Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Not for one moment would I want to minimize the role of the caucus in stimulating, the caucus stimulated the activity from the general community and from the White House. We played a major role. The leadership of the first Reconstruction, we must pay homage to them. They tried very hard. They were up against bullets and fire, and they did not succeed in playing the kind of role that stimulated the rest of the country to do the kind of things they ought to do. But we played a major role. I certainly do not want to minimize that, of the Congressional Black Caucus. I yield, to continue the discussion on Black History Month, African- Americans and civil rights, to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Delahunt]. I want to congratulate Mr. Delahunt. He is new here. I welcome him to the floor and congratulate him on his victory.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his most appropriate remarks. I think it is very important that you mentioned the burning of the churches. I would like to point out that the reaction to the burning of the churches, the people who started the burning of the churches know that the church is the center of the black life all across the country. They wanted to get at the core of our organization and inspiration, and it was a devastating blow to go after our churches. But our Government is to be congratulated, our President is to be congratulated, the general public, foundations, and various people are to be congratulated for the manner in which we have reacted. If only we had had a similar reaction to the Ku Klux Klan and the kind of violence perpetrated after the freeing of the slaves, history might tell a different story. If only our Government had not capitulated, if only it stood behind General Howard and General Armstrong and Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania and Charles Sumner from Massachusetts and resisted the kind of violent response of the white former Confederate officers and soldiers in reorganizing a violent overthrow of legitimately elected black governments in the South and a number of other institutions that were upset by violent and illegal means. If only our Government had stood firmly then, we should congratulate our President for the fact that he stood firmly, offered leadership from the bully pulpit of the White House and stood firm on the ravages of affirmative action at a time when hysteria was being generated. It makes a difference and it is a pity that we do not have that kind of leadership from all sectors of the American leadership community during the second Reconstruction. We would not have lost so much so fast. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California, the leader of our Black Caucus.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would ask if there is anyone in the House that has not spoken yet that would like to speak? If not, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from California to make a closing statement, and the gentleman from Ohio if he would like to make a closing statement, also, after the gentlewoman.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the great State of Massachusetts. We should take note of the fact that Massachusetts was one of the first to heed the call of President Lincoln and with great fervor their soldiers went into the lines and the civil rights battles. Also Massachusetts produced Charles Sumner, one of the great defenders of slave rights and later on one of the architects of the legislation that led to 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], a neighbor from Alexandria.

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman. I hope we will never put the spirit of the sit-ins behind us. I do hope the gentleman will take out additional time. He could spend a whole hour on the spirit of A&T and the first big sit-in. I think we may need to instruct this generation and this group of people right here, in the year 1997, that there is a time when we must go down, we must confront the authorities. We may have to confront the authorities on the attempt to remove Medicaid as an entitlement. I think there are some points in the history right now that we are going to have to come to grips with that are just as important as our civil rights, such as the importance of the right to life that emanates from having health care for everybody. There may be a number of other issues where we may have to follow history, and understand there is a time when we confront the authorities and tell them we will not accept this.

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina, [Mr. Mel Watt].

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut, and again congratulate him on his hard-won race in order to get to this House of Representatives. Continuing the discussion on Black History Month, African-Americans, and civil rights, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ken Bentsen. (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman from American Samoa. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Maloney]. (Mr. MALONEY of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to continue this discussion on African-American history to the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters] and also the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] who continues a long tradition of special orders during African- American History Month. I would like to continue in the same set of rules that they were following, whatever they were. If you have a list of people, I will follow that list. I will make a few opening remarks and then go back to the list as you have come because I think that we want continuity between the two sets of special orders. Mr. Speaker, I just want to open up by saying I thought that the topic chosen by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] relating to civil rights organizations and their role in history is a good focus in terms of our civil rights organizations ought to be congratulated for what they have done up to now. They are to be congratulated. We ought to use history to sort of reappraise where we are and where we are going. Ken Burns today, at a speech at the National Press Club related to his forthcoming film on Thomas Jefferson, said that history is a record of everything that has happened up to this moment. Everything is history, whether you are talking about the history of science, the history of technology. So Black History Month is a time when a lot of people are reminded of certain kinds of achievements of individual African-Americans, achievements related to inventions; related to first steps in terms of organizations; first steps related to leadership that has been provided in various ways by African-Americans. All that is in order. But there is another dimension of black history which I think we have neglected, which I would like to discuss in greater detail later on, and that is our civil rights organizations need some underpinning now and would be greatly strengthened if we were to really decide where we are in history now, what our past history has meant, and how we should use the lessons of our past history. South Africa has a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is designed to help get the country on a smooth path toward the future and not have it become bogged down in its past. I think it is most unfortunate that at the end of the Civil War America did not establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, because some of the problems we are facing now are rooted in an unjust history: 235 years of slavery. What did 235 years of slavery do to a people, and how are the repercussions of 235 years of slavery now impacting upon those same people; and can we go on and really deal with our problems currently if we do not really force America to own up to that history? We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to get on with the discussion of reparations. We have had some legislation introduced by John Conyers and others talking about reparations. That seems like such a radical idea that most people dismiss it right away. We had some steps toward reparations when we voted to try to do something to compensate the victims of internment in Japanese camps during World War II. We made some steps in that direction. I do not want to go into reparations and alienate everybody. Let us just have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which might come to the conclusion that reparations should also be on the agenda. But in that Truth and Reconciliation Commission we should talk about some other things, like 232 years of slavery. What did that mean in terms of accumulation of wealth? Wealth is accumulated, certain books have told us recently, by passing it from one generation to another. Most wealth is accumulated that way. People do not really work hard and accumulate their wealth; they do get a break from the previous generation. If you have 232 years of slavery, that means there was 232 years where no wealth was passed on from one generation to another. Is it any wonder then that African-Americans, the middle-class African-Americans are becoming closer and closer to white Americans, mainstream Americans, in income, the money they earn through salaries and wages, but there is a great gap between white mainstream Americans and African-American middle-class people in terms of wealth. There is a great gap. The gap is explained by the fact that there were 235 years where no wealth was accumulated. We ought to take a look at that. We ought to take a look at what that means to the very poorest people of course; we ought to take a look at what it meant in terms of the impact on a people where their children were denied education and laws were made to make it a crime to teach slaves to read. All that may be examined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Civil rights organizations I think really need underpinning now of, really, where are we? How hard should we fight against laws which take away aid to families with dependent children. How does that relate to race? Is there a race base for demanding that you do something for the poorest people, especially those who are descendents of slaves. Is there a reason why we should make greater demands for education? The President says he is going to move Head Start by the year 2000 to the point where Head Start will encompass 1 million children. Well, should not something be done in terms of compensation in recognizing the great need for special treatment for the descendents of slaves. Those children ought to be taken into Head Start right away. There are a number of ideas like that which would grow out of an understanding that the civil rights agenda should be broadened and the civil rights agenda should take into consideration what the history of slavery did to the people who are major victims of denial of those rights. I am going to come back to this later on, but we have several colleagues here who are waiting to speak, and I would be happy to take them first. I am pleased to have at this point remarks on African- American history month from our colleague from New York, the Honorable Carolyn Maloney.