Congressional RecordUN

UME PLURIBUS

United Statesof America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 105th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION

∑ This ‘‘bullet’’ symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor.

S2083

Vol. 144 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 1998 No. 29

SenateThe Senate met at 10 a.m. and was

called to order by the President protempore [Mr. THURMOND].

PRAYER

The Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd JohnOgilvie, offered the following prayer:

Almighty God, I pray for Your super-natural strength for the women andmen of this Senate, their families andtheir staffs. Bless them with a freshflow of Your strength—strength tothink clearly, serve creatively, and en-dure consistently; strength to fill updiminished human resources; silentstrength that flows from Your limitlesssource, quietly filling them with arte-sian power. You never ask us to domore than You will provide thestrength to accomplish. So make usriver beds for the flow of Your creativeSpirit. Fill this day with unexpectedsurprises of Your grace. Be Lord ofevery conversation, the unseen Guestat every meeting and the Guide ofevery decision.

Gracious Lord, on this Saint Pat-rick’s Day, we remember the wordswith which he began his days. ‘‘I arisetoday, through God’s might to upholdme, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’seye to look before me, God’s ear tohear me, God’s hand to guard me, God’sway to lie before me and God’s shieldto protect me.’’ Through our Lord andSaviour. Amen.f

RECOGNITION OF THE ACTINGMAJORITY LEADER

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Theable acting majority leader is recog-nized.f

SCHEDULE

Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, thismorning the Senate will debate thecloture motion relative to the motionto proceed to H.R. 2646, the A+ edu-cation bill, under Senator COVERDELL’s

amendment until 12:15 p.m., with thefirst hour under the control of SenatorDASCHLE and the second hour under thecontrol of Senator COVERDELL. As pre-viously ordered, at 12:15 the Senate willconduct a cloture vote on the motionto proceed to the A+ Education bill.

Following that vote, the Senate willrecess for the weekly party caucuses tomeet. When the Senate reconvenes at2:15, there will be an immediate vote onthe confirmation of Susan Graber to beU.S. circuit judge in Oregon. In addi-tion, if cloture is invoked on the pre-viously mentioned motion to proceedto H.R. 2646, the Senate will begin 30hours of debate on the motion to pro-ceed following the judicial vote. Also,the Senate may consider S. 414, theinternational shipping bill, S. 270, theTexas low-level radioactive waste billand other legislative or executive busi-ness cleared for Senate action. There-fore, Members can anticipate rollcallvotes throughout today’s session of theSenate.f

MORNING BUSINESS

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Underthe previous order, there will now be aperiod for the transaction of morningbusiness not to extend beyond the hourof 12:15 p.m. with the first hour to beunder the control of the Democraticleader or his designee and with the sec-ond hour to be under the control of theSenator from Georgia (Mr. COVERDELL),or his designee.f

GRATITUDE TO SENATOR MCCAIN

Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I wish totake a moment to call attention to asignificant day in our Nation’s history.Not only is this St. Patrick’s Day, butit was 25 years ago today, St. Patrick’sDay, March 17, 1973, that our friend andcolleague, Senator JOHN MCCAIN, wasreleased from the Hanoi Hilton. Sen-ator MCCAIN was shot down over Viet-

nam on October 26, 1967, and spent al-most 6 years in a North Vietnameseprison. Most of that time was in soli-tary confinement.

It is appropriate today that we notonly recognize that 25-year anniversaryof Senator MCCAIN, but recognize theleadership, the inspiration and what hehas meant to this country. In a daywhen I know many people sometimesquestion whether values do count andstandards and expectations do count,our colleague, our friend, SenatorMCCAIN, is an embodiment to what isbest in this country, what has alwaysbeen best, and what always will be im-portant—that is loyalty and commit-ment to your country, that is dedica-tion, it is values and standards, it ishaving high expectations in oneself.

It is a rather unique example of howsomeone has been able to take the ex-perience that he has had and harnessthat energy and focus that energy forsomething very positive for this coun-try and to help make this world better.That is Senator JOHN MCCAIN.

This morning, some of our col-leagues—I see one on the floor, ourfriend, Senator CLELAND from Georgia,who, too, gave so much to his countryin the Vietnam war—recognized JOHNMCCAIN in a surprise visit to his officeat 9:15. One of the things that we gavehim was a United States Navy A–4 jetfighter ejection seat. I reminded himwhen he came to campaign for me in1996, as we flew across Nebraska in asmall plane, one of the copilots said,‘‘Now, let me explain to you how youget out of this plane if you need to,’’and I interrupted this young pilot bysaying, ‘‘Senator MCCAIN never usesthe door, he gets out another way.’’ Asthat young pilot went up into the cock-pit, the other pilot said, ‘‘You dummy,that is Senator MCCAIN. Don’t youknow the story how he ejected andcrash landed and did these incrediblethings?’’ We reminisced about that thismorning and then presented Senator

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES2084 March 17, 1998MCCAIN an actual A–4 ejection seat. Idon’t know what he does with that, buta couple of old infantry men like Sen-ator CLELAND and I were out of ourleague dealing with the ejection seatsand we didn’t go near that seat.

Suffice it to say that this Nationowes Senator MCCAIN and all the POWsa great debt. We recognize their serv-ice, their commitment, their loyalty,but mostly we recognize their leader-ship and what they have meant to uswhen times are tough and when we digdown deep in our society and we lookfor standards and leadership and com-mitment and role models. Mr. Presi-dent, that role model is JOHN MCCAIN.

I yield the floor.Mr. CLELAND. I associate myself,

first of all, Mr. President, with themarvelous remarks from the Senatorfrom Nebraska. He is a distinguishedVietnam veteran himself. It was a won-derful experience to be with SenatorMCCAIN, Senator HAGEL and SenatorKERREY this morning—all of us Viet-nam veterans.

It was a marvelous experience to bethere with Senator JOHN MCCAIN as hecelebrated his 25th homecoming ‘‘backto the world’’ as we used to call thiscountry, when we were in SoutheastAsia. Senator HAGEL has spoken elo-quently, and I associate my remarkswith his. I hope that Senator MCCAINwon’t be ejected from the Senate formany, many years to come.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous con-sent for 15 minutes of the time allo-cated to Senator DASCHLE.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator has that right to be recognized for15 minutes.f

THE IRAQI CRISIS: WALKING SOFT-LY AND CARRYING A BIG STICK

Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, just ashort time ago, the Senate was pre-pared to consider, and likely to adopt,a resolution granting the Presidentlargely unlimited authority ‘‘to takeall necessary and appropriate actions’’to respond to the threat posed by Iraq’srefusal to end its weapons of mass de-struction programs. After some of usraised concerns about the echoes ofTonkin Gulf in that original wording,we were then prepared to endorse ameasure which constrained that au-thority by requiring that it be ‘‘in con-sultation with Congress and consistentwith the U.S. Constitution and laws.’’

Some of us were prepared to standbehind this language, and its endorse-ment of the President’s policy deter-minations which we generally believedwould culminate in air strikes byAmerican forces against Iraq, thoughno one, including the President, be-lieved that such strikes would nec-essarily accomplish our principle ob-jective of removing Saddam Hussein’sarsenal of biological, chemical and nu-clear weapons.

We then were presented with a diplo-matic solution of the crisis negotiatedby U.N. Secretary-General Annan that

offered the prospect of achieving ourprinciple goal in a way which strikesfrom the air could not possibly havedone. It empowered UN inspectors onthe ground in Iraq to more fully inves-tigate and destroy Iraq’s weapons ofmass destruction. The President has, inmy view, taken the correct approach.He welcomes the agreement as rep-resenting a solution to the currentproblem, while immediately seeking totest and verify Iraqi compliance. He re-serves our ability to take such otheraction as may be necessary if theagreement proves inadequate. Let mesay clearly that this outcome is a gooddeal for the United States, the peopleof Iraq, the entire region and for inter-national security. It is especially agood deal for the thousands of Amer-ican families who have loved ones onguard right now for us in the PersianGulf.

There is no more awesome respon-sibility facing us as members of theUnited States Senate than the decisionto authorize the use of American mili-tary power. Such action puts America’sfinest, its servicemen and women, inharm’s way. This basic fact was drivenhome to me as I reviewed the followingpress reports from my home state ofGeorgia over the past few weeks:

From the February 12 Valdosta DailyTimes:

Troops from south Georgia’s Moody AirForce Base departed for the Persian Gulftoday. Up to 3,000 soldiers from Ft. Stewartare expected to follow soon. About 80 AirForce rescue personnel from the base nearValdosta departed just after 7 AM along withtwo HC–130s, which refuel rescue helicopters,drop para-rescue jumpers to assist in oper-ations and deploy equipment for rescue oper-ations. . .

From the February 12 AugustaChronicle:

As tensions mount in Iraq, some Fort Gor-don troops are preparing for possible deploy-ment in the Middle East, and the 513th Mili-tary Intelligence Brigade is poised to provideintelligence support for military operationsthere. . .

