May 16, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 5055

tax your way out of it. You are going

to have to have a strong element of

economic growth. My concern about

this budget that will be on the floor

today and tomorrow, the Republican

budget out there for review, actually

Wednesday and Thursday, is that what

this budget does is it goes after growth.

Let me give you an example why. I

hold here thousands of petition signatures of West Virginia college students

and high school students, and I am

willing to bet some parents, all who

signed petitions circulated across our

State in just the last couple of weeks

urging Congress not to adopt the student loan cuts that are proposed in this

budget. Whether it is West Virginia

University, Shepherd College, Glenville, Fairmont State, University of

Charleston, D&E, Davis and Elkins,

you name it, 16 colleges and universities participate in this program,

sending petitions under our own name,

SAVE, Save America Via Education.

They organized this effort themselves.

They circulated the petitions, got up

on Internet. The message is clear to

Congress, thousands of people saying

‘‘Do not cut student loans.’’

Basically what is proposed to be cut

is the Stafford Student Loan Program,

the one that pays the interest while

the student is in college and for 6

months thereafter.

Does it make much of a difference? It

adds something like 20 to 50 percent to

the lifetime cost of that loan. Many of

these students somewhere along the

road, and I visited many of the locations, said to me if that had been in effect I would not be able to be in college

today; I would not be able to be in

school today.

I have heard some say lightly, well,

$21 a month, maybe that is all it is

going to be. One CD, one music CD.

Rubbish. For many people, $21 a month

is a lot of money over a number of

years. It is more in many cases, such as

the nontraditional students, the mother who has put herself through a 4-year

program, now getting an MBA, who

said her daughter is now getting ready

to enter undergraduate school, who

told me how it would have been impossible at $21 more a month to have accomplished that.

Why is this so important? It is so important because, getting back to

growth for a second, the opportunities

created by a college education mean

that our economy will grow at record

levels. Those of you older than 40 or 50

remember the impact of the GI bill,

when millions of veterans came home

from the war and were able to get that

education.

The Department of Labor estimates

that everyone who finishes college on

the average will have a 60-percent higher lifetime income than those that do

not. This college education clearly is a

ticket to success, not only for individuals, but also for our society.

There is also a problem with college

classrooms. If you have less people able

to attend college, and, incidentally,

since 1979 the median income has gone

up roughly 88 percent, I believe it is,

while the tuition costs have gone up

more than double that. So family income does not keep up with tuition income, which means these programs are

more important. But there is also the

very real fact that even those able to

pay the full amount of tuition will find

less students in school and therefore

less classes available.

This is not a partisan issue. This is

parents. It is teachers. It is students. It

is anyone concerned about higher education. These thousands of students

from across West Virginia have recognized clearly the impact this has.

Incidentally, it is not an interest

loan deferral for all their lives; it is

only for the time they are in school.

they pay these loans back. But what

the Federal Government does is to assist them in making sure they do not

pay interest while they are actually in

school.

So I would urge Members not to support this Republican proposal to cut

student loans. While I am here, let me

note I found of interest, it was just a

month ago as I traveled the State when

Republicans were asked about this.

They said we have no intentions to do

that. Today it is in the budget in a bigger way than I ever dreamed. I thought

it was going to be $16 billion. It is 33

billion dollars’ worth of cuts.

So to respond to those who signed

these petitions, this battle is going to

go on over the summer and fall, and we

urge many more people to make their

voices heard. If you want to talk about

growth, growth in our children, growth

in our society, growth in our economy,

then we cannot be cutting the student

loans. I would urge rejection of the

budget for that reason alone.

previous order of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. M

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

f ILLER] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. MILLER of California addressed

the House. His remarks will appear

hereafter in the Extensions of Reprevious order of the House, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. W

marks.]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

f ARD] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. WARD addressed the House. His

remarks will appear hereafter in the

Extensions of Remarks.]

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. D

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

f EFAZIO] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. DEFAZIO addressed the House.

His remarks will appear hereafter in

the Extensions of Remarks.]

HOUSE REPUBLICAN BUDGET

fPROPOSAL

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under

the Speaker’s announced policy of May

12, 1995, the gentleman from Missouri

[Mr. CLAY] is recognized for 60 minutes

as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in

strong opposition to the House Republican budget proposal.

There is a saying which goes ‘‘If you

think education is hard, try ignorance.’’ In today’s budget-cutting frenzy, Republicans seem to be doing everything possible to establish ignorance as our national educational policy.

Recall that their assault on education started in the cafeteria, with

their misguided, vicious attack on the

School Lunch Program. With this latest volley, Republicans have now

moved the battlelines into our Nation’s

classrooms, libraries, vocational training centers and, finally, to our college

campuses.

The House Republican budget proposal would virtually obliterate the

Federal role in education. It is a repudiation of this Nation’s century-old bipartisan, national commitment to enhancing the educational opportunities

of all of her citizens.

The House budget proposal is extremist and completely out of step with the

views of the American people.

Moving into the classroom, Republicans would abolish or slash extremely

popular and successful educational programs. Programs like Head Start,

which they would reduce by $609 million in 1996, cutting off services to as

many as 100,000 children a year.

The widely popular school-to-work

initiatives that help the majority of

high school graduates learn the technical skills they need to get good-paying jobs.

Republicans would eliminate acrossthe-board efforts in 47 States to improve reading and writing, to put computers into the classroom, and to improve academic standards through

Goals 2000.

The budget proposal virtually eliminates the Safe-and-Drug-Free School

Program—even though drug use is on

the rise among schoolchildren.

Programs that target assistance to

700,000 at-risk, disadvantaged children

would be abolished. Republican hostility to programs designed to lift disadvantaged children out of poverty

through learning is completely at odds

with our highest ideals, as well as decades of bipartisan congressional policy.

Having laid waste to the cafeterias

and the classrooms, the Republicans

move on. They would eliminate Federal support for public libraries—the

main repositories of knowledge and

wisdom in our society.

Their next target is higher education. Their proposed cuts in student

aid are a dramatic departure from the

national policy established by nearly

every President and Congress since

President Truman, the Republicans are

endangering the American dream for

millions of working-class families.

House Republicans recommend cutting student aid as one way to finance