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank the members of the majority for yielding us this time in a way which allowed us to present this special order in a 2-hour format back-to-back. I want to close with just a few remarks thanking my colleagues and thanking Mr. Stokes again for the tradition that has been established here by the Congressional Black Caucus. This is just the beginning. I hope that we stimulate a more thorough discussion all year round within the African-American community in general, but all of our organizations and all of our leaders ought to take another close look at history. What we need is more profundity. We need to dig deeper into our history and follow the example of the South Africans. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a model that is still pertinent for America. I think we ought to understand that some of the tensions within our society are there because people do not understand what the history of slavery is all about. They do not understand, even our own young people do not understand, how great their ancestors were. I talk to young people and I say, all your ancestors were members of an aristocracy, an aristocracy of survivors. Survivors. Just to survive, just to survive the Atlantic crossing, just to get here to these shores alive, to survive 232 years. Two hundred thirty-two years. And remember Shakespeare's phrase, ``Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.'' What was 232 years like? What did slaves have to look forward to? Two hundred thirty-two years. What are the economic implications of being in America, a people being in America for 232 years and not being paid for their labor? What are the economic implications of a people not being able to save anything? What are the economic implications of not being able to pass anything on to your children? Some of our young people are ashamed that it seems that blacks are always at the bottom. They are at the bottom of the economic structure, et cetera. It would take a miracle for us to get to the top when we consider the fact that most wealth is inherited. The researchers have established the fact that wealth is inherited. It is passed on from one generation to another. Sometimes it may be a small amount, but in order to have a small amount to invest and to make that amount grow you have to have it to begin with. As I said before, the gap between the black middle class in America and the mainstream middle class is not great when it comes to income, the salaries being earned, the kinds of jobs being occupied; but when we compare the wealth, wealth means property, wealth means stocks and bonds, wealth means cars and things that have value beyond a few years. When we look at wealth, it is not there. One of the reasons wealth is not there is because 232 years went by without us earning wages, being able to save. Nothing could be passed on to the young people. We need to study that. We need to look at the implications of it. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is dealing with more immediate kinds of things that happened, all of the killings and maiming and murders that took place in South Africa, perpetrated by one group, the minority whites on the majority blacks. In order to deal with that and not have that poison their present, not have the past poison their present, to be able to go forward for the future, they have this Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I do not have time to talk about it, but, Mr. Speaker, I want to enter into the Record an introduction which explains what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa is all about. I say in introducing this, this background paper on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, that I intend to introduce legislation which calls for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States related to slavery and the condition of people of African descent, the descendants of the slaves. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] has introduced for several years a bill related to reparations. I am not going to add reparations. That is money. It excites people. It leads the discussion in the wrong direction. I want to talk about truth, truth before reconciliation. We are not reconciled. We have too many people out there among the descendants of slaves who do not understand where they came from and who do not have the right self-esteem and sense of self-worth. We have too many people out there among the descendants of slave owners who are not willing to admit that there was a great injustice done and that injustice had repercussions. Some of the people who stand on the floor and yell loudest about welfare and the need to make everybody go out and overnight get a job, et cetera, when the jobs do not exist and the economy does not favor certain kinds of people, they are descendants of slave owners. We need to put these things in perspective. We need to study in a deeper and more thorough way some of the major documents of our own history, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And again I want to emphasize the fact that reconciliation is more important than justice. We are not seeking justice. Justice means we have to go fight wars and make people pay us reparations, and really justice would be out of the question. Just as the people in Haiti have given up on justice, and they are not trying to punish anybody, they want reconciliation. They want reconciliation with the people who perpetrated the murders. In Bosnia and the Balkans they will not get anywhere unless they give up any quest for justice. Seek reconciliation but do not seek reconciliation in a phony way. Do not think you can have reconciliation unless you deal with the truth first. Let us take a document like the 14th Amendment and deal with it truthfully. The 14th amendment, like the 13th amendment and the 15th amendment, were perpetrated, were created by the Members of Congress in response to the aftermath of slavery. We had set the slaves free. Actually the 13th amendment set the slaves free, and what should we do now? The 14th amendment came along to give the slaves equal rights. But the 14th amendment has some other things in it, and I want to call my colleagues' attention to the other things in the 14th amendment because it is more than just equal rights. The 14th amendment is now being distorted to take away any programs which offer special treatment for the descendants of African slaves. That is turning history on its head, because the interpretation of the Constitution, most of the time the Supreme Court wants to know what was the intent of the founders. The 14th amendment says the intent of the founders in the 14th amendment was to correct injustices related to slavery. And there are other parts which go on to talk about getting rid of that three-fifths count and counting everybody whole. Every male is to be counted equally. And there are other parts that talk about punishing, punishing the people who rose up in rebellion against the Union. That is all in the 14th amendment. I cite those things because that makes it clear the 14th amendment is not about equal rights for everybody. It is about making adjustments in this society to take care of the evils of slavery. And when we set aside laws and voting rights laws which favor the descendants of African slaves, then we are in harmony with the 14th amendment. We need to study these things in more detail. We will be back in the future, and I hope my colleagues will join me. Civil rights organizations need to update their own quest for the truth in history. We need to support a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to move forward toward the year 2000 with a more just society. There are issues that will be coming up this very year: putting a cap on Medicaid, denying medical services to the poorest Americans. The proportion of the poorest Americans is great among African-Americans, the descendants of slaves. We are moving in a direction which is refusing to recognize that we ought to take some steps to reconcile with the former victims of slavery. These things are part of history. The small individual achievements of individuals are part of history, and that has been cited in many cases here, but we need to take a more profound, in-depth look at history, the history of America and the awful institution of slavery; how the repercussions of that institution keep going on. Mr. Speaker, I thank everybody who has participated today. Mr. Speaker, I want to enter into the Record at this point an introduction which explains what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa is all about. Introduction by the Minister of Justice, Mr. Dullah Omar After a long process of discussion and debate, inside and outside of Parliament, the scene is finally set for the appointment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is important to understand the context in which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will take place. The Commission is based on the final clause of the Interim Constitution which reads as follows: ``This Constitution provides a historic bridge between the past of a deeply divided society characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and a future rounded on the recognition of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence and development opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of colour, race, class, belief or sex. ``The pursuit of national unity, the well-being of all South African citizens and peace require reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society. ``The adoption of this Constitution lays the secure foundation for the people of South Africa to transcend the divisions and strife of the past, which generated gross violations of human rights, the transgression of humanitarian principles in violent conflicts and a legacy of hatred, fear, guilt and revenge. ``These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimisation. ``In order to advance such reconciliation and reconstruction, amnesty shall be granted in respect of acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives and committed in the course of the conflicts of the past. To this end, Parliament under this Constitution shall adopt a law determining a firm cut-off date which shall be a date after 8 October 1990 and before 6 December 1993, and providing for the mechanisms, criteria and procedures, including tribunals, if any, through which such amnesty shall be dealt with at any time after the law has been passed. ``With this Constitution and these commitments we, the people of South Africa, open a new chapter in the history of our country. I could have gone to Parliament and produced an amnesty law--but this would have been to ignore the victims of violence entirely. We recognised that we could not forgive perpetrators unless we attempt also to restore the honour and dignity of the victims and give effect to reparation. The question of amnesty must be located in a broader context and the wounds of our people must be recognised. I do not distinguish between ANC wounds, PAC wounds and other wounds--many people are in need of healing, and we need to heal our country if we are to build a nation which will guarantee peace and stability. A critical question which involves all of us in how do South Africans come to terms with the past. In trying to answer this important question honestly and openly, we are fortunate in having a President who is committed to genuine reconciliation in our country and to the transformation of South Africa into a non-racial, non-sexist democracy based on a recognition of universally accepted human rights. The President believes--and many of us support him in this belief--that the truth concerning human rights violations in our country cannot be suppressed or simply forgotten. They ought to be investigated, recorded and made known. Therefore the President supports the setting up of a Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. * * * * * Amendment XIII Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Amendment XIV Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss of emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Amendment XV Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on Black History Month.