From the February 13 Macon Tele-graph:

Base workers loaded a C–5 cargo plane withcommunications equipment Thursday after-noon as 30 members of the 5th Combat Com-munications Group prepared to fly to thePersian Gulf area about 6 a.m. today. Thecommunications group, commonly known asthe 5th MOB, primarily is responsible for es-tablishing communications and air-traffic-control systems for military operations. . .

From the February 18 SavannahMorning News:

3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) soldierslike Spc. Shane Rollins of the 3rd Battalion,69th Armor Regiment, had little time torelax as they prepared for a deployment tothe Middle East. In less than a week, Rollinsand nearly 3,000 other Fort Stewart soldierswill be in Kuwait.

And from the February 22 ColumbusLedger-Enquirer:

As about 200 Fort Benning troops left Sat-urday for a possible confrontation with Iraq,Acting Army Secretary Robert Walker saidthe decision to send more troops from thepost hinges on what Iraqi leader SaddamHussein does next.

Such scenes have been repeated allover America in recent weeks, and un-derscore the human consequences ofour policy deliberations in this cham-ber. Before discussing those importantquestions with which this body mustgrapple in fulfilling its Constitutionalrole, we must always be mindful of theyoung men and women who will riskmore than their reputations in carry-ing out the policies we approve.

A LITTLE HISTORY

Karl Von Clausewitz, the great Ger-man theoretician on war, once wrote,

War is not merely a political act but a realpolitical instrument, a continuation of polit-ical intercourse, carrying out of the same byother means.

In August of 1990, Saddam Husseintried to accomplish by war what hecould not achieve by other means. Iraqiforces invaded Kuwait. This came justtwo years after the conclusion of theeight-year Iran-Iraq War, a terribleconflict in which Saddam Hussein usedchemical weapons. The war left 600,000Iranians and 400,000 Iraqis dead.

After months of fruitless negotia-tions and after a huge U.S. and alliedmilitary build-up in the region, in Jan-uary of 1991 President Bush was grant-ed authority by Congress to use forceto compel Iraqi withdrawal from Ku-wait. The resulting Persian Gulf Warlasted 44 days, and the U.S.-lead forcesachieved the primary mission of evict-ing Iraqi forces from Kuwait. In theprocess, the United States crippledIraqi defense forces, and in the words ofLt. General Tom Kelly, ‘‘Iraq wentfrom the fourth-largest army in theworld to the second-largest army inIraq.’’

All along, the U.S. goal was to com-pel Iraqi compliance with U.N. Secu-rity Council resolutions calling forIraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. De-struction of Iraq’s weapons of mass de-struction, and in particular its nuclearweapons program, was only a second-ary goal. It was only discoveries madeduring and after the Gulf War of great-er than anticipated Iraqi capability fordeploying chemical and biologicalweapons, in addition to nuclear weap-ons, which elevated the destruction ofthese capabilities to a key aim ofAmerican policy.

After the cease fire which ended the1991 war, the U.N. Security Council es-tablished the U.N. Special Commission,or UNSCOM, to investigate, monitorand destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass de-struction capability, including its de-livery systems.

Over the past 6 years, UNSCOM hasbeen doing yeoman’s work in fulfillingthis task by destroying more Iraqichemical weaponry than was accom-plished in the Gulf War itself. Late lastyear, Saddam Hussein began denyingUNSCOM the ability to inspect keyIraqi facilities where production andprocessing of weapons of mass destruc-tion materials was suspected to be tak-ing place.

Since then, the United States, our al-lies and the U.N., have been working

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S2085March 17, 1998around the clock to win access to Iraqisites in compliance with U.N. Resolu-tion 687, which calls for the disman-tling of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruc-tion capability.

PERMISSION CREEP

A few weeks ago, I raised concernsregarding the original version of theSenate resolution which, though notsought by President Clinton, wouldhave given the President largely un-limited authority to use whatever forcehe deemed necessary to accomplishthis objective. I was concerned that theoriginal resolution was overly broad. Idid not think it was appropriate togrant such authority on the monu-mental issue of war and peace withoutthe Congress being thoroughly con-sulted about the President’s plans andjustifications.

I was concerned about ‘‘PermissionCreep.’’ Permission Creep is when Con-gress grants the President broad pow-ers in the glow of victory withoutthinking about the long term con-sequences of granting such authority.Of course, the reverse is also true.Whenever the United States suffers adefeat, the Congress is swift to limitpresidential authority.

Prior to the Vietnam War, PresidentJohnson reported that as a result ofmilitary tensions in the Gulf of Tonkinhe had ordered a strike against certainNorth Vietnamese naval targets and oilreserves. In the glow of the victory ofthis air strike, the Congress passed theinfamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolutionthat approved the President’s taking‘‘all necessary measures’’ to repulse anarmed attack against U.S. forces andto assist South Vietnam in the defenseof its freedom. It is reported thatPresident Johnson compared the reso-lution to ‘‘grandma’s nightshirt—itcovered everything.’’

Of course, we all know the history ofVietnam—a history we are so carefullytrying to avoid repeating. We gave theU.S. military extremely difficult andcomplex missions. We asked it to pros-ecute a war against a seasoned andhighly motivated opponent while si-multaneously engaging in ‘‘nationbuilding’’ in South Vietnam. At thesame time, we did not give the militarythe latitude to win. Political leadersmicro-managed the Vietnam War, andwe did not use decisive force. Of course,in the aftermath, the Congress saw fitto reign in the President’s authority tocommit U.S. troops in harms way whenit passed the War Powers Resolution inthe early 1970s.

A more immediate example of ‘‘Per-mission Creep’’ is the 1991 Defense Au-thorization Act. Again, in the glow ofvictory in the Gulf War, the Congressexpressed its approval for the ‘‘use ofall necessary means’’ to achieve thegoals of U.N. Resolution 687. That iswhere we stand today. This authorityexists as a result of the initial jointresolution passed by Congress in Janu-ary 1991 authorizing the use of force tocompel Iraqi compliance with the rel-evant U.N. resolutions of the time, par-

ticularly with respect to the with-drawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.This authority was later extended tocover U.N. Security Council Resolution687 which established the U.N. SpecialCommission whose function is to un-cover and dismantle Iraq’s weapons ofmass destruction.

The Defense Authorization Act forFiscal Year 1992 states specifically thatit was the sense of Congress that:

‘‘The Congress supports the use of allnecessary means to achieve the goalsof Security Council Resolution 687 asbeing consistent with the Authoriza-tion for Use of Military Force AgainstIraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1).’’

I appreciate the fact that some inter-pret this as being non-binding, eventhough it was passed by both houses ofCongress and presented to the Presi-dent as part of the Defense Authoriza-tion Act. And, though some contendthat these expressions of Congressionalwill are no longer in effect, in the ab-sence of formal action to rescind orterminate these non-time limited au-thorizations, I am led to the conclusionthat the President continues to haveall the authority he needs to use mili-tary force against Iraq pursuant to ourlaws and relevant U.N. Security Coun-cil resolutions. The real question iswhether or not he should! I for one amglad that President Clinton showed re-straint in the most recent confronta-tion with Iraq.

I see signs that some are alreadyviewing the President’s acceptance ofthe diplomatic agreement as somehowa defeat. I do not share that view! Inthe words of UN Secretary-GeneralAnnan, I think America showed, ‘‘re-solve on substance and flexibility onform.’’ To paraphrase President TeddyRoosevelt, in the recent Iraq crisis thisnation, ‘‘walked softly and carried abig stick.’’

THE SENATE DEBATE

Whatever happens from this point, Iam pleased that our deliberations onthe details of the Senate resolution ledto closer consultation between the Ad-ministration and the Congress, and toa more informed and thoughtful con-sideration of the policy choices beforeus. The current diplomatic solution of-fers us a great opportunity to debateour policy in the Persian Gulf. I wel-come that opportunity.

I know some are concerned aboutwhether this debate sends the wrongmessage to the world about Americanresolve. If I were able to address Sad-dam Hussein today, I would say the fol-lowing words:

‘‘The future is up to you. If there isto be light at the end of the tunnel foryou and the Iraqi people, it is your de-cision. Because America walked softlyduring this crisis, consulted with ourallies, and chose a diplomatic solutiondoes not mean the willingness of thePresident and the Congress to use thebig stick has gone away.’’

As for the U.S. troops stationedabroad listening to this debate, as I lis-tened thirty years ago when the U.S.

Senate debated the Tet Offensive, theSiege of Khe Sahn, and the future ofthe Viet Nam War, I say this: ‘‘Yourcountry is the oldest constitutional de-mocracy in the world. As such, we allhave a right to express our views open-ly and honestly about the most impor-tant act of that democracy—sendingyou into harm’s way. You are Ameri-ca’s finest. We are all proud of yourservice. If called upon to conduct mili-tary action, I know you will do yourduty. We are with you all the way. Youwill be in our thoughts and prayersuntil you return safely home.’’

WHAT IS THE NATIONAL INTEREST?

My first question in the debate onPersian Gulf policy is: ‘‘What vital na-tional interests do we have at stake?’’In answering this question, the Presi-dent and the Congress together mustdetermine what responsibilities shouldbe shared by other nations which alsohave vital interests involved. In somecases those interests are more vitalthan our own!

