. HINOJOSA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There is no one in this House who would like to see funding rise for special education more than I would. I have a nephew that benefits from special education. But this amendment is a Johnny-one-note approach to education, and it ought to be defeated. We will be offering an amendment later on in the process which attempts to add a billion and a half dollars to special education by asking the majority to consider cutting back its tax cuts by about 20 percent in size. That is the best way, in my view, under present circumstances to strengthen special education. This amendment is opposed by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, it is opposed by the National PTA, it is opposed by the American Association of School Administrators, the National Education Association, and the National Education of Federally Impacted Schools. Why? Because it cuts the maximum Pell grant award for every working-class kid trying to go to college $275 below last year's level. It cuts education for the poorest kids in this country who are having the most trouble getting an education, the disadvantaged, by $116 million. That means 178,000 fewer kids will be served. It cuts the increases in this bill for Even Start literacy services, comprehensive school reform and high school equivalency and college assistance for migrant students. It cuts services to the deaf and blind students at Gallaudet and at the Printing House for the Blind and at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. It cuts Impact Aid by $78 million. The National Association of State Directors of Special Education says as follows: ``While we support full funding for IDEA and welcome increases in funding that take us toward that goal, we are concerned that these increases are the result of cuts in proposed spending on Federal education programs that also serve the needs of children with disabilities, including title I, 21st century community learning centers, and vocational education. As a result, taking money from one education program and putting it into special education will not increase the total amount of funding available to support children with special needs. These proposed amendments demonstrate the fundamental problem with this appropriations bill. It lacks sufficient funding and support for education programs across the board. This deficiency will not be fixed by moving dollars from one program to another.'' I could not have said it better myself. I would urge rejection of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer).

Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York. (Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OBEY. Yes. I do, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I understand the rule, we are not able to offer an amendment that adds to the funding level assigned to this subcommittee through the budget resolution because the budget resolution set aside a huge amount of money for tax cuts, which the majority party would prefer to see instead of funding for programs like this and Social Security and Medicare and all the rest. That means that all we can do is offer these amendments, but we cannot get a vote on it. It is a pretty strange way to run a railroad, but that is the way we are going to be railroaded, I guess. And so, I reluctantly concede the point of order.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Dave Obey

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