EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT (Senate - April 04,
1995)
Mr. DODD. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I would like to return, if I could, to the basic thrust
of the legislation before us, and that is the rescission bill .
You are going to almost have to hire a mountain guide to find your way
through the legislative process that is unfolding here, with various amendments
that are now being offered to the underlying bill and to the substitutes
that have been suggested.
Let me, if I can, get back to the core set of issues here. What is primarily
before us is the rescission bill that cuts into the heart of an
awful lot of critically important programs that affect the most vulnerable
of people in our society. It seems to me that we ought to try and keep
our eye on that debate. Adding elements here that deal with Jordan and
other issues, no matter how laudable and appropriate at some point for
us to debate and discuss, I think it becomes rather obvious, patently obvious,
to anyone who is following this debate that these are efforts to try and
distract the attention from the central question.
Certainly this body ought to vote on whether or not you think the cuts
in nutrition programs and Head Start and drug free schools ought to take
place or not--we should not have to dwell interminably on those questions--and
cast your votes yes or no. If you think that these cuts are ones that ought
to be made, then you vote for them. If you do not, then you vote otherwise.
But I do not think we assist by doing this, since this is almost a self-imposed
filibuster by the majority on these issues.
Mr. President, I want to, first of all, begin by commending the majority
to this extent; and that is, the bill , the rescission bill
, is a lot better than what existed in the House. No question, this is
an improvement over what was coming over from the House.
But it is still a far cry from what I think most people in this country
understand are valuable investments to the future of this Nation.
I was responsible for Head Start, Mr. President, 2 years ago, to bring
the reauthorization bill of Head Start to the floor of the U.S.
Senate. It was a comprehensive bill that called for many substantive
changes in how Head Start was functioning, but it also called for full
funding of Head Start.
Frankly and very honestly, I prepared myself to come to the floor for
an extensive debate--it was a fairly controversial bill , the Head
Start Program--and to extend full funding and to make other changes, many
of which had been suggested, I might point out, by the distinguished Senator
from Kansas, now the chairperson of the Senate Labor and Human Resources
Committee, Senator Kassebaum.
In any event, I came over with leaflets, folders, and binders to defend
this reauthorization bill . I was on the floor all of about 20 or
30 minutes. There was not a single voice raised in opposition to the bill
. It was unanimously adopted by this Chamber.
It is ironic--maybe that is not the best word to be using here--that
we find just a matter of months later a cut coming into the Head Start
Program, again, a program that has never been the subject of much partisan
debate and division over the many years that the program has existed because
it works. It does the job that we need to be doing to try to see to it
that the young children of this country get a good start in their educational
life.
It has been a program that has worked tremendously well. Regretfully,
we are only getting 1 in 4 of the eligible children with it. So there it
was the collective judgment that it made sense for us to try to reach as
many of those eligible children as possible.
So the reauthorization bill did that, unanimously adopted, not
a single amendment offered on the floor. We had extensive hearings in the
Labor and Human Resources Committee and worked out, I think, a good bill
. I think the best evidence of the fact it was a good bill is that
there was not a dissenting voice, and not a dissenting vote on that measure.