I believe that we do have a number ofvital national interests in the PersianGulf region, including:

Fighting the spread of chemical, bio-logical and nuclear weapons around theworld;

Promoting stability in an area whereIraq shares borders with: Saudi Arabia,Kuwait, Iran and Syria, all potentialflashpoints on the world scene; Turkey,an important U.S. ally; and Jordan,historically a key moderating force inthe region;

Securing access to the region’s oilsupplies, which account for 26 percentof world oil stocks, and 65 percent ofglobal oil reserves; and

Building regional support for theMiddle East peace process betweenIsrael and its neighbors.

I would stress that these interestswill remain regardless of whether ornot Saddam Hussein is still in power.For example, Saddam is not the onlyproblem with respect to weapons ofmass destruction even in the PersianGulf region itself. With respect to sta-bility, it is very possible that if Sad-dam suddenly vanishes from the scene,the situation, at least in the short run,will worsen, with particular instabilityalong the Turkey-Iraq and Iran-Iraqborders.

Along these same lines, I believe wemust take a hard look at how contain-ment of Iraq is related to the achieve-ment of our vital national interests,which, as just noted, are basically re-gional in nature. On weapons of massdestruction, for example, the nation ofIran poses a similar challenge. In termsof access to oil supplies, while SaudiArabia supplies over half of all PersianGulf oil exports (and 85 percent of U.S.oil imports from the region), even be-fore the Gulf War Iraq accounted for amuch smaller portion of Persian Gulfoil production. With sanctions now inplace, Iraq’s contribution to global oilsupplies is minimal. The point is, whilewe must not underestimate the threat

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES2086 March 17, 1998posed by Saddam Hussein, and espe-cially by his willingness to use weap-ons of mass destruction, we must becareful to not overestimate the role ofIraq and thereby get preoccupied withthat nation to the detriment of focus-ing on our vital regional and global in-terests.

Another matter which begs an an-swer is the question of sustainability,of our capacity to maintain our poli-cies, not only now but also well intothe future. For example, on the mili-tary front, are we going to require de-ployments for months and years ratherthan just days and weeks?

There is also the question of consist-ency—the extent to which our policychoices in pursuit of one national in-terest objective do not hamper theachievement of other vital objectives.For example, we need to take into ac-count what impact each of the diplo-matic and military options designed tocontain Saddam Hussein’s chemicaland biological weapons programs arelikely to have on other vital Americaninterests such as our encouragement ofRussia to continue forward with ratifi-cation and implementation of STARTII, and other arms control agreements.

On a more specific matter of militarypolicy, I feel we need to take a long,hard look at our current force deploy-ment strategy. Before we get to thepoint of committing our servicemenand women, we must certainly deter-mine if we have an appropriate mili-tary mission which can only be accom-plished by military means. Once such adetermination is made, we must pro-vide our forces with sufficient re-sources, and clear and concise rules ofengagement to get the job done.

The distinguished Senator from Kan-sas, Senator ROBERTS, made a very fineand thoughtful address to the Senatethe other day. He cited the followingquotation from one of my personal he-roes, Senator Richard B. Russell, fromthirty years ago during the War in VietNam. At that time I was serving inthat war. Senator Russell said:

While it is a sound policy to have limitedobjectives, we should not expose our men tounnecessary hazards to life and limb in pur-suing them. As for me, my fellow Americans,I shall never knowingly support a policy ofsending even a single American boy overseasto risk his life in combat unless the entirecivilian population and wealth of our coun-try—all that we have and all that we are—isto bear a commensurate responsibility ingiving him the fullest support and protectionof which we are capable.

As part of our effort to produce an ef-fective long-term policy for dealingwith Iraq and Saddam Hussein we mustalso ask the question about appro-priate burden-sharing among all of thenations, including the United States,which have vital interests in the area.It should be the long-term aim of ourpolicies that the American peopleshould not be asked to alone shoulderthe costs, whether in terms of financialexpenses, potential military casualtiesor diplomatic fallout, of pursuing ob-jectives whose benefits will not be real-

ized exclusively, or in some cases, evenprimarily, by the United States. Tocite but one example of the kind of cal-culations I have in mind here, whilethe Persian Gulf accounts for 19% ofU.S. oil imports, that region provides44% of Western Europe’s oil importsand fully 70% of Japan’s.

In posing these questions regardingour long-term policy toward Iraq, andarriving at my own answers to them, Iam led to make the following conclu-sions.

First, the best, and perhaps the only,way to secure our vital interests ofcurbing the spread of weapons of massdestruction and preventing SaddamHussein from developing the capacityto threaten neighboring countries isthrough a continuation of people onthe ground. In this case right now, thepeople on the ground are the UNSCOMinspections. It is these inspections, andnot any conceivable military option,short of an all out invasion and occupa-tion of Iraq, which can locate, identify,and destroy, or at least impede Iraq’sdevelopment of chemical, biologicaland nuclear weapons.

Second, in order to secure our na-tional interests, we should place a pri-ority on international coalition build-ing for peace and security in the Per-sian Gulf. Not only is such an exercisecalled for in order to insure that Amer-ican soldiers and American taxpayersare not asked to bear a disproportion-ate share of the burden in confrontingthe mainly regional threat posed bySaddam Hussein, but also it is essen-tial to achieving our policy goals—anti-proliferation and regional stabil-ity.

Third, in order to aid both weaponsinspection and coalition-building, weshould be prepared to re-examine ourapproach to sanctions policy. Weshould not follow an approach whichisolates us from our allies in the regionor elsewhere, nor which makes us thevillain in the minds of the Iraqi peopleand its future leaders. In other words,just as I don’t want us to pay a dis-proportionate economic cost, neithershould we have to alone bear the diplo-matic costs of containing Saddam Hus-sein. While I certainly do not call foran end to economic sanctions againstIraq, and indeed I believe the inter-national community will need to find amechanism to secure long-term lever-age to maintain adequate surveillanceof Iraq’s weapons-building programs, Ibelieve that we should work with ourallies to develop a comprehensive,long-term approach with respect tosanctions, with graduated modifica-tions geared to concrete Iraqi actions.

Finally, consistent with my viewthat we are currently paying morethan our share of the financial and po-litical costs of dealing with SaddamHussein, I believe that, in the long run,we should phase-down our militarypresence in the Persian Gulf. While wedo have important national interests inthe region, these interests are neitherour’s alone nor are they our only na-

tional interests. The over-extension ofAmerican troop and naval deploymentsin the Persian Gulf compromises ourability to sustain commitments in theMediterranean, on the Korean Penin-sula, in the Balkans and elsewhere.

In short, I don’t want the UnitedStates to pursue policies which mightwin the battle against Saddam Husseinbut lose the larger war of securing ourvital interests throughout the PersianGulf and around the globe, now andinto the future. We should continue tocarry the big stick, but build our coali-tion stronger to do it and not fail towalk softly as the situation requires.

Mr. President, I look forward to con-tinuing this debate on these and relat-ed matters in the weeks and monthsahead.

I yield the floor.Mr. President, I suggest the absence

of a quorum.The PRESIDING OFFICER. The

clerk will call the roll.The legislative clerk proceeded to

call the roll.Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask

unanimous consent that the order forthe quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Withoutobjection, it is so ordered.

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is myunderstanding that at 11 o’clock Mem-bers from the other side of the aislewill be coming in. I think the momentis close to that. I do not have that longa presentation, but I ask unanimousconsent that I be permitted to proceedfor such time as I need, which will notbe very long.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.HAGEL). Without objection, it is so or-dered.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Chair.f

EDUCATION SAVINGS ACT FORPUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, there isan enormous amount of rhetoric todayat many different levels of Governmentabout education. There is also a lot ofgood, genuine effort in many States,literally, as well as here at the na-tional level, to try to address some ofthe very real questions about edu-cation.

What is clear to me, though, and Ithink to other Members, is that thereis still an enormous gap between thereality of what is happening in many ofour schools and those things we arechoosing to do at the national level. Itseems clear to almost everybody whotalks about education that nothing ismore important than providing thechildren of America a system with op-portunity that is second to nobody inthe world. But as the test scores andother aspects of our education systemare indicating, we really lag way be-hind the full measure of the abilitythat we have as a country to do that.We are failing too many of our childrentoday. We have too many crumblingschools. We have too many over-crowded classrooms. We have too many

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S2087March 17, 1998inadequately prepared teachers. And,regrettably, the bill on which we willbe voting on a motion to proceed laterthis morning, while I think it has goodintentions and even some good compo-nents that, if they were part of a largereffort, might make sense, simply doesnot do anything to address the fun-damental problems that we have in thecountry. Perhaps I should amend that.I guess it is not fair to say it doesn’t doanything. It certainly puts money inthe hands of a certain group of people,and for them there is a benefit. So youcannot say it doesn’t do anything. Butthe question you have to ask is, is thatthe first place we ought to begin withsome kind of Band-Aid solution to amuch larger problem? And is that thesolution that the U.S. Senate ought toadopt in a free-standing effort?