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her leadership in also organizing this special order, and I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, if he would like to speak.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the State of the Union Address has come and gone, and there are a great deal of items in the State of the Union Address which we must consider carefully. I would like to point out that the one item that received the greatest amount of applause, a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle, was the President's proposals that we go forward and improve education in America on a bipartisan basis; that the partisanship should stop at the schoolhouse door. I am very optimistic that, if nothing else happens in this 105th Congress, we will go forward in a bipartisan team approach and we will improve education. We stood up and we applauded the President, because the President offered a great deal of vision in this area. He offers a concrete program to follow up on that vision. The President should be applauded. We should not do what I hear some cynics doing on television. The commentators are dismissing the President's speech as having too much rhetoric. He calls on us to understand that we are an indispensable Nation and they call that high-blown rhetoric. But I think the President is to be applauded for the vision expressed in that statement, and for the fact that he is seeking to inspire the Nation. Inspiration is invaluable. We had a President who had problems with the vision thing, and this President has no problem with the vision thing. The vision thing will not get us there. The vision thing is not enough alone, but it is certainly a good place to begin. We are the indispensable Nation. We are the indispensable people on the face of the Earth. That should not be stated in a boasting manner, it should be stated with a great sense of humility and commitment. If America fails, then the cause of mankind on the planet earth also will fail. We should recognize that. We should applaud the President for his overall vision. He understands regarding the 21st century and he is inspired by that thought, that he will take us into the 21st century. We should follow that leadership. We should applaud the Members of Congress who stood up and applauded the President and signaled that they are ready. Democrats and Republicans are ready to follow the President. They are ready to take their own initiatives in the area of education. This has not always been the case. That has not always been the case. Certainly for the last 2 years in the 104th Congress Democrats and Republicans were going in different directions on education. Never before have the differences been so pronounced as they were 2 years ago when the Republican majority took over the House of Representatives. The differences were so pronounced that the Republican majority was demanding that the Department of Education be abolished. They made that demand, and they followed up by producing a budget and appropriations process in 1995 which gutted most of the education programs in America. We were going to have an almost $3.7 billion or just say $4 billion cut, in 1995 a $4 billion cut was proposed by the majority party. They know the American people forget these things quickly, and they are right. Despite the fact that there was a horrendous movement to wipe out the role of the Federal Government in education, we fought it to a standstill. They did not prevail in 1995. The Democratic Party leadership, the members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce who are Democrats waged all-out war for the minds of the voters of America. We went to the people. We appealed to the common sense of the American people. The polls were clearly showing all the time that education is consistently a high priority with the American people. It is a high priority with the voters. We let the voters know what was happening here in the Capitol, and the common sense of the American people has expressed itself. Not only did we not have a cut in 1995, they backed down and there were zero cuts in 1995. But a miracle happened in 1996. In the fall of 1996, during the appropriations process, and we applaud the Republican leadership and the Republican majority for this, they reversed themselves totally. Education received one of the largest increases that it has received in a long time, a $4 billion increase, almost a $4 billion increase, instead of a $4 billion cut. Mr. Speaker, I applaud the common sense of the American people. I congratulate the Congress, especially the members of the majority, for listening. I applaud the Democrats for keeping the issue alive, for going to the American people and appealing to their common sense. I applaud the members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Democrats and Republicans. The members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce are not the most popular people in this Congress. Our status is generally very low. In the time that I have been here, for many years we have had to beg people to serve on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. There have been some Members who have consistently been there, both Republicans and Democrats. I want to applaud them for their consistency, I want to applaud them for their fortitude. The cynics told me when I got here almost 15 years ago, they told me, do not get on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. They tell freshmen that all the time. Do not get on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, it is not a money committee. You might say, why am I bringing this up, because everybody's mind is on campaign finance reform. Let us see the impact of campaign finance reform on the education issue. There are very good minds and very brilliant people who have refused to join the Committee on Education and the Workforce because in fact they are told you cannot raise any money. It is not a money committee. Children of America do not have any political action committees. The unions, the teachers unions, the education-represented unions, they have been blown up and made to appear to be bogeymen and monsters, but they are very small players when it comes to the financing of political campaigns. So there are some people who allowed themselves to be swayed and not join the Committee on Education and the Workforce because of the fact that it is not a money committee. I am upset because of the fact that we only have one New Yorker on the committee. I am the only New Yorker on the committee. For a long time I was the only New Yorker. Now I have been joined by the gentlewoman from Long Island [Mrs. McCarthy]. I want to welcome Mrs. McCarthy. And say now we have two New Yorkers on the committee. The people of New York should understand what I am saying. In the future, let us make certain that we have always a good representation on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I applaud people who, like myself, have been there for years, and I applaud the newcomers, both Republicans and Democrats. I want to send a message in this statement that as we go forward to seriously improve education in America we do not want the barbarians to come in, the opportunists to come in and try to dictate what should be done. It is the people on the Committee on Education and the Workforce who have the experience and knowhow, they have been with this problem a long time. Let us at least be willing to follow the leadership in the Congress of the people on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. We applaud the Republicans for their sudden conversion last year. I am not here to make a great commentary today about the outcome of the election, but it was a stroke of genius, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], whoever fashioned the reelection strategy of the Republicans, it was a stroke of genius to reverse themselves on education, to give a $4 billion increase, and to go out and campaign as the friends of education. They got the message that many of my Democratic leadership colleagues did not get. They got the message, and as we know, many of the contests for reelection were won or lost on the basis of 1 percentage point, 1 percentage point. I am not going to stand here and claim that the education issue was the determining factor always in every election, but I will make the claim that in a number of those elections, the position or the understanding of the candidate about the issues prevailing in education, the ability to articulate it and communicate it to the voters, appealed to their common sense and they got votes, so it made a difference in many of those elections. I applaud the genius of the Republican majority for seeing that they had to make that 360-degree turn. Now I hope that we will play no more games. I hope it is clearly understood now that education is a high priority, that education is a national security issue. The voters with their common sense understand that, that when we consider the greatness of America, there is no component in our national effort as important as education. We have always understood this. This is not something new. The people out there across America have always considered education important. They have always considered it a local matter only, that primarily the States and the localities should deal with it. Common sense dictates that it is not working; that as the world has become more complex, as society has become more complex, the national effort and what we do on a national basis in education becomes important. Those nations which have some kind of national guidance are producing students far superior to ours. We are not going to duplicate and imitate those nations because we do not necessarily want the kinds of emphases they have, but we should at least have the common sense to see that some central involvement is necessary. If we have maximum central involvement in America, it would still only be a small part of the whole situation. Right now the amount of money expended for education by the Federal Government is really less than 8 percent. The total amount of money spent on education by the Federal Government, the State governments, and the local governments, is close to $350 billion. If you consider higher education and all education efforts under one umbrella, the Federal Government is responsible for only 8 percent of that, less than 8 percent. Large amounts of that go into higher education, so local education in the elementary and secondary education area is minuscule. If we increased the Federal involvement and the expenditures by 25-percent, we are still only slightly involved, compared to the local and State governments. If you had 25 percent involvement of the Federal Government against 75 percent involvement of the State and local governments, and if you translated the 25 percent involvement of the Federal Government into Federal control or attempts at Federal control, we would only have 25- percent of the votes. If there was a vote being taken on education in any locality, and the Federal involvement versus the State and local involvement was a consideration, the State and local governments would have the decision-making power. So there is no threat. There is no threat that the Federal Government would ever take over education. There is a great need that we have a central area of resource division, a central place for research and development, a central place where we can come and collect statistics and share experiences, so that what is working in Oklahoma can be made to work in my district in Brooklyn; what is working in Florida can be made to work somewhere in Iowa. Iowa, by the way, they have a tremendous education system, and they use telecommunications. Some of the States like Iowa and Idaho are way ahead of places like New York State, especially New York City. We applaud the fact that there was a turnaround and an end to this hysteria which was going forward this time 2 years ago, a hysteria which called for the elimination of the Department of Education and a drastic reduction in Federal funds for education. I want to applaud particularly the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, although he is a member of the other party, because they were in control. