May 11, 1976
Page 13342
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I rise, with some regret, to oppose this amendment, but I do oppose it; and I oppose it for reasons that I think will be clear and unassailable when I have completed my presentation.
This amendment has implications not only for the 1976 congressional budget resolution which we adopted just last December but also implications for the 1977 budget resolution which has just come out of conference, on which the ink is not yet dry, and which both Houses must consider before the budget resolutions become final.
Mr. President, now that I have said that at the outset, I will address myself to the amendment before the Senate.
In the first place, at no time during the Senate's consideration of the first concurrent budget resolution for 1977 was this amendment offered. At no time was an amendment offered to add this billion dollars to that budget resolution for this purpose.
It was at that time, I remind my colleagues, that the Senate was engaged, as required under the Budget Reform Act, in the decisions involving priorities. Education is an important priority.
Frankly. I do not accept the challenge implied by those who offer this amendment that the rest of us are insensitive to the needs of education or the high priority which education plays in our national life.
Mr. President, an amendment has been proposed to the second supplemental appropriations bill. This amendment, which is offered for the first time since the first concurrent budget resolution was acted on by the Senate this year, would add $1 billion to the title I compensatory education portion of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This amendment poses some rather drastic implications for the Federal budget for fiscal year 1977. Before my colleagues make up their mind regarding this amendment I would like for them to be aware of how richly rewarded the education portion of the budget has been in recent years. Education spending in 1974 totaled $6 billion in outlays and this grew to $7.6 billion in 1975, 1 year later. The 1976 estimate for education is another increase to $8.1 billion. For 1977, the Budget Committees have recommended a level of $9.4 billion, which represents a 57 percent increase in just 3 years.
Moreover, the budget authority for fiscal year 1977 will allow as much as $11.3 billion in spending the next year, even without this amendment — an 88 percent growth in 4 years. The 1977 level goes far beyond the President's recommendation for education — he recommended $7.6 versus our $9.4 — and the Budget Committees' recommendation even exceeds current policy. This is one of the few areas where we deliberately chose to exercise less restraint.
It is almost inconceivable that the Senate would choose to add on top of this rich growth in recent years another $1 billion, as is recommended by the sponsors of this amendment. Obviously, passage of this amendment would have the unique effect of breaking the 1976 budget and hurt the 1977 budget even before the ink was dry.
The proposed purpose of this amendment is to add money to title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The first concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1977 included funds for title I in excess of the current policy level of $2.4 billion in budget authority.
This is an increase from the fiscal year 1976 level of $2.1 billion, a 14 percent increase. In addition to the moneys in the fiscal year 1977 budget for this program, there is a current carryover from prior years of about $0.8 billion which is available for use in 1977. It is doubtful that the additional sums requested here can even be spent in fiscal year 1977. Additional appropriations will only further clog the spending pipeline in the program.
The "Dear Colleague letter" concerning this proposed amendment is vague as to where the funds would come from to pay for this huge increase, but there is a reference to the "Allowances" portion of the 1977 budget. I suppose this will be the first of several attempted raids on funds which the first concurrent resolution for 1977 soon to be adopted has set aside in the allowances function. But make no mistake about it, that money will be specifically earmarked for one of the identified jobs programs and will not be available for any other purpose. Education was given its priority — and it was a very high priority — but it was not the intent of the Budget Committees or the Senate as a whole to break the budget with an additional billion dollars for education.
Finally, the "Dear Colleague letter" mentions success with a particular research project as part of the rationale for additional funding.
Now, I am for research, and I think we need more of it before we can begin to have programs which truly educate our children and especially those who are disadvantaged. According to people who are monitoring that specific research contract and were part of that research design, there were some improvements in student reading levels within any 1 year. However, I am told, first, that these gains washed out across several years; second, that gains within 1 year can be explained in part due to the timing and structure of the testing process. For example, the summer drop-off causes low readings in the fall under any circumstances.
Third, the data used in the study are of highly questionable quality.
Finally, the Congress will begin considering title I for reauthorization in a year or so. Several major studies and much new information will be available as the reauthorization approaches. It seems unwise to allow substantial increases for the existing program only several months before its value is to be reconsidered. This amendment is hardly a justifiable reason to break the budget.
Now, if I may come to the specifics of the budget. For the fiscal 1976 budget, Congress allowed $408 billion in budget authority. We have now taken action in the Senate totaling $406.4 billion, leaving a margin of $1.6 billion. Of the actions taken, $400 million represents health benefits for the unemployed, which is not likely to pass, according to all information I can get. If we add that $400 million to the $1.6 billion, what we have left is a margin of $2 billion in budget authority.
What have we committed against it? I make the point that with that $2 billion margin, we are not yet at the point-of-order stage for challenging an amendment of this kind. We have a $2 billion margin. But what remains for the Senate to consider? We have the District of Columbia appropriations bill at half a billion dollars. We have the Public Works antirecession assistance bill, which the Senate acted upon just before the recess, at $1.1 billion. We have the renewal of CETA title IV public service jobs at $1.2 billion. We have the $200 million just approved by voice vote in the form of the Brooke amendment. That totals $3 billion of commitments that the Senate has made against $2 billion that are left, as a result, in the budget authority total approved by the Senate and the Congress as a whole last December.
One could argue that, well, maybe not all of those will be passed, maybe some of them will be vetoed, maybe we will not override the vetoes. But if we were to adopt that kind of rationale, then, presumably, we could pile up these kinds of commitments to $5 billion, $10 billion, $15 billion, on the assumption that the first ones to survive action by both Houses and approval by the President would be the first ones to get funded.