I respectfully suggest to my col-leagues that as legitimate as the fun-damental concept of some kind of sav-ings account might be, this particularbill, this particular set-aside, this par-ticular savings account, does an injus-tice to the rest of the education needsof the country, and it also serves thosepeople who are already doing prettywell and not those in need or for whomthere is a much more serious set ofremedies needed. In many ways whatthe Senator from Georgia is proposingcould wind up inadvertently makingthings far worse for the overall edu-cational system.

I want to make it clear, and I will betrying to do this more and more in thenext weeks, that I think there aresome enormous fundamental flaws inthe educational system of the country.Notwithstanding 20 years of discus-sions in various national fora that havebrought the governments together withPresidents and otherwise, and notwith-standing all of the outside reports thathave been commissioned with respectto our education system, the truth isthat today the system continues to im-plode, almost.

Also, notwithstanding the remark-able efforts of individual teachers andindividual schools, the fact is there aremore and more poor young people inAmerica, there are more and morepressures on the education system, andthere are more and more difficultiesthat teachers need to deal with andprincipals need to deal with, particu-larly in inner cities and also in somerural areas. Our schools are attemptingto do what no other school system onthe face of the planet attempts to do,which is to bring so many differentpeople of different languages and dif-ferent cultures and different races to-gether under one roof, too often withtotal inadequacy of resources andstructure.

I don’t think it’s that hard, frankly,to analyze what is wrong. What ap-pears to be hard is the building of aconsensus, a coalition that is willing totackle the things that we know arewrong. I will also be saying a lot moreabout that in the days ahead.

But the problem with the Coverdellbill is what we really need is an overall

approach that deals with the problemswhere 90 percent of our children arebeing educated. Mr. President, 90 per-cent of America’s children are in thepublic school system. What we are wit-nessing in the Coverdell bill is an ap-proach that drains away from that 90percent a certain amount of the exist-ing support and permits those peoplewho get the benefit of the money thatis drained away to be able to do whatthey want with it. That is a very niceidea. I do not object, as I say, in prin-ciple, to allowing people to have choicewithin the education system, and alsoto have some choices about the qualityof where they are going to send theirkids to school. But the Coverdell billexpands the tax-free education savingsaccounts to a level, $2,000 a year, re-placing the current $500 cap, whichwould also expand the allowable use ofthose funds for education expenses forpublic, private, and religious schools,which obviously raises another subsetof questions. But the great majority offamilies—and here is the most impor-tant point—the great majority of fami-lies would get little or no tax breakfrom this legislation.

We have to ask ourselves some toughquestions as we make some choiceshere in the Senate and in the budgetprocess about where we spend ourmoney. I do not think it’s that tough achoice to ask what is the justificationfor providing 70 percent of the benefitsof this effort to families in the top 20percent of income in America? I do notunderstand that. We know we are cre-ating more poor people. We know thepublic schools that are hurting themost are the public schools wherethere is the least amount of propertytax base. We know the public schoolsthat are hurting are schools where theydo not have enough money to payteachers enough or they do not haveenough money to put the computers inor enough money to fix roofs that areleaking or to have air-conditioning sokids have a decent environment tolearn in, or even to have some of theimportant programs that ought to bepart of learning—whether it’s sports ormusic or a new science laboratory orart. These are all things that have beencut in recent years, and predominantlycut in those school districts that can-not afford to keep them because theydo not have the tax base.

So what are we doing? We are goingto talk about turning around and giv-ing 70 percent of revenue that we aregoing to give up, $1.6 billion we aregoing to give up, in order that peoplein the top 20 percent of income-earnersin America can do better. When youare asking Americans to tighten theirbelts, and you are asking Americans tocome together around notions of fun-damental fairness, it is pretty hard tosay to them that in the midst of someof the chaos that we see in the publiceducation system, the first thing weare going to do is turn around andallow the people who are doing the bestin America to take the most amount ofmoney from our first effort.

The fact is people earning less than$50,000 would get an average tax cut ofonly $2.50 from this legislation. How doyou justify that? There is not a Sen-ator here who does not come to thefloor at one time or another and talkabout the problems of youth in Amer-ica, the problems of illegitimacy, ofbirths out of wedlock, the problems ofkids who have no place to go afterschool, of kids who wind up smokingcigarettes or doing drugs and gettinginto trouble. We spend billions of dol-lars every year in order to addressthose after the fact, and here we areabout to consider a piece of legislationthat suggests that we ought to takethe money out of the current expendi-ture that we put in the Federal leveland give it to people who are earningthe most money in America, a $1.6 bil-lion price tag over the next 10 years.

The Joint Committee on Taxationhas found that half of the benefitswould go to the 7 percent of familieswith children in private schools—halfof the benefits of the $1.6 billion will goto the children and their families whoare already in private schools. Youknow, it’s one thing to criticize ourpublic schools; it’s another to suggestthat they are responsible for their ownfaults when they depend upon the pub-lic dollar. If we take the public dollaraway from them and then we turnaround and just criticize them, itseems to me we are building the capac-ity for failure into the system.

As I said before the Senator who pro-posed this came to the floor, I thinkthere are merits in the concept of asavings program. I am perfectly happyto embrace a legitimate effort to cre-ate a private savings capacity to en-courage people to be able to put moneyaway to send their kids to school. Thatis a legitimate goal. But surely wehave the ability to do it in a way thatspreads the benefit more evenly acrossthe need in this country. You simplycannot ignore as the country has beengetting richer and richer in the last 10or 15 years, we have more and morepoor people, particularly poor children.The number of poor children in Amer-ica is going up, as is the number ofchildren in need within our inner citieswho deserve equally as good an oppor-tunity at a decent school as the kids ofthese other parents, and they ought toget one. So I am perfectly prepared toembrace the concept, but I want to doit in a way that is part of an overall ef-fort that suggests that we understandthe larger question of what our publiceducation system needs.

We Democrats would like to be ableto propose a substitute and some alter-natives that would help the vast major-ity of working families. Our bill wouldprovide tax credits to subsidize schoolmodernization bonds to enable Statesand local public school districts to pro-vide safe and modern schools that arewell-equipped in order to provide stu-dents with educations for the 21st cen-tury. One-half of the funds in our billwould be targeted to schools with the

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES2088 March 17, 1998greatest number of low-income chil-dren, and States would be permitted todecide where to distribute the remain-ing half of those funds. Our bill wouldhelp more than 5,000 schools modernizeso we can reduce class size and providea safer environment.

Let’s be honest. It is not hard to fig-ure out why so many parents are look-ing for an alternative to some of thepublic schools. I am a parent. I havetwo kids who we chose, ultimately, notto send to a public school because wedid not have confidence, as a lot of par-ents do not, for one reason or another.I regret that. I actually moved where Imoved with the hopes that we wouldsend them to the public school system.

You know, all of us are faced withthis choice. Probably too many of us inthe U.S. Senate who have had kidshave opted for something else, and wehave been able to do that. That, frank-ly, increases the burden on us, not de-creases it. It increases the burden on usto understand what most Americanparents are thinking as they makechoices about their kids.

So, today, people are voting withtheir feet. They are voting with theirfeet. They want vouchers; they wantcharter schools; they are even optingfor home teaching.

Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, willthe Senator yield for a question? Justa logistical matter?

Mr. KERRY. Absolutely. I suggestedI would wrap up quickly when Senatorscame to the floor, and I will do thatright now.

What I am saying is it is obvious tome and many others that you cannotgo on with the current model of what ishappening in our public school system.It is absolutely clear to me that weneed greater accountability. In manyStates people are working to do thatthrough testing, through standards,through teacher standards, new quali-fications—a whole set of things that I,again, will talk about at another time.

The bottom line is that you cannotcome here and not recognize that thereis no way, even if you embrace charterschools, that you could create enoughcharter schools fast enough to save ageneration. The fact is that 90 percentof our kids are in a system that pro-vided the generation that brought usthrough World War I and World War II,that created the greatness of this coun-try during the course of this century. Ican take Senators to any number ofschools, as they could go to in theirown States, that are wonderful publicschools, that work. They work becausethey have great principals, great teach-ers, great resources, and a great com-mitment from parents. And they areaccountable. Then we can go to puredisasters in other parts of all of ourStates.

What we ought to do is come to thefloor with a responsible effort thattries to address how we are going toprovide the structure and the resourcesto deal with the problem schools whilenot pulling the rug out from under

those schools that work. That is why Ithink it is so important to look for analternative, or at least work out somekind of compromise to what the Sen-ator from Georgia is proposing.

I thank my colleague for his cour-tesy, and I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr.THOMAS). The Senator from Georgia.

Let me say to the Senator, under theprevious order the Senator now has 1hour, even though it will extend be-yond 12 clock.

Mr. COVERDELL. Thank you verymuch, Mr. President. I do want topoint out with regard to the remarksmade by the good Senator from Massa-chusetts, that what we are debatinghere theoretically is not even the mer-its of the legislation. The other side isfilibustering. This is an outrageous fili-buster that is designed to prohibit usfrom ever getting to the legislation.The other side has organized. The mo-tion being debated is the motion madeby the majority leader to bring the billto the floor, and the other side is fili-bustering that. The comments that theSenator from Massachusetts madeabout their version and wanting tohave an opportunity to discuss it anddebate it is blocked, not by us, but bytheir filibuster. In fact, in the originalunanimous consent request, the major-ity leader offered the other side an op-portunity to bring their version to thefloor as a substitute or as an amend-ment and we would have a full andopen debate about the merits of theseproposals. So it is important that ev-erybody understand. This is a little bitdisingenuous because the other side istrying to keep us from even getting tothe legislation. It is the ultimate ex-ample of defense of the status quo.