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling], played a major role in this turnaround. He knew what had to be done when the time came, when the conversion within the Republican party, within the leadership, when it came. Suddenly they understood that they had to follow the common sense of the American people. They needed somebody there with the good sense to tell them how to do it. They needed somebody there to tell them where to make the increase. So the $4 billion of increase for education is not just money being thrown at the problem. Chairman Goodling and his colleagues who were there at the table made some wise decisions, and I applaud the work of Chairman Goodling at that moment, that magic moment in the history of the Republican positionmaking on education. I applaud the National Education Association, I applaud the American Federation of Teachers, I applaud the United Federation of Teachers in New York City. They are making great contributions day to day in this whole policy debate. There is a healthy dynamism in America. The school boards, the associations, the various organizations that are going forward on education, they all ought to be applauded. We have averted a disaster. A major disaster in policymaking has been averted. We are at the brink, we were about to go over the cliff. You know, we had a serious situation. Two years ago at this time the former Secretary of Education, Mr. Lamar Alexander, and the former Secretary of Education, Mr. Bennett, Alexander and Bennett both, who were former Education Secretaries, they both came into a hearing before the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities and they both testified that we should abolish the Department of Education. We were that close to the brink. We were that close to the brink. The majority party said we should abolish the Department of Education. Now, we are at a stage where both parties rise in thunderous applause when the President says let us go forward without bipartisan obstacles in the area of our quest to improve education in America. So this is a day to celebrate. We should all be saying hallelujah. This is a time to celebrate. There is a dynamism out there among the American people. The common sense of the American voters has prevailed. Our system is working. We are going in the right direction. I hear the critics every day now. They say, well, the President's proposals on education, they are nickel and dime matters. And I agree with that. I am ready to do far more. But let us first catch our breath. Let us first understand how close we came to disaster and then let us go forward in the right direction. Now, we have a chance to resolve concrete problems. We have a chance to begin to correct the savage inequalities. There are savage inequalities in our education system. There are schools and school systems that are in a state of emergency. The New York City school system is in a state of emergency. The New York City school system at the opening of school in September 1996 did not have places for 91,000 children to sit. There were no adequate places, no desks, no places for 91,000 children to sit. You say, well, that was a state of crisis in September 1996. If you read the papers in New York, if you listen to the mayor of New York, you would think that the crisis is over, but we have never heard, where did they find seats for the 91,000 youngsters? For days now in the New York City papers there have been articles running about the mayor's plan to have 1,000 youngsters, 1,000 students moved from the public schools to the parochial schools. There is a great brouhaha. And I applaud this. I am not being negative about it. There is a great deal of discussion about financing. Private industry is coming forward, business is coming forward to finance the tuition for poor youngsters to go to these parochial and private schools, but it is only 1,000. One thousand. Any sophomore in high school would ask the obvious question: Where are the other 90,000? Where are the other 90,000 going? If you had 91,000 that had no places to sit, what happened to the 90,000 if you are only dealing with 1,000? What are you doing at this point? Well, some of us know that they are sitting in bathrooms in some cases. They are sitting in closets, they are sitting in halls, they are sitting in the assembly auditoriums, they are sitting in cafeterias, cafeterias that are overworked because there are so many students in some schools in my district that they have three lunch periods. Can you imagine having lunch at 11 o'clock in the morning, 10:30, 11 in the morning? Having lunch. You just had breakfast, but they have to have an early lunch for some kids because they have to have three lunch periods because there are so many youngsters in the school. And they are in a school that was not built for 2,000 youngsters. They were built for half that number. So where are they putting them all? They are putting them in places which make it difficult to learn. How can you learn if you are sitting in some cramped closet, if you are sitting in a bathroom, if you are sitting in a hallway, if you are in the general assembly room with several other classes, if you are in the cafeteria with several other classes? But this is the state of emergency that faces New York City at this point. So I am here to praise the President for his rhetoric and his vision. I am here to applaud the Congress for responding positively to that, but I am also here to praise the President for his concrete proposals that will address the emergencies in situations like this all across America. New York City is in trouble and most of the big city schools are in trouble. Most of the big city, inner city schools are in trouble. There is a correlation between the difficulties and the state of emergency in the big city, inner city schools and the racial composition. Racism in America is not dead, it is still very much a factor in decisionmaking. Decisions are made by people who are not the parents of the children in these inner city schools. The people who are making the decisions at the city council and the mayoral level in many cases are not reflective of the populations of the schools. Certainly the people who make the big decisions at the State level are not reflective. What you have across America in several big cities is still a rule which says you finance schools on the basis of the State gives aid, as they do in New York State, on the basis of attendance and not enrollment. State aid is given on the basis of the number of children attending school on a specific number of days where the schools are monitored. Now, that is a swindle, and every big State with big cities across the country, they tied into that swindle at one time, some States having changed it. It is a swindle. It is a way to take money away from inner city, urban schools which have large populations of children but they do not attend school regularly. If you catch them in the attendance game, and you have certain days where you test, you are going to find the attendance in the inner city, urban schools is not as great in relation to the number of youngsters who are eligible to attend; of the number of youngsters who are a certain school age, it is not as great as it is in the surrounding suburbs of the big cities. It is not as great as it is in the rural areas of the States. So for a long time cities like New York have been swindled out of their fair share of State aid. For a long time the expenditure per pupil in the big cities has been far less than State expenditures in the suburbs and in the surrounding rural areas. So it is not by accident that you have a state of emergency; that you do not have a building program which would keep up with the growth of the youthful population in New York City. The overall population of New York City has not jumped. It might have gone down slightly. Now it is on the roll, going up again. We fluctuate between 7\1/2\ and 8 million people in New York City as a whole. But we clearly understood the demographics in terms of age, and for some time now we have understood that there was a burgeoning youthful population. We understood that even before the impact of large numbers of immigrants. When we had the immigrants coming in with children and we looked at the statistics in terms of age, we knew for some time that New York City would have a space problem, a facility problem; that we would not be able to give a seat to the young people who were coming into the schools if we did not do something. We had a chancellor named Ramon Cortines. Ramon Cortines laid out a plan for a building and repair program over 5 to 10 years, and he had a price tag on that plan. And Ramon Cortines was run out of town by our mayor. Mayor Giuliano browbeat, harassed, and pushed Ramon Cortines until he finally left town. He said, ``I give up.'' When he left town there was no more discussion of the plan to renovate, repair, and rebuild schools in New York City. And then in September 1996 the bomb fell. The bomb fell and we understood that we had a problem of 91,000 children. This is hard for most of America to comprehend. Most of the school districts across America do not have 91,000 children in the whole school district. Most school districts in America have trouble getting up to 25,000. So it is hard to comprehend. But stop and think about the fact that there are 8 million people approximately in New York City. There are a million youngsters in the school system of New York. We have 60,000 teachers, and most of the school districts across America do not have 60,000 pupils. We have 60,000 teachers. We have a million young people. We have more than a thousand school buildings. So you can have a situation where 91,000 out of a million do not have a place to sit if you do not plan properly, if you play politics with education, if you drive the superintendent, the chancellor we call him there--it is a huge system. We have superintendents at the local level. We have 32 local school boards, 32 local superintendents, then we have the central board of education and we have the chancellor who presides over all of this. It is necessary in a complex city like New York. I am not here to criticize the structure. I am here to criticize the fact that at the local level, where it had to be first, the mayor of the City of New York blundered politically, mightily. The same mentality that was driving the majority here in the fall of 1995 drove the city hall