CONGRESSIONAL RECORD: Oct. 20, 1999
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1999 Congressional
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Opening Page
During Debate on the
STUDENT RESULTS ACT OF 1999------------
HON. RON PAUL
OF TEXAS
Mr. PAUL. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. I know that the goal of everyone here is to have quality education for everyone in this country. I do not like the approach. The approach has been going on for 30 years with us here in the Congress at the national level controlling and financing education. But the evidence is pretty clear there has been no success. It is really a total failure. Yet the money goes up continuously. This year it is an 8 percent increase for Title I over last year.
In 1963, the Federal Government spent less than $900,000 on education programs. This year, if we add up all the programs, it is over $60 billion. Where is the evidence? The scores keep going down. The violence keeps going up. We cannot keep drugs out of the schools. There is no evidence that our approach to education is working.
I just ask my colleagues to think about whether or not we should continue on this same course. I know the chairman of the committee has made a concerted effort in trying to get more local control over the schools, and I think this is commendable. I think there should be more local control. But I am also convinced that once the money comes from Washington, you really never can deliver the control back to the local authorities. So that we should give it serious thought on whether or not this approach is correct.
Now, I know it is not a very powerful argument, but I might just point out that if Members read carefully the doctrine of enumerated powers, we find that it does not mention that we have the authority, but I concede that we have gotten around that for more than 35 years so we are not likely to reconsider that today. But as far as the practicality goes, we should rethink it.
If we had a tremendous success with our educational system, if everybody was being taken care of, if these $60 billion were really doing the job, if we were not having the violence and the drugs in the school, maybe you could say, well, let us change the Constitution or let me reassess my position. But I think we are on weak grounds if we think we can continue to do this.
There are more mandates in this bill. Even though we like to talk about local control, there are more mandates, and this bill will authorize not only the $8 billion and an 8 percent increase this year, but over the next 5 years there will be an additional $28 billion added to the budget because of this particular piece of legislation.
I ask my colleagues, give it serious thought. This does not deserve passage.