The Senator from Massachusettstook issue with the status quo. But wecannot deal with the status quo, or im-prove it—whether it is their version orours—if they will continue to disallowour ability to bring the legislation tothe floor.

The Senator referred to one compo-nent of our proposal, an education sav-ings account, for which any family iseligible, that somehow in their mind,or in his mind, was not attentiveenough to the poor. I want to point outto the Senator and to the other sidethat the criterion by which our savingsaccount is created is identical. I re-peat: It is identical to the savings ac-count that the President signed, with agreat celebration and fanfare at theWhite House a year ago, or last fall, fora savings account for just higher edu-cation.

That savings account allowed a fam-ily to save $500 a year, just as ours, andit works identically to our account. Sothe criteria that was designed for thesavings account that was signed intolaw last year is designed to push thevast resources of these savings ac-counts to people of middle income andlower.

Seventy percent of all the proceeds inall these savings accounts will go to

families earning $75,000 or less. But theimportant point is that the governancerules of these savings accounts are theexact same rules that the other sideembraced last fall in the tax relief pro-posal and that the President signed.There is no difference. That proposalwas designed to make the accountwork toward middle class; this one isdesigned to accomplish the very samething. So it is a smoke-screen issue tosuggest that somehow the governanceof this education savings account fa-vors people of substantive means whenthe other one didn’t and when they areidentical, absolutely identical.

The only thing that is changed isthat we have said that instead of $500 ayear, you can save up to $2,000, and in-stead of it just applying to collegeneeds, it should be eligible for kinder-garten through high school. It seemspretty logical to just expand the usageof it. I will come back to what I con-sider deflecting arguments from whatthe real problem is on the other side alittle bit later.

I yield up to 10 minutes to my goodcolleague from Tennessee.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator from Tennessee.

Mr. FRIST. Thank you, Mr. Presi-dent. I rise in support of the cloturevote to proceed. The vote will takeplace in about an hour.

What is the answer to the basic ques-tion of why should we proceed? The an-swer is for our children. We can nolonger defend the status quo. TheCoverdell Parent and Student SavingsAccount Plus Act is our next step inimproving education for our childrenfor the next generation. I will justpoint out that it builds on the new edu-cation IRAs from the Taxpayer ReliefAct, which were directed to higher edu-cation. Senator COVERDELL’s proposalfocuses on primary and secondary edu-cation.

Why is that important? The answer isthat no longer is the status quo defen-sible in American education. I want totake a few minutes to share why I saythat.

Over the last 6 months, I have hadthe opportunity to chair the SenateBudget Committee’s Task Force onEducation. In our hearings—a series ofsix hearings over the last 6 months—Ihave discovered several things: Thecurrent Federal establishment is socomplex that it is difficult for evensomebody from Government to comeforward and say how many programswe have at the Federal level for edu-cation. I have learned that we havecommitted as a nation, as a people, asa U.S. Congress, substantial and grow-ing resources to secondary and elemen-tary education, but we have few provengood results to show for it. Our studentperformance is essentially flat overtime. According to Secretary Riley,some of our schools ‘‘don’t deserve tobe called schools.’’

I have a few charts which depict whyI say that we are not doing enough, andwhy we cannot defend the status quo.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S2089March 17, 1998The first question we might ask is,

are we as a nation, as a society, spend-ing enough money today, puttingenough resources into primary and sec-ondary education? That is a fairly sub-jective question to ask. What we cananswer is, are we spending increasingamounts over time? And the answer tothat is yes.

This first chart shows current ex-penditures per pupil in average dailyattendance in public elementary andsecondary schools. It goes from 1970 upto the current 1997 years. If you look atthe green line in current dollars, it hasgone from approximately $1,000 perpupil up to over $6,000 per pupil. If youapply that same curve to constant 1996–1997 dollars adjusting for inflation, wehave gone from about $3,600 per pupilup to over $6,000, a 50-percent increase.Thus, over time, per pupil in today’sdollars, we have increased spendingabout 50 percent per pupil.

That, I believe, reflects what actu-ally is being discussed in the BudgetCommittee as we speak—where we aregoing to increase spending more perpupil, a willingness, a commitment onthe part of the Congress and the Amer-ican people to spend more, to put moreresources in education.

I should point out that in 1997, wespent $36.6 billion on elementary andsecondary education. It is important tonote that the Federal spending of thatamount is only about 7 percent. Statesand localities provide the rest.

A second question is, what is theFederal role in primary and secondaryeducation? We asked that question. Iwill put up a fairly large chart that isvery complicated. In our own office, wecall this the ‘‘spider web’’ chart. Thisis the chart that was produced by theGeneral Accounting Office (GAO). GAObrought this chart to us to explain tous the Federal role in primary and sec-ondary education.

GAO basically took three areas—oneis teachers, one is at-risk and delin-quent youth and one is young chil-dren—to demonstrate the overlappingcomplexity. In fact, GAO’s testimonythat day was entitled ‘‘Multiple Pro-grams and Lack of Data Raise Effi-ciency and Effectiveness Concerns.’’That title really describes this chartvery well.

If we take one of these populations—the at-risk and delinquent youth, wecan see, using this one example thatthere are 59 programs at the Depart-ment of Health and Human Servicesthat are directed at this group; 7 areadministered by the Department of De-fense; 8 by the Department of Edu-cation; 4 by the Department of Housingand Urban Development; 9 by the De-partment of Labor; 22 by the Depart-ment of Justice; 3 by the Departmentof the Interior; 7 by the Department ofAgriculture; 3 by the Department ofEnergy; 1 by the Department of Treas-ury; and 18 by various other agencies.

This chart around the border showsthat there are 23 Federal departmentsand agencies administering these mul-

tiple Federal programs to just thesethree targeted groups. Again, it is un-important to figure out right now forthe purposes of our discussion todaywhat each of these programs are doing.The point is, it is very complicatedwith a lot of overlap. Is there room forstreamlining and simplification and in-novation? I think yes.

Third question: With this bureauc-racy and with this increased spendingover time, how are we as a nationdoing? What have our results been?

Just 3 weeks ago, on February 24, thelast battery of TIMSS, which is theThird International Math and ScienceStudy, was released. This test meas-ures the achievement of students atthe end of their last year in secondaryschool, that is the 12th grade in theUnited States. These latest trends re-flect the downward trend in Americavis-a-vis our international competi-tion, our international counterparts.

I will go through several charts veryquickly that summarize and dem-onstrate what Dr. Pat Forgione, theCommissioner of the National Centerfor Education Statistics, stated in hispress release on the results. Let mequote him:

Our most significant finding is that U.S.12th grade students do not do well. When ourgraduating seniors are compared to the stu-dents graduating secondary school in othercountries, our students rank near the bot-tom. This holds true in both science andmath, and for both our typical and our toplevel students.

Secretary Riley said, ‘‘These resultsare entirely unacceptable.’’

This first chart shows in the field ofgeneral science knowledge where we asa nation stand. The scores are in thecolumns on the right. All of thesecountries on the left are nations withaverage scores significantly higherthan the United States. The UnitedStates is in the second lower category.There were only two nations testedwho did significantly worse than theUnited States in the general scienceknowledge.

You can see all the countries that didbetter: Sweden, the Netherlands, Ice-land, Norway, Canada, New Zealand,Australia. This portion of the testmeasures skills ‘‘necessary for citizensin their daily life.’’ We are right at thebottom.

Our next chart shows mathematicsgeneral knowledge achievement. Thelayout is the same. On the left are thecountries which did better than theUnited States. We are at a level of 461.The average for all countries testedwas 500. We are significantly below theaverage. Again, the Netherlands, Swe-den, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland,Norway, in terms of mathematics gen-eral knowledge do better than theUnited States. Again, this is measuringwhat citizens need to know in dailylife. Only two countries did worse thanus, Cypress and South Africa.

Some people say, ‘‘That may be true,but is it a dumbing down or does ourlower level pull the median down?’’ To

answer that question, unfortunately, Iturn to the next chart. We look just atadvanced science students, just ourvery best compared to the very best inother countries to answer that fun-damental question of whether or notthe bottom rung brings our mediandown.

For a long time, we thought our verybest were better than the very bestfrom other countries. Unfortunately, itis just not true. Again, the layout isjust the same. These are nations withaverage scores higher than the UnitedStates. This is the average physics per-formance of the advanced science stu-dents. Again, you can see that we areat the bottom of the rung of the ladder.In fact, there are no nations—no na-tions—that did worse than our beststudents in this competition.

Clearly, we are doing poorly when wecompare ourselves internationally. Butthen let’s go back and say, ‘‘Well, arewe doing better than we did 20 yearsago?’’