Republicans to drive Ramon Cortines out of town. So here we are now in February. We had a crisis in September. What happened to the crisis? It has not been resolved. I want to applaud the United Federation of Teachers for going to court. They brought a lawsuit against the city and said, look, these crowded classrooms, too many students in one class, no proper place to sit others, it is against the negotiated contract where certain conditions are supposed to be provided. It is not safe for children. They mentioned very much that you are at the level where you are not just talking about an atmosphere that is not conducive to learning, you are at a level where you are talking about an atmosphere where it is unsafe for children. You are at a level where, if we really enforced the health code properly, you would probably have to close down some of the classrooms. There are too many bodies, too many youngsters in some of these schools. So when the President proposes some concrete proposal like his seventh proposal in his education proposal in his State of the Union message, ``We cannot expect our children to raise themselves up in schools that are literally falling down. With the student population at an all-time high and record numbers of school buildings falling into disrepair, this has now become a serious national concern,'' the schools need an emergency effort. ``Therefore,'' the President said, ``my budget includes a new initiative: $5 billion to help communities finance $20 billion of school construction over the next 4 years.'' He has a $5 billion program which deals with the immediate emergency and he has a larger program which deals with additional construction. I do not know the terms of this program. I suspect that the President and I may not agree on the terms. We need outright grants, Mr. President. We need outright grants. I want the whole Congress to know that we cannot have the meaning of the emergency be contingent upon the money available at the local level or the money available at the State level. If you have a crisis, you need the money. If you have a crisis, a disaster, you should react. New York is in a state of education crisis. When California has an earthquake, when California has mud slides or hurricanes, when Florida has hurricanes, when the Midwest has floods, we respond to them as disasters and we give the full amount. We do not say, ``We will give you 90 percent funding to cover the cost.'' We gave California more than $8 billion to deal with the earthquake and related disasters. We gave the Midwest nearly $6 billion to deal with the flood and related disasters. We gave Florida nearly $6 billion to deal with the hurricane disaster. We deal with natural disasters. Why can we not deal with a disaster that has been made by blundering of elected officials and for whatever reason? The children should not suffer because we have had a crisis situation, exemplified by the fact that 91,000 youngsters had no place to sit on opening school day. If the leadership of New York City is not able to come to our rescue, if we do not have it there, then let us consider it the way we consider the emergencies in Haiti, Bosnia. We have a local leadership crisis. The leadership cannot rise to the occasion. They are not dealing with the emergency. It is February now and they are still talking about the placement of 1,000 youngsters in private schools and nobody is concerned about the other 90,000. Thank you, Mr. President, for your initiative on education construction, on construction, school construction. We look forward to working with you on that. As I said before, I want to applaud the fact that we are going in the right direction. I am talking about the education initiative of President Clinton as exemplified by his State of the Union Address, and I want to talk to all of the cynical voters out there in America who think, who say, and really believe that politicians do not really make a great contribution to our society on a systematic basis. That is sheer nonsense. We have term limits. Part of the philosophy behind term limits is that anybody can do this job. Anybody can be a politician. There is nothing serious at stake here. That is a dangerous, wrongheaded notion. Most dangerous. You do not ask for a surgeon who is new and fresh, you do not ask for a lawyer who is new and fresh, you do not ask for anybody in any responsible endeavor who is new. Newness is not a virtue anywhere else, except in politics suddenly. Suddenly you say, new people coming in once every 6 years and that is the answer to our political logjam, our gridlock, and corruption. It is not the answer. There is a need for continuity, and in the area of education, continuity, political wisdom, institutional memory, the participation of elected officials at every level, all of that has brought us to this moment in history where we have averted a major disaster in educational policy making and we have launched a new crusade for a bipartisan effort to improve education. This is a major, pivotal, landmark place that we stand in. We did not come here by accident. I am sure God had a lot to do with it, but we have step by step as individuals, as human beings, brought ourselves to this place. Republicans and Democrats have to be given the credit. If President Reagan had never launched the study of the crisis in American education and we did not come back with a study, ``A Nation at Risk,'' we would have never had President Bush launching America 2000. President Bush launched America 2000 where he set forth the goals that we should strive for in education. Those are the same goals that President Clinton is also espousing now. He has added a few, but those same six, the first six, are still there. President Bush launched this. He took it to the Governors' conference. Among those politicians, those Governors, who are politicians, was Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton endorsed the idea then. There has been a continuity. The Governor of Colorado, Governor Romer, has been one of the key factors all along in this process. The Governors made a decision about standards. All the way back under George Bush, we were talking about trying to move toward national standards; national standards, not Federal standards; national standards developed by the appropriate people, and no State would have to automatically participate in those national standards. The national curriculum and the national standards are voluntary, State by State. That has always been there, from Bush to Clinton, and it prevails right now. They called for national testing. It has always been there. Bush, Clinton. In Bush's America 2000 plan, it was there. It continues under Clinton. There has been a continuity under all the politicians. There have been some disagreements about the pace, there has been disagreement about the emphasis. Under Bush we had a greater emphasis on choice and vouchers, and it threw a lot of the other parts of his program off track. But the other parts were there. I was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Select Education at the time that President Bush launched America 2000. We were engaged in a reauthorization of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. We prepared a report at that time which is entitled Education 2005, the Role of Research and Development in an Overwhelming Campaign for Education in America. This was issued in August 1991. The Role of Research and Development in an Overwhelming Campaign for Education in America. We called it Education 2005. That was 1991. We looked at the situation and said over a 15-year period, we should strive to achieve the goals set by America 2000, and we talked about specific ways to implement those goals, and we talked about the role of educational research and improvement in those goals. The process of implementing them had to be buttressed by research and development. It is amazing how many of the things that are contained in this report, how many recommendations, have gone forward. It is amazing how the Congressional Black Caucus budget, which was put on the floor in 1995 and met the requirement of being balanced by the year 2002, we met the requirement. We were told you cannot bring your budget to the floor unless the budget shows how you are going to have a balanced budget in 2002, and they thought they had us stymied. How can the Congressional Black Caucus which wants to recommend more money for social programs, more money for education, Head Start, Medicare, Medicaid, how can they come to the floor with a balanced budget? We came to the floor with a balanced budget. We showed where you can get the revenue to do what you want to do. You can get the revenue by not taxing families in America. In fact, we called for a tax decrease, and I intend to push for an even greater call among the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the members of the Democratic caucus for a tax decrease. The people in America, all of the families and individuals deserve a decrease in their taxes. The problem in America is that we have a situation where we did a topsy-turvy thing. In 1944 we reversed the way income taxes are collected proportionally. In 1944 we had a situation where only 27 percent of the income taxes collected in America came from families and individuals, and almost 44 percent came from corporations. We reversed that. In 1983 under Ronald Reagan, the contribution of corporations to the income tax went down to 6 percent while the individual taxes leaped up to 44 percent of the total. So that reversal is the problem. What we need in America is a great cut in the taxes for individuals and families and an increase in the taxes on corporations, because corporations are where they are making the money. It is like Slick Willie Sutton said when asked, ``Why do you rob banks?'' His answer was an obvious one: ``That's where the money is.'' The money is in the corporations that are going forward. Wall Street has the biggest boom in its history. We have 10 percent of the population of America who derive tremendous amounts of income from the corporations, making far more than they ever made in their lives. Now is the time for a tax cut for average American families and you can balance that off by getting rid of corporate welfare, some of the loopholes we have which give subsidies to corporations, and also raising corporate taxes. I am not here today to talk about that. But we balanced the budget. The Congressional Black Caucus balanced the budget. My point here is that the Congressional Black Caucus proposed in the spring of 1995 when the budget was introduced, we proposed in this budget that you increase the funds for education by 25 percent. We showed how you can increase the funds for education by 25 percent. We proposed those increases. The President's budget that is being offered here this week proposes to increase the funding for education by 20 percent. There are some people who are members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have said, this is a futile effort; why do we even prepare a budget and take it to the floor? There are some people out there among our constituents who say, why do you bother? You go to the floor, you get 57, 58 votes for the Congressional Black Caucus budget. Here is the proof. We offered the vision. We offered a vision. It has happened over and over again, that what appears in a Congressional Black Caucus budget in one year, 5 years later is almost fully adopted. We are going at a faster pace now. What appeared in our budget in the spring of 1995, we had a tiny