September 10, 1975
Page 28497
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the question before the Senate is whether to override the President's veto of the education appropriation bill — H.R. 5901. As a supporter of education programs, I am concerned that this is the seventh consecutive veto of the regular education appropriation bill, and I am opposed to the President's action in this case.
The President justified his veto on budgetary grounds. While this education appropriation bill is over the President's request, it is substantially under the amount contemplated last spring in the first budget resolution. Senator MAGNUSON and the members of the Appropriations Committee have done their best to present us with a bill which meets our budget targets and faces up to the increasingly more difficult fiscal constraints of this year.
While I intend to vote to override the veto, I feel it is my duty as chairman of the Budget Committee to inform my colleagues of the difficult choices which lie ahead of us in the education, manpower and social services function. At the present time, as the table on page 29 of the September 8 scorekeeping report shows, there is still available $700 million in outlays and $1.3 billion in budget authority for this function. These figures assume passage of the education bill at its present level.
However, there remain in this function a number of legislative initiatives with potential outlays in 1976 of $3 billion. These initiatives include extension of public service employment under the CETA Act, which could add as much as $2 billion to 1976 outlays, and three bills now in conference — education for the handicapped, older Americans, and developmental disabilities — which could increase outlays by up to $900 million this fiscal year. I ask unanimous consent that these tables from the scorekeeping report be printed in the RECORD.
In conclusion, Mr. President, let me emphasize again that, while I will cast my vote in favor of overriding the President's veto, I wish to remind my colleagues that in the coming weeks we will be forced to scrutinize other legislation in this function and to make very difficult choices.
There being no objection, the tables were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Tables omitted]