We see we are spending 50 percentmore per pupil. Are we doing better? Isthe payout for our investment real?What is the return?

Unfortunately, this next chart, again1970 to 1996, shows the data. In spite ofincreased spending and lower classsizes, the trends are completely flat.The red is 9-year-olds, the blue is 13-year-olds, the green is 17-year-olds.These are the trends in reading on thisfirst chart.

The bottom line is that we have seenno improvement whatsoever in the last20 years. The next chart shows in thefield of science, once again, the averagescience scale scores for our Nation overtime in control testing is completelyflat—flat line, very little return on ourinvestment.

I think this argues that we can’t de-fend the status quo. We can’t have billsfilibustered which are innovative,which are creative, which inject thatcreativity and innovation in our sys-tem today, because the status quo issimply unacceptable.

Access has improved over time. In1900, only 6 percent of American stu-dents graduated from high school. In1967, 50 percent of the population fin-ished high school. Today, completinghigh school is nearly a universal phe-nomenon with 94 percent of America’syouth completing high school, al-though many not on time. So accesshas greatly improved; quality has notimproved.

The Coverdell Parent and StudentSavings Account Plus Act is not thecure-all. We recognize it is not thecure-all, but it is our next step in im-proving education in this country. Itempowers the parent-child team, it en-courages savings for education, it rec-ognizes that the status quo is not suffi-cient in preparing our children for thefuture, and it encourages innovationand new ideas.

In closing, I urge my colleagues toallow this bill to come to the floor tobe debated and voted upon. I urge its

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES2090 March 17, 1998support and look forward to defendingthis bill as our next best step in re-forming education in our country.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield thefloor.

Mr. COVERDELL addressed theChair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator from Georgia.

Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, Icommend the Senator from Tennessee.I think in a very brief period, he hasdemonstrated what all of us are so wor-ried about; that we have been makinggreater and greater investments finan-cially, particularly in grades kinder-garten through high school, and we arenot seeing the kind of results from itwe need to see. We have all known thatyou have to have an educated societyto maintain a free country.

On a personal basis, all those num-bers on all of those charts of the Sen-ator from Tennessee—which I wouldlike a copy of—at the end of the tunnelwhat they point to, in all too manycases, is that a child can get out of ourschool system and not be ready to takecare of themselves in society. They willhave trouble getting a job, they willhave trouble thinking through the kindof problems they have to solve, andthey will be a diminished citizen. Theyare not going to be able to enjoy theopportunities and privileges that gowith American citizenship. That iswhat all those numbers mean at theend. Thousands of people across ourcountry are denied the benefits ofAmerican citizenship because theydon’t have the tools to engage our soci-ety.

I think I will take a moment, if Imay, Mr. President, to remind every-body that we are in the midst of a de-bate over whether or not the other sidewill allow us to bring our proposal forimproving families and their children’seducation, for improving education andgrades kindergarten through highschool and beyond. We are trying toget our proposal to the floor. That pro-posal is being filibustered on the otherside. We are going to have a vote at12:15 today to see if we can get 60 Sen-ators who will agree that we need toget this legislation to the floor.

Let me take a moment, if I might,Mr. President, and describe the legisla-tion that we want to bring to the floortoday. The first provision is an edu-cation savings account. This is the pro-vision that has caused the most discus-sion. Currently, last year in the TaxRelief Act, we adopted an educationsavings account. It was for $500. Inother words, $500 per year can be put inthe savings account and the interestbuildup will be tax free if the proceedsare used for college expenses. It was de-signed by means testing to assure thatthe principal benefits went to middleincome or lower.

Our proposal is to take the savingsaccount that was passed overwhelm-ingly, that was signed by the Presi-dent, and say you can invest more than$500; you can save up to $2,000 per year.

So we have increased it by $1,500. Thenwe said, Why limit it to just financialneeds that confront a family with astudent in college? Why not make itpossible for the family to use that sav-ings account at any period in their edu-cation—kindergarten through college?And we applied the same constraints tothat account. Everything about it isthe same. So it is a pretty simple prop-osition. We took the savings account,you can put more in it, and you can useit kindergarten through college.

Interestingly enough, the amount ofmoney that we will be leaving in fam-ily checking accounts through this in-strument is not a lot of money interms of a $1.6 trillion budget. It isabout $750 million that would be left inthese checking accounts over 5 years.What is interesting is, that smallamount of relief, according to theJoint Tax Committee, multiplies itselfby about 15 times—that families acrossthe country, somewhere between 10million and 14 million, who will usethis opportunity, who will open this ac-count, will save in the first 4 yearsabout $5 billion. In over 8 years, theywill save between $10 and $12 billion. Sowe are taking a very small amount oftax relief incentive and it causes Amer-ican families to do something we allthink they should do—save. And theyare going to save billions of dollars.

What can they use the accounts for?They can use them for any educationalneed. I call these billions of dollars‘‘smart dollars’’ because the guidancesystem is right in the household; it isthe parent, who understands most whatthe child’s needs are. They may decidethis child has a math deficiency, sothey would use the account to hire atutor. Or they may be one of the 85 per-cent of the families in the inner citywho don’t have a home computer; theywould use the account to help thatchild’s education by acquiring a homecomputer. They may have a physicalimpairment or a special educationneed, and they could use the account tohire a special ed teacher to deal withwhatever the problem would be.

There are no losers in this propo-sition. A lot of legislative proposals wesee here, somebody gains and somebodyloses. Not in the education savings ac-count. Whether the child is in a ruralschool, an urban school, a fairlywealthy school district, or a very poorschool district, everybody benefits.Whether the child is in public edu-cation, where 70 percent of the familieswho use these accounts will be support-ing children in public schools, or 30percent will be supporting childrenthat are in private schools or homeschools, there is no component of edu-cation that will not be the beneficiaryof the savings account.

A little earlier, the Senator fromMassachusetts was admonishing thefact that the Joint Tax Committeesays about half the money that parentsuse—remember, it is their money—thatthese billions of dollars that are beingsaved are private dollars; they are not

tax dollars. About half of that will goto support students in private schools,and about half will go to support chil-dren in public schools. I guess the Sen-ator takes exception to that.

What that means at the end of theday is, in the first 4 years, $2.5 billionwill be out there supporting children inprivate schools and about $2.5 billionwill be out there supporting children inpublic schools. It will be families, butthere will be a tendency to save a littleless, because a family in a publicschool does not have to deal with tui-tion. I assume the Joint Tax Commit-tee is acknowledging that familieswith children in private schools havebigger bills to pay because they have topay the public school costs throughtheir property tax, and they have toadd the private school on top of it, sothey will probably save a little moreand they will spend it sooner.

The thing that the Joint Tax Com-mittee does not do is estimate whathappens if the families kept it throughcollege. They have only estimated thedivision of money kindergartenthrough high school, and they alsohave not calculated a huge benefit thatthis savings account creates because itallows sponsors to contribute to the ac-count. This makes it unique. What doyou mean, ‘‘sponsors?’’ Well, an em-ployer could help his or her employeesby depositing funds in the employee’ssavings account for education. Achurch could. A grandparent could givea child a deposit in a savings accountinstead of a toy that will probably beignored in 24 hours. This might changebirthdays dramatically as parents,friends, uncles, and aunts try to figureout what kind of gift and find that adeposit in that child’s savings accountwould be a great gift and have a lastingbeneficial effect. That hasn’t been indi-cated in the Joint Tax Committee’swork. It will alter dramatically whatthe final outcome is of the distribu-tion.

Say it all ended up exactly wherethey said. Why would anybody opposeinfusing billions of new dollars behindchildren in private schools and billionsof new dollars behind children in publicschools? Why in the world would thatbe a reason to be upset about? It ismind boggling that a savings accountthat families open with their ownmoney—not public money, their ownmoney—from which some 10 to 14 mil-lion families will benefit, some 20 mil-lion children, and we would have thisstrident filibuster in opposition to it.Pretty mind boggling.

There are other provisions of the pro-posal. I will go over them briefly. Ithelps qualified State tuition provi-sions. In a number of States—21 ofthem, to be specific—States allow par-ents to purchase a contract that locksin their tuition costs for college in thefuture at today’s prices. This proposalwould allow those proceeds to come outtax free to the student. Twenty-oneStates would be immediate bene-ficiaries, or the citizens of those

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S2091March 17, 1998States. In fact, this is one of the mostcostly provisions of the proposal. Thereare other States that currently areconsidering this provision, but thiswould help parents and States who aretrying to help parents set up these ad-vance tuition payment systems.

The proposal would aid employer-pro-vided educational assistance. This leg-islation extends the exclusion for em-ployers who pay their employees’ tui-tion through 2002 and expands it to in-clude graduate students, beginning in1998. This allows employers who pay upto $5,250 per year for educational ex-penses to benefit their employees,without the employee having to claimit as income and pay taxes on it. Soevery company across our land has anincentive to help their employees up-date and improve their education—once again, a very sound proposal thathas a broad reach across our country.

Briefly, there are two other majorprovisions that deal with helping smallschool districts get revenue bonds tohelp build schools, and there is somedefining language that helps makeHEALTHY, the national health carescholarships—these five provisions areat the center of our proposal that weare trying to get to the floor for a de-bate.