fraction of the adopting of that in the fall of 1996 by the Republican majority. Some of the increases that we asked for in the Congressional Black Caucus budget, the Republican majority gave them to us in 1996. Now we have a President who is calling for a 20 percent increase. Twenty percent. The Congressional Black Caucus budget called for 25 percent. Twenty percent. Where are the increases going to go that the President proposes? Head Start. We called for full funding of Head Start. The President does not propose full funding by 2000 but he is proposing that we fund at least 1 million youngsters across the country by 2000. Okay, Mr. President, you are going in the right direction. You have accelerated your speed. We applaud that. We proposed that Pell grants be increased. The President is proposing an increase in Pell grants. I could go right down the line. We have it in the Congressional Black Caucus budget for 1995 and 1996. It is not a futile gesture. I hope that voters out there who are cynical about this whole process understand one of the reasons America is a great country is because that boiling that takes place, the contention, the debate, all of it does produce positive results. It takes a long time sometimes. But as long as you are moving in the right direction, do not abandon the process, do not give up. Our democracy is working. God moves in mysterious ways. I cannot figure out the mystery. I wish the Democrats would regain control of the House and less mystery. But the movement in mysterious ways should not stop us from going forward and being positive. On this one issue, we can demonstrate all together, both the voters and the Members of Congress, everybody at every decision making level, demonstrate that America can go forward and build the best school system in the world. Why bother to do that? If we are truly what the President says, the indispensable Nation, then one of the ways we are indispensable is by setting models, being the role model for the rest of the world. H. G. Wells talked about education; history is a race between education and catastrophe. It is still true. If we do not have education, if we do not go beyond technological education, which is very important because it improves ways to release people from having to struggle to make a living so their minds are free and you can get the opportunity for education, it generates the revenue. Capitalism and technology. Capitalism has shown, and we ought to end that debate. We ought to end the debate on what the best economic system is. For the Chinese and for the Americans, for the Australians and for the Russians, for everybody, capitalism is the best system, proven by experimentation. Proven. They say in social areas you cannot really prove anything, and I am using the word ``proof'' loosely. Only in science and math can you prove things conclusively. I think we have enough experience to say capitalism is the best system. It is the best system because it understands human nature, it understands the need for incentives, it understands the danger of bureaucracy, the danger of smugness, the danger of people who are very inspired and very enthusiastic but when they get in a certain situation, the lethargy sets in. You have got to have the ferment of capitalism, the push. But there are dangers in capitalism. Capitalism now must be accepted as the best economic system. We have to go forward to refine capitalism and make capitalism work in tandem with democracy. What is campaign finance reform all about? It is about keeping capitalism in check. Do not let the people who have the money take over the running of the Government through their campaign financing. It is as simple as that. We have laissez faire. We have always said leave business alone, leave the economic system to its own dynamic process, it will work itself out, working out the marketplace process. The marketplace has been left alone, very much so, in America. We have set an example for the rest of the world. Even China, with a Communist government, is building a capitalistic economic system. So they understand that. The problem is that laissez faire has to work both ways. You cannot have the capitalists, power accumulated, try to take over the Democratic processes. You have to have a balance. So checks and balances are necessary. Capitalism is king. We want to go forward and show the world that it is the best system. Education is a vital part of keeping both capitalism working and democracy working. In this complex society, the Nation which learns best how to educate human beings, the Nation which learns best how to develop its human resources and how to maximize its human potential, wasting nobody, allowing everybody to add value, every individual can add value by education. The mechanic who works on the airplane is as valuable as the pilot who flies it. I do not worry, when I fly, about the training that the pilot got. I know that the most expensive training in America is given to airline pilots. The cost of the training that they go through is the most expensive in America. I worry about the training that the mechanic got who put the nut in the right place. I worry about the training that the man who lubricated the thing got, that he used the right pump. I worry about him knowing his job. Everybody in a complex society like ours has to know what they are doing. They add, you add value to them at every level and neglect nobody and therefore, you know, that is why the present system is so good. He talks about everybody being educated beyond high school, the opportunity for 2 more years, and I hope that we are going to be smart enough not to combine, you know, confine that to academic education; you know, the plumbers, the electricians, the computer specialists. There is a whole lot of people do not need to pass academic tests and who can do a great job, and we should not rule them out just because they cannot pass academic tests. We should not have these rigid rules which doom a certain portion of our population to unemployment and deny them the chance to earn a very good income. There are many people who are plumbers who, as you know, earn far higher salaries than teachers. There are many people who are plumbers and carpenters and contractors who never went to school, went to college, who know how to operate a business far better than college graduates. There are many geniuses that have developed in our times, the last 20, 30 years, who did not finish college. I do not know how far Bill Gates got. He had a lot of folks around him who did not finish. The guy who developed Federal Express in my hometown of Memphis, you know, his professors told him the idea would not work. We know in America that academic education is important, but let us not get you caught in the trap where we devalue the education. In New York City we have a problem with Apex Institute, came to me recently, said, ``Look, we got a situation now where they are setting some new criteria and people who used to come in because they have the aptitude in order do the job, they got to pass a written test now. They have to pass a written test. They can't get in here and take a one-year course or a 6-month course which will allow them to go out and get their license in refrigeration or get their license in auto mechanics work, you know.'' So education adds value. The nation that learns how to educate the population, how to get the maximum development out of its population will be the nation that leads the world in the future. You might say, well, you know there is some people just cannot be educated. Well, the challenge is there. Everybody can be educated. Make the assumption. We have in America every kind of population you can imagine. We have in America every educational challenge that you can imagine. If you meet the challenges in America, you can go anywhere in the world and say: ``Look, we have the model. People have problems with language, the bilingual education problem. We have solved the problem and certainly gone a long ways toward dealing with the problem. We have the problem of low-income people who have no vision, no hope, who are beat down so until they need to be motivated, who have no previous history of education, the human capital that is in every college, every home where you have parents with college graduates.'' What we take for granted, people who graduate from college, they bring to their home human capital that their children feed into long before the child ever goes to school, that even as they go to school they are also piggybacking off the knowledge and the culture of the parents. What if there are large numbers out there whose parents have never gone to college or never gone to high school? What about the descendents of slaves, who for 232 years had a deficit accumulating? Nobody got an education. States passed laws which forbade teaching reading to slaves. So you got a deficit of 232 years in the population of the descendents of slaves like myself. Not only do you have a deficit economically where we did not have a chance to accumulate any capital because our parents, our forefathers could not own property. So we cannot pass that down, and rich, you know wealth, in America, a large part of it is money that is passed on from one generation to another. We are a group of people, the descendants of slaves, who did not have the benefit of having that wealth passed on to us. So we are the least wealthy in terms of capital. Even the black middle class, by the way, which has closed the gap in terms of income, earning power, they have a great gap between black middle class and the white middle class in terms of wealth because wealth is defined in the terms of assets. They have property and stocks and bonds, et cetera. Many other people in America who have those assets, property, stocks and bonds, inherited, had a large portion of it passed on by parents. There have been a couple of books written about this; that is not on my topic for today. I want to close out back to education. What I am trying to say is that if you fully address the education problem in America, if you try to educate everybody, if you meet every challenge with every group, problems related to income, problems related to language, problems related to ethnic background, meet every problem, you will be in a position to offer solutions to the rest of the world. But more important than that, your population will be functioning fully because the future belongs to those who can master technology and also master political civility, law and order. You can have a nation which is advanced technologically which destroys itself because it has not mastered civility, political civility, law and order, democracy is not working. We have seen a great example, the great giant Soviet Union collapsed. In the great giant Soviet Union, now the parts of it, many people are beggars. It is pitiful to watch people with Ph.D.'s, people with high degrees, great deal of knowledge who cannot find jobs in the Soviet Union. The head of the Soviet Union nuclear program, the man in charge of all the nuclear programs in the Soviet Union, the man who helped as a young person to produce the hydrogen bomb, who caught up with American technology, that man recently committed suicide. You know why he committed suicide? Because the people in his institute had not been paid in many months, and finally when the Soviet Government sent the payment they only sent 1 month's pay. He gave up on the whole system. He took a gun to his head and he shot himself. That is where a great nation with great technological advances, the Soviets, put a space ship up there long before we did, the Soviets have the record in terms of longevity in space, they have marvelous kinds of inventions of many kinds. Our space and technology program now is using the Soviet program to improve itself. We are in contract with the Soviets on a lot of engines and various gadgets which improve the ability of our space program to perform. But that great advanced technological society has collapsed economically because first it collapsed politically. They had closed door, central command decision making, they lost touch with the people, common sense went out the window, folks sitting there saying destroy this and destroy that; look only to the expenditures for war, and they collapsed. Before the Soviet Union we had the German empire, Hitler's Third Reich which was as technologically advanced as any society ever in the history of the world. Not only did Hitler's Third Reich collapse, but before it collapsed it produced a horror never before seen on the face of the Earth. So we need education for technological improvements, we need education for national security, but if we do not educate our populace in ways which guarantee that they are able to handle the complexities of democracy then we are going to find ourselves, no matter how technologically advanced we are, going down to doom. If the people of America continue not to come out to vote, as they did in the last election where you had a decrease in the number of people who came out to vote--Presidential elections are the most important elections we hold. If we do not get people out on Presidential election, you know you are really in serious trouble. Well, we saw a decline in the number of people coming out to vote. The percentage went up. The only place where you had a pronounced increase in the number of people who came out to vote was in black male voters, and of course they had an easy jump because of so few before, but nevertheless they increased. They see a threat in the kinds of policies that are being promulgated. In the black community overall there was an increase, small percentage but there was an increase. It did not go down. They see a threat in the kinds of policies being promulgated. So the democracy is working. Will it work fast enough? And in the long run what about the problem of all of the people who are better off who did not bother to go out to vote? The great middle class, second to the middle class, did not vote, the working class did not vote. What is going to happen? Unless we have better education our system is going to fall apart. So we need education for that reason, too. Telecommunications can play a major role in this education process. The President has proposed that, among his proposals, we go forward and educate our population partially using telecommunications, educational technology. Why is it so difficult to understand that the Army, the Navy, the Marines, they have been using it for a long time. Government bureaucracy has been using it for a long time, simple use of videos. You do not have to get into computerized instruction, but there are a thousand ways being developed in industry, in the military, that we can apply in our school system, especially in areas where children have great difficulty and see an increase in education performance. I am going to close by again going back to my beginning, where I applauded the President and I did not applaud some people in my own district. We have a thing called Central Brooklyn NetWatch, which is going to wire the schools in our district. We are going to wire the schools because we had NetDay on September 21, and NetDay, which is a day where volunteers come out and wire the schools. There is a national pool where they buy the equipment and the supplies. You can get for $500 enough to wire the school, one school. The wiring definition is you wire five classrooms plus the library. Now, in New York City we did not have very many wires. The Governor of New York was in charge of the Net. He announced that 3,000 schools in the State were wired, but I could not find one in my district, and my district has 70 elementary and junior high schools and 10 high schools, and only one is wired. Then I looked for all New York City and very few were wired there. So we came up with NetWatch. This is a group who signed these to technology. We are trying to wire schools in our district on an ongoing basis in harmony with the President's program. But I want to conclude on a rhetorical note, you might say, or a poetic note. The poet who recited the poem at the President's inauguration was a tremendously profound man, was a profound poem, and I congratulate him. But I was a little worried about the style of it, and I think that in the future Presidents ought to commission a whole group of poets in different styles, and one may be chosen of course but we ought to publish a book of different styles of celebrating America, and I choose to celebrate America in the following way: Indispensable Nation Under God The indivisible indispensable Nation Guardian of the pivotal generation Most fortunate of all the lands For a brief moment The whole world we hold in our hands Internet sorcery computer magic Tiny spirits make opportunity tragic We are the indispensable Nation Guardian of the pivotal generation Millionaires must rise to see the need Or smother beneath their splendid greed Capitalism is king With potential to be Pope Banks hoard gold That would fertilize universal hope Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, King Make your star spangled the legacy sting Dispatch your ghosts To bring us global visions Indispensable leaders Need profound decisions Internet sorcery computer Tiny spirits make opportunity tragic We are the indispensable Nation Guardian of the pivotal generation With liberty and justice for the world Under God.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, is this some new rule for 1997 because in the past we have done this?

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas and congratulate her on the vision she has demonstrated by having this, by putting forward this resolution and having this special order to alert us to the fact that this resolution on NetDay needs our support. The gentlewoman from Texas is very much on target. This, of course, is a vital component of the education effort that must go forward, and I sat here, just as she did last night, and was quite moved by the President's speech, certainly the part about education, and was certainly moved by the fact that when he spoke about a bipartisan approach to education, there was thunderous applause here on the floor and everybody got up on both sides. We can look forward to a very productive 105th Congress in terms of education. We must congratulate ourselves, those of us who insisted for the last 2 years that the Congress of the United States listen to the commonsense of the American people. They said over and over again that we want education to be a high priority. There were people who would not listen in the last Congress for a long time. They came here and they insisted that, first of all, we might consider eliminating the Department of Education, just wipe it out. Then they talked about massive cuts in Federal aid to education. I think in 1995, the appropriations bill, there were proposals to cut almost $4 billion from the Federal education budget. We did a turnaround and moved from that low point of proposing a cut of almost $4 billion to the appropriations bill of 1996, where the majority Republicans in this House proposed, and I congratulate them, a $4 billion increase. It was almost a $4 billion increase. I congratulate the majority. I congratulate Congressman Goodling, who is head of the education committee and certainly played a major role in that. The children of America will benefit. Let us lay aside partisan considerations. It helped the Republicans to win the election. We will talk about that at a later date. They were brilliant in their understanding, finally, that commonsense dictated that the Congress Members take a strong position on education. I hope that that brilliance will endure and go on. The spirit of NetDay, as a part of whatever we do on education, the spirit of NetDay must be kept alive. The spirit of NetDay is partially a spirit of volunteerism. It is also a spirit of understanding the role of telecommunications and modern education technology in our educational system.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, it has been done regularly on the floor of the House.

Mr. OWENS. I would appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the spirit of NetDay, I said, has to be kept alive because even after NetDay takes place as it did in New York City on September 21, you find that it was basically a failure in terms of the number of schools that were wired. Let us keep it going in order to get schools wired. After the headlines and the public relations brouhaha is over, let us keep the spirit where volunteers assemble, volunteers take advantage of the fact that we have a national NetDay operation which purchases equipment very cheaply and makes it available, all that should go on. We are trying to make that happen in my district, the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn. We established, because of the failure of NetDay in our district, we established a project called Central Brooklyn NetWatch. central Brooklyn NetWatch is a joint project sponsored by my office in conjunction with the Husain Institute of Technology. NetWatch is a volunteer project utilizing the free services of the Husain Institute of Technology to assist the schools of central Brooklyn in completing school wiring for telecommunications services. Launched on October 23, National Education Funding Support Day, NewWatch is an attempt to guarantee that the inner-city schools of central Brooklyn will not be left behind as we move the education processes and methodology into the 21st century. Here are volunteers, and we started a project of just trying to wire 10 schools in 10 weeks. Let me show you what inner-city schools are up against across the country. We found it difficult to wire 10 schools in 10 weeks because the wiring problem meets the construction and repair problem. The asbestos problem in New York City stymies the process of trying to wire the schools. You cannot bore holes in the schools' walls and ceilings unless you have assurance that there is no asbestos there. We had a crisis in New York City, 3 years ago, where schools were kept closed for 3 weeks before they opened because they were trying to deal with the asbestos problems. Many of us thought the asbestos problem was over. It is still very much there in many of our schools. That is one of the reasons why we wired so few schools on NetDay. Now we need the President's construction money. The President's program on construction is a vital part of trying to go forward with telecommunications improvements. So it is all interwoven and you need to go forward on that. I would like to conclude, since I know the gentlewoman wants to go.