I want to reiterate, relating to thecomment from the Senator from Mas-sachusetts, we have been agreeable tothe other side bringing to the floortheir provision and debating it. Whatwe are trying to do is get the legisla-tion on the floor. We have been joinedby my cosponsor on the other side ofthe aisle, the distinguished Senatorfrom New Jersey, who has been tirelessin his effort to promote particularlythe education savings account amongthe adversaries on the other side. Ihave been particularly appreciative ofhis work and courage in helping uswith this educational innovation. Hehas been tireless. His intellect has beensuperior. I yield up to 10 minutes to theSenator from New Jersey.

Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, Ithank my colleague from New Jerseyfor yielding me the time and, morethan that, for his leadership, tirelessly,month after month, in bringing thisissue of savings accounts to the Senateand now, I believe, to acceptance.

I have noted in the debate to date,Senators have offered a perspectivethat they have other ideas that wouldenhance educational quality in ourcountry.

People believe they may have betterideas. People have other suggestionsand approaches. In large measure, theyall have merit. Neither Senator COVER-DELL nor I argue that this is exclu-sively the only approach in improvingeducational quality in our country.But it is an idea and it is a worthwhileidea. Critics are right that the countryalso must, as the President has sug-gested, rebuild America’s schools. Weneed additional teachers, we need to re-duce class size, and I believe we need todo voluntary testing. The President’s

proposals and those of our Democraticand Republican colleagues all havemerit. A+ savings accounts are not de-signed to replace those ideas, and theyare not instead of other suggestions.But this is a beginning, and it is an im-portant beginning.

A+ savings accounts, under Cover-dell-Torricelli, will bring $12 billion ofnew educational resources for theclassrooms of America, in public andprivate schools. It is not a diversion ofcurrent public resources, as might bethe case with vouchers. These are newresources. It isn’t Government moneyat all. These are the funds of privateAmerican families who are given a newavenue to use their own money to en-hance the quality of public or privateeducation. It is resources where weneed them the most. It is estimatedthat 75 percent of all of these resourcesthrough educational savings accountswill go to families who earn $70,000 peryear or less—families who are strug-gling the most to provide their chil-dren with quality education. Yet, Sen-ators will come to the floor and arguethat this money continues to go to aprivileged few. What privileged few inAmerica earn $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 ayear and pay the tuition or the ancil-lary cost of public education on one,two, or three children?

Other Senators will argue that themoney should be going exclusively topublic schools. Well, according to theJoint Committee on Taxation, it’s esti-mated that 70 percent of the actualfunds placed in these savings accountswill go to public school students be-cause not only are these resourcesavailable for private tuition at paro-chial schools, yeshivas, and other pri-vate institutions, they are also avail-able for the ancillary cost of publiceducation. What parent in Americatoday, recognizing how students arestruggling with advanced science, newmath, the more complexities of risingeducational standards that we are try-ing to impose on America’s schoolsfrom our school boards and local gov-ernments, does not recognize that thiscomplexity requires additional instruc-tion? Educational savings accounts arethe only means that we are offeringAmerican families, through any pro-gram, to hire tutors, to get teachersafter school, pay them additional re-sources to get their time to help Amer-ican students compete and to learn.

It is the only program designed byanyone that I know to deal with thefact that even some of our best publicschools are canceling after-school ac-tivities, after-school transportation,extracurricular activities, which aresuch a vital part of American edu-cation. These savings accounts willmake this money available to pay forthose activities.

I believe that A+ savings accountscan be the beginning of a revolution inAmerican education, where Senatorswill succeed in coming to the floor, asthe President has suggested, and offer-ing legislation to rebuild our schools,

where others will succeed in ensuringthat there is voluntary testing thatwill renew the standards and quality ofAmerican instruction. A+ savings ac-counts could be the beginning of thatrevolution in American education.

We offer this to supplant no otheridea, as a replacement for no other ini-tiative, but that it stand on its ownmerits. At a time when American fami-lies are struggling to prepare their stu-dents for a new generation, the dif-ference between success or failure, aquality of life or a struggle of life, canbe simply defined by the quality of theaccess to an education. Who here canargue that parents should not be ableto use their own resources, for whichthey work every day, to save funds tohelp in a private or a public education?

I believe, Mr. President, that in thefinal analysis, as the years pass and aswe look back on this proposal, we willrealize that we have awaken in Amer-ica a tremendous resource—because A+savings accounts would not only pro-vide this opportunity to American fam-ilies, but something much larger—toget the American family involvedagain in the process of education.

Imagine a system where on a child’sbirthday, or on Christmas, on Easter,on any anniversary in our religious orcivic calendars, aunts, uncles, grand-parents, would provide money as a giftto go into a savings account to help achild with their public or private edu-cation. We are inviting the extendedAmerican family back into the busi-ness of education when for so long peo-ple believed that education was a prob-lem of the Government or, at best, amother and father, but still believethat they cared about these childrenwho were their nieces, nephews, orgrandchildren. This is a vehicle to getinvolved. If that is true of the extendedfamily, it’s true of others as well.

I have noted in this debate before thepotential where labor unions could goto the negotiating table and ask notjust for health benefits, or retirement,or pay increases, but ask every monthin every paycheck that $5, $10, or $50 beplaced in a child’s savings account aspart of a labor agreement; where cor-porations compete for labor in Americanot just on wages but say to their em-ployees, ‘‘if you work for our company,we will contribute to your savings ac-count to help a child.’’

The potential here is enormous. Butit begins with a single step, and that isto establish these accounts. I knowmany of my colleagues who are stillwondering about their position on thislegislation have many questions. Iwant you to consider this one, as well,because I recognize that this proposalis controversial. Many of my col-leagues who have doubts about it stoodon the Senate floor a year ago and en-thusiastically supported educationalsavings accounts—accounts to helpparents deal with the rising, and some-times insurmountable, burden of col-lege tuition. It is believed that underthis savings account proposal we could

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATES2092 March 17, 1998quadruple the amount of money avail-able for college tuitions, because everydollar placed in these savings accountsfor public and private secondary edu-cation can be rolled into a college sav-ings account if not used by the 12thgrade. So if for no other reason you donot join us today in Coverdell-Torricelli, but you believed last year ineducational savings accounts for col-lege tuition, you should be joining withus today.

Finally, Mr. President, I offer this: Ofall the divisions in American life, ofrace, or poverty, or opportunity, theone this country cannot afford in thenext century is to create a caste sys-tem of knowledge. Yet, that threat isarising in America: two distinct classesof American citizens, one that enjoysunlimited opportunity and the othermired in the past, in poverty, withouthope or opportunity. That division isknowledge. Where parents do not feelthe public school can adequately pre-pare their child, they should have aprivate school option.

I agree that we cannot afford, at atime when our public schools are notadequately financed, to divert publicresources. That is why I have opposedvouchers. But this is another oppor-tunity to provide that private schooloption with a family’s own money.

But ending this division of knowledgerequires something else, too. The class-room experience will never be enoughin the next century to prepare Amer-ican students to compete in the world.It will never be sufficient. That iswhat’s exciting about these savings ac-counts, where parents, after the regu-lar school hours, can use tutors forextra instruction, paid for with theirown resources through these savingsaccounts, and through the use of tech-nology. Who in this Senate believesthat in the 21st century a student cangenuinely compete and prepare them-selves in research, or computation, orwriting, or word processing, without ahome computer and access to the Inter-net as a research tool? I doubt thatanybody here will make that case. Yet,60 percent of American students willend the 20th century without a homecomputer. Most frightening, 85 percentof all minority students will neverhave that resource, under current fi-nancing. These home savings accountsin the Coverdell-Torricelli proposalmake funds available for home use andthe purchase of a computer. It is ourgreatest opportunity to assure thatthis new divide in American life neveroccurs, that access to knowledge willoccur regardless of race or family in-come, that opportunity is affordedacross these lines of American life.

Finally, Mr. President, I hope thatwe can proceed on a bipartisan basis. Iregret that the judgment has beenmade that more amendments will notbe made available by many of myDemocratic colleagues. By the end ofthe day, we are still left with a pro-posal that stands on its own merits anddeserves the support of Senators,Democratic and Republican.

Let us begin the great American ini-tiative to confront the most pressingproblem in contemporary Americanlife, which is the crisis of quality in theAmerican secondary schools. This isnot an end to that debate. It is not adefinitive solution. But it is a begin-ning, to be followed by many proposalsof many Senators of both great politi-cal parties. I hope we receive over-whelming support.

Again, I congratulate the Senatorfrom Georgia for bringing this beforethe Senate. I am very proud to offer itwith him as his coauthor. I thank theSenator for yielding.

Mr. COVERDELL addressed theChair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator from Georgia is recognized.

Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, Iwant to acknowledge one of the mosteloquent statements we have heardabout education savings accounts thathas just been given to us by SenatorTORRICELLI. I particularly applaud hisreflection on the caste system that weare in danger of creating in this coun-try. It has been rewarding to me, and Iknow to the Senator from New Jersey,that many of the leaders of these com-munities, from Alveda King to Con-gressman Flake, really want these sav-ings accounts because they understandit could be a potential avenue and toolto alleviate that caste system. I appre-ciate those remarks.