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is very much on target. All of these things are inextricably interwoven. You cannot have education go forward unless you have a commitment from the Federal Government through the budget and the appropriations process. I just wanted to talk for a minute about what I mean when I say the spirit of NetDay must go forward. There are some States that have not had their NetDay yet. In New York State, we had NetDay on September 21. I think it was a little premature. And I want to say to the people who were in charge of NetDay that it was basically a failure for New York City. I congratulate all the Governors across the country who have assumed responsibility and become very active and become the drum majors for the NetDay effort, but the Governor of New York announced that 3,000 schools were wired in New York State. I went looking for the schools in my district, which is a district that has 70 elementary and secondary schools and 10 high schools. I could not find but one school that had been wired on that day. I said maybe it just passed over us and the rest of New York City, which has more than 1,000 schools. New York City has more than 1,000 schools, and I looked for schools that had been wired on NetDay in New York City and we found less than 25 that had really been wired. Wiring in NetDay terminology is the wiring of 5 classrooms plus the library of the school. That is the definition of wiring. It did not take place in even 25 schools in all of New York City.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and I respectfully request from the leadership of both parties, please clarify this and not have a double standard on the floor because we certainly did this in the last Congress.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to say is that the spirit of NetDay must be kept alive. The spirit of last night's thundering applause for the President when he spoke on education must be kept alive. We cannot do that unless we recognize there are some hard problems that must be overcome. The President's program on construction and repair is a vital part of being able to wire the schools. You cannot have the telecommunications, which will benefit schools greatly. It will allow schools to expand beyond books and pencil and paper and the limitations and get into what our young people are already into. They look at television a great deal. They look at videos. Are they going to respond to teaching that is done using the techniques that they are aware of and exposed to in their environment outside the schools? One important part of it is to pass the President's initiative on school construction. He has an initiative which calls for up to 50 percent interest subsidy for new school construction and renovation. He has another initiative which calls for $20 billion in school construction spurred by $5 billion in Federal jump-start funding over 4 years, which will be discussed at greater length in the future. But that is absolutely necessary for the telecommunications movement to go forward that is encouraged by NetDay to take place. There is another item that you must all be alerted to: the education rate for telecommunications services; affordable access for all schools and libraries. This Congress in 1996 passed a telecommunications bill which the President signed into law on February 8, 1996. The President signed this law which reformed the Nation's telecommunications laws that will increase competition and lower prices for all consumers, including libraries and schools. In this law was a mandate from Congress which said that the FCC had to find ways to give discounts or special consideration to libraries and schools in providing telecommunication services. On November 7, 1996, the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service unanimously recommended that schools and libraries receive discounts for telecommunications services, Internet services and internal connections. The recommendations call for discounts that range from 20 to 90 percent, with an average discount of 60 percent. The FCC has until May 1997 to develop the rules for implementing the recommendations of the joint board. What am I talking about? I am saying that in the poorest schools and rural areas and in inner-city communities the poorest schools may get up to a 90 percent discount, 90 percent on their telephone bill, on their bill for Internet on-line services, on the initial connecting bills. It may happen if the FCC follows through on the recommendations that have already been received. I think everybody should write to the FCC or should write to the telecommunications company and thank them for cooperating and understanding that we cannot go forward with the education of all Americans unless we have this kind of provision which lowers the cost of telecommunications services for all schools. It is very important that we support the recommendations from the Federal-State joint board because the FCC has until May to develop the rules and vote on these rules. Please understand that the spirit of NetDay that the gentlewoman from Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, has put forth so appropriately, the spirit of NetDay should go forward in many ways, but one way we can carry the spirit of NetDay forward is by letting the FCC know that we want the recommendation for the 20 to 90 percent discount on telecommunication services to be passed as rapidly as possible. The schools which you need to help most, the poorest schools in the United States, are the schools which have the most difficult problems in teaching. They will not be able to benefit from the technological revolution, they will not be able to benefit from the new telecommunications that will be available unless they have some way to solve the problem of the operations cost. The operations cost. Most schools do not have telephones, you know. I mean, they have a limited number of telephones. In New York we have a school serving 2,000 youngsters that may have 5 or 6 telephones. A telephone should be in every classroom because we have been aware of telephone technology for a long time. There are thousands of ways telephones can be used to improve the operation of the schools and the operation of the structure, but even that is not there. Before you get to videotapes and television sets and the Internet and the computers, we need the telephone. We can take a giant step forward by understanding that the universal fund that the FCC is now considering should be supported, and immediately; in the spirit of NetDay, we can go forward to try to convince the telecommunications companies to also support the FCC recommendation for a 20 to 90 percent discount on telecommunication services.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton's inaugural address was not a State of the Union speech obligated to provide substance for general proposals. Appropriately, the President used his second inaugural statement to set a tone for the next 4 years, the prelude to the 21st century. America is a great country blessed by God with wealth far surpassing any Nation on the face of the Earth now, or in the past. The Roman Empire was a beggar entity compared to the rich and powerful Americans. God has granted us an opportunity unparalled in history. President Clinton called upon both leaders and ordinary citizens to measure up to this splendid moment. The President called upon all of us to abandon ancient hatreds and obsessions with trivial issues. For a brief moment in history we are the indispensable people. Other nations have occupied this position before and failed the world. The American colossus should break the historic pattern of empires devouring themselves. As we move into the 21st century we need indispensable leaders with global visions. We need profound decisions. Indispensable Nation Under God, The indispensable nation, Guardian of the pivotal generation, Most fortunate of all the lands, For a brief moment, The whole world we hold in our hands, Internet sorcery computer magic, Tiny spirits make opportunity tragic, We are the indispensable nation, Guardian of the pivotal generation, Millionaires must rise to see the need, Or smother beneath their splendid greed, Capitalism is King, With potential to be Pope, Banks hoard gold, That could fertilize universal hope, Jefferson Lincoln Roosevelt King, Make your star spangled legacy sting, Dispatch your ghosts, To bring us global visions, Indispensable leaders, Need profound decisions, Internet sorcery computer magic, Tiny spirits make opportunity tragic, We are the indispensable nation, Guardian of the pivotal generation, With liberty and justice for the world, Under God.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of Shirley Ursula Graber, an individual who was a committed fighter for racial and gender equality, and social and economic justice. As a social architect, community leader, teacher, and trusted confidant, she harbored a great faith in people, believing that everyone was capable of growth. During her journey in this world, Ms. Graber's unwavering activism influenced many--young and old--to become catalysts of change. Ms. Shirley Ursula Graber is a great Point-of-Light whose citizenship, passion, and accomplishments should be saluted as a source of inspiration for all Americans. From her college days to age 72 when she succumbed to a grave illness, Shirley Graber's principles were placed strategically into action. She was copresident of Brooklyn NOW--National Organization for Women--and executive board member of Brooklyn OWL--Older Women's League. At Brooklyn NOW, she led just a handful of dedicated women to prevent the dissolution of the chapter in the early 1990's. Consequently, the chapter was brought to new heights of activism and political awareness, and is now 350 members strong with a solid core of active advocates. At Brooklyn OWL, Ms. Graber influenced the focus and success of the 250-member chapter in its advocacy of issues especially significant to women in their golden years. Shirley Graber always recognized and attacked any person, effort or idea that threatened the social condition of women. She spearheaded the formation and served as Chair of the Coalition to Save the Brooklyn College Women's Center. This union of women's organizations in Brooklyn fought to save the oldest women's center in New York State that had been threatened with extinction by budget cuts. Ms, Graber thoroughly appreciated the historical transformation of women's rights in America. She was dedicated to completing this transformation and furthering such rights. For example, Ms. Graber possessed a fervent core belief in the need for an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In honor of her ideas and endeavors, she received the New York State NOW Woman to Woman Award. A plaque in her honor is also scheduled for installation in the Women's Hall of Fame at Seneca Falls, NY--the birthplace of the U.S. women's suffrage movement. Shirley Graber was the daughter of a steel mill union organizer and a strong-minded mother, who in her 90's is still an outspoken community and women's rights advocate. A resident of Brooklyn, NY, Ms. Graber was born in Cleveland, OH and moved to New York in 1948 to attend graduate school. She first attended Ursuline College in Ohio, the first member of her family to obtain a postsecondary education. As evidenced in her life activities, it is difficult to determine where Ms. Graber's professional, civic, and personal life began and ended. The fervor and skill with which she carried out her work as teacher, organizer, and counselor were inextricably connected to her larger goals of equality and justice for all. Consistently, she not only uplifted her community and her gender, but she improved the quality of life for everyone. A consummate team player, pillar of support, and unifying force behind numerous noteworthy efforts, Shirley Ursula Graber is a great Point-of-Light for all the children, women, and men of America.