I yield up to 5 minutes to the Senatorfrom Maine.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator from Maine is recognized.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am astrong supporter of public education.Increasingly, more education is key tothe American dream. I would not sup-port any legislation that I felt in anyway undermines this country’s com-mitment to public education.

There have been a lot of myths andmisinformation circulated about thebill that the distinguished Senatorfrom Georgia has taken such a leader-ship role in drafting and bringing tothe floor. I would like to engage theSenator from Georgia in a colloquy inan attempt to put to rest some of themisinformation that has been cir-culated about his proposal.

First, I want to commend him for hisleadership. I know that he is sincerelycommitted to improving the quality ofeducation in this country. He has beena real leader on this issue, and it hasbeen a pleasure and a privilege to workwith him. The Senator from Georgiaand I have had many conversationsabout this bill. I, too, had some misin-formation about it in the beginning,and the Senator from Georgia was ableto alleviate my concerns.

For the record, I would like to pub-licly ask some questions of the Senatorfrom Georgia so that everyone mayhave the benefit of this information.

First, as the Senator from Georgiaknows, I oppose vouchers because theywould divert needed funds from ourpublic schools. I would ask the Senator

from Georgia, does this bill in any waydivert money from local school dis-tricts that would otherwise be used forpublic education? Does this bill in anyway authorize school vouchers?

Mr. COVERDELL. First of all, Ithank the Senator from Maine for hercourtesy and her remarks. But specifi-cally to her question, the answer inboth cases is no. Absolutely not. Nolocal public school dollars are diverted.As a matter of fact, as the Senatorknows, if a family today anywhere inAmerica makes a decision to go to aprivate school, that is over and abovethe fact that they continue to paytheir property taxes and their schooltaxes for the public education system.All of these dollars are private dollars.

Ms. COLLINS. I very much appre-ciate the Senator from Georgia clarify-ing that important point. Many of usmay differ on the issue of vouchers, butthe fact is that this bill is not a bill toauthorize vouchers, despite some of theinformation circulated by the oppo-nents of the bill.

Mr. COVERDELL. That is correct.Ms. COLLINS. Similarly, I ask the

Senator from Georgia to clarify thatthe money in these A+ accounts couldbe used in fact to assist children thatare attending public schools. I believethat is one of the purposes of this bill.For example, am I correct in believingthat parents whose children attendpublic schools could use the money setaside in these savings accounts to pur-chase a computer, for example, or tohire a tutor to help their children, orperhaps to pay for a school trip—again,all related to the public schools? Is myunderstanding correct?

Mr. COVERDELL. The Senator fromMaine is correct. In fact, my assertionis that public school children attendingpublic schools would be the principalbeneficiaries. Seventy percent, accord-ing to the Joint Tax Committee, offamilies—that is about, incidentally, 7to 10 million of them—will be familieswith children in public schools, andabout 30 percent will be families withchildren in private schools. The divi-sion of the money is more equal. It isabout 50–50, according to the latest re-sults. But those are not complete, be-cause they only apply to kindergartenthrough high school, and not throughcollege. But, specifically, families withchildren in public schools can usethem, and, in fact, more families withchildren in public schools will usethese accounts.

Ms. COLLINS. If I could expand onthe point of the Senator from Georgia,who has answered my final concern inthis regard, approximately 70 percentof the parents who would benefit fromthis important legislation have chil-dren in public schools. Is that correct?

Mr. COVERDELL. That is correct,according to the Joint Tax Committee.

Ms. COLLINS. Finally, Mr. Presi-dent, I want to clarify that it is my un-derstanding that if the money in theseaccounts is not used while the child isin elementary school or secondary

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S2093March 17, 1998school, that it can in fact be used forthe very important purpose of helpinga family afford college costs or post-secondary costs. Am I correct in myunderstanding?

Mr. COVERDELL. The Senator is ab-solutely correct; it is eligible for use.My interest has been kindergartenthrough high school, as the Senatorknows, but the family can make itsown choice. The accounts can be usedfrom kindergarten through college, andpost college, if the student is sufferingfrom a disability and has an ongoingeducational requirement. So it is a fulllife of education as we know it inAmerica.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, con-trary to the assertions of opponents tothis legislation, the fact is that it willbring more money to our publicschools, and it is a very pro-educationpro-public-schools piece of legislationthat the Senator from Georgia hasbrought forth.

I thank the Senator from Georgia forhis reassurances in this very importantmatter. I yield the floor.

Mr. COVERDELL. I thank the Sen-ator from Maine. Again, I appreciatethe courtesy extended to those of uswho have been framing the legislation.I understand her interest in clarifyingthese points, because there has beenconsiderable misinformation. I will notgo into it at this point. But it is dis-appointing, considering the source.These are sources involved with edu-cation, and you would think therewould be a particular integrity, that Ihave found absent, and I am dis-appointed about it.

I thank the Senator.Mr. President, I yield up to 5 minutes

to the Senator from Wyoming.The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. SES-

SIONS). The Senator from Wyoming isrecognized.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Presi-dent. I thank the Senator from Georgiafor the opportunity to make a few com-ments, but more particularly for theefforts that he has put forth and theleadership that he has given in produc-ing this bill to strengthen Americaneducation.

I say again, as has been said before,that we must remember what the pur-pose of this vote is, what the purpose ofthis effort is, and that is to get it onthe floor. This, of course, will never beresolved until we come to some agree-ment as to how to get it on the floorand to in fact consider it along withother kinds of issues.

Everyone is for strengthening edu-cation. I don’t know of anyone whowould get up and say, ‘‘No, I certainlydon’t want to do that.’’ Of course not.All of us want to do it. The questionthen is, How do we best do it? How dowe really approach the idea ofstrengthening education and preserv-ing those things that we think are fun-damental to education in this country?One of the real questions, of course, isthe degree and the extent of direct Fed-eral involvement.

I was interested in the charts of theSenator from Tennessee this morningthat showed all of the different kindsof approaches that have been taken atthe Federal level—literally hundreds ofprograms that we have now, which stillonly represent less than 7 percent ofthe total expenditures in elementaryand secondary education. Can youimagine the amount of bureaucracy?Can you imagine the amount of ex-pense prior to that money getting tothe ground?

So what we are really talking abouthere is a system to provide the oppor-tunity for families to be able to put to-gether some money to use as theychoose and strengthen the local gov-ernment.

The President, of course, has out-lined the education issue largely be-cause it is an issue that everyone caresabout—I have to say largely because itis such a high winner in the polls. Sothe President, along with the environ-ment and other things, continues tomention education but really doesn’thave a plan for it. I guess that is partof the system: You talk about edu-cation, sit back, and somebody elseputs it together. And then, of course,you claim victory because you havedone something for education. That isOK. We have seen that before.

The point is, How do we beststrengthen education for all Ameri-cans? How do we get better results?That is really what the bottom line isabout here. How do we maintain localcontrol? Those are the issues. How dowe get more results for the expendi-tures that we put out? I am persuadedthat the approach taken by the Sen-ator from Georgia—the idea of keepingit at the local level, the idea of lettingpeople be responsible for saving and in-vesting as they choose—is the real wayto do it.

The Senator from Massachusetts, ofcourse, represents the legitimate pointof view that bigger government oughtto have enormous direct expendituresand, therefore, the controls that gowith it in education. I think that is notthe case.

Basic changes: I get a lot of inputinto elementary education, and second-ary. My wife happens to be a highschool teacher. One of the things thatis troublesome is the amount of timeshe spends on paperwork. She is a spe-cial education teacher, and she spendshalf the time on paperwork. We need totry to eliminate some of that. We needto offer discipline; we need to raise ex-pectations so that children are reallyexpected to do more; we need to havemore accountability in terms of pro-duction—much of this through man-agement. Of course, we need to providemore resources.

So, let me say to the Senator that Iappreciate very much and admire whathe is doing and certainly hope we canget this bill on the floor. And weshould immediately.

I thank the Senator.Mr. COVERDELL addressed the

Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Sen-ator from Georgia is recognized.

Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, Ithank the Senator from Wyoming forhis support and comments on our edu-cation proposal. I appreciate it verymuch.

Mr. President, I thought in closingout this debate over whether or not wecan get to this legislation, or whetherwe will continue to be filibustered,that it would be pretty interesting tocompare two approaches about helpingAmerican families. One is ours, whichwill be in our budget, which we havejust been talking about, which is aneducation savings account which al-lows a family to save up to $2,000 peryear for use for an educational purpose,kindergarten through college. It ispretty straightforward. We just ex-panded the education savings accountthat was passed and signed by thePresident last year.

In the President’s budget, they areproposing a $2,000 solar tax credit for‘‘photovoltaic systems’’.

What are the uses of our savings ac-count? After-school care; tutoring forspecial needs kids; a computer forevery schoolchild; and special edu-cation. We have been talking about itall morning.

What would you use the solar taxcredit for? Heating jacuzzis, tanningbeds, mood lighting, you name it.

Who are the beneficia