That, in my judgment, is not the way to handle a budget. We have set $408 billion as the budget authority ceiling. We have got at most $2 billion of room to play with. We have exceeded that by $1 billion in actions which the Senate has already taken.
To approve this amendment would add another $1 billion or $2 billion over the budget authority ceiling which we approved for this fiscal year.
But then the second problem is this: The second problem is that the effect of this budget authority would begin to take place, if not totally take place, in fiscal year 1977, and no assumptions were made in either the House Budget Committee resolution or the Senate Budget Committee resolution or the conference of the two Budget Committees, which includes this $1 billion of outlays for 1977. So that if this $1 billion were spent for that purpose in 1977 some other purposes which were taken into account in the budget resolution would be knocked out. We would not know in advance what they would be. It would be first come, first served, and the last $1 billion to come to the floors of both Houses for action after we had hit the target ceiling would be knocked out. It might be a jobs program; it might be a construction program; it might be an environmental program; it might be some other education program, but it would be knocked out because this $1 billion was not included as one of the assumptions for outlays in the fiscal year1977 budget.
So that with this amendment, one risks breaching, seriously risks breaching, the budget authority ceiling for the 1976 budget, and risks breaching the outlay ceiling for the 1977 budget. Now those are the budget implications of this amendment.
So far as the merits of the amendment are concerned, I assure the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts and the distinguished Senator from Connecticut that, as a parent with five children, no one is more interested than I in improving the quality of education in our schools and especially for disadvantaged children. I think the action of the Budget Committee in raising the spending for education in the budget resolutions of last year and this year are testimony to that fact.
Mr. BELLMON and Mr. KENNEDY addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, I would simply like to take a very brief time to echo what the distinguished chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has just said about the generosity which the Budget Committee has shown toward educational programs.
I want to emphasize the growth in these programs which has taken place and which is anticipated for the next 2 fiscal years. Educational spending in 1974 was at a $6 billion level. This level now — and this is a point I think ought to be emphasized for every Member of the Senate — is almost doubled, to $11.3 billion for fiscal year 1977.
Mr. President, when the Budget Committee goes along with the educational programs to the point of doubling them within 4 years, it seems to me it is not fair for any Member of the Senate to say we have not taken adequate care of the educational care of the children of this country. To me where this debate should be going on is in the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education.
If this amendment has a higher priority than other uses for which this money that is already available is being used, then other programs could lag or be put off or this amendment could be put into the funding that is already available. But to raise the appropriation for education by $1 billion, and put the budget out of balance by $3.4 billion, to me is absolutely indefensible when there is an adequate amount of money available for education in the budget.
Mr. BUCKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. BELLMON. I am glad to yield.
Mr. BUCKLEY. I just want to say I also had the privilege of serving on the Budget Committee, and I believe this is, perhaps, one of the very significant tests of the process. I do not believe I have heard a better explanation of the process than that which the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee just gave us. It is an exercise in self-discipline.
I am sure that the program accomplishes what the sponsors of this amendment say it accomplishes, but at some point we have to balance various priorities.
As the Senator from Oklahoma stated, this has to be done within the Appropriations Committee which has the full grasp of all of the competing educational needs in order that we end up with a result that fits in within the resolution we adopted.
If we start cutting away here and there we will have destroyed the process before we even get it through its first year.
So I commend the Senator from Maine. I know it must be very difficult for him, given his record of support for Federal programs in aid of education, to defend the process itself, and I want to say I am very proud to serve on this committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator.
Mr. BELLMON. Would the Senator from New York agree that in the Budget Committee we have very adequately taken care of the educational needs? This is one area where the Budget Committee has given adequate support and adequate funding to cover all of the needs, so far as we were able to determine them.
Mr. BUCKLEY. I agree.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Maine. I have worked with him too long on too many different issues not to know of his very deep concern about the quality of education of the people of his own State and of the people of this country.
But I do want to point out a few things, Mr. President, for the benefit of the record.
This amendment, which was introduced by the Senator from Connecticut and myself, is not a new amendment. It was first offered on September 24, 1975, on the regular HEW appropriations bill. It was offered again and then withdrawn because there was an objection that was raised, and it was after a unanimous consent agreement was entered into.
It was subsequently offered on December 10, 1975, in the first supplemental. During that debate, it was urged by the then manager of the bill, the distinguished Senator from Washington, that we consider coming down and testifying on this at the second supplemental and make a case at that particular time, which I did in February of 1976.
And during that debate, Mr. President, there were members of the Budget Committee monitoring these amendments on the floor.
One billion dollars increase under title I was recommended to the Budget Committee by the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee this year when they were marking up the first budget resolution; three different times on the floor, and noticed in the Budget Committee, that the Education Subcommittee of the Labor Committee felt this was warranted and this was justified. So no Member of this body should be under the misapprehension that this is not a matter which has been considered, which the Senator from Connecticut and I have offered at previous times and will, if unsuccessful today, continue to offer into the future.
Now, Mr. President, I am very much—
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. KENNEDY. I would just like to complete my comments.
Mr. President, a second point that has been made relates to the overall increase in appropriations for education.
We listened to the report of an increase in budget authority in the field of education.
The tragedy is, Mr. President, that those increases have not been reflected in the areas which I consider to be the areas of highest priority, and that is in the area of the young boys and girls who are the children of disadvantaged parents living in the inner cities and in rural America.
The title I appropriation in 1974 was $1.8 billion, in 1976 approximately $2.05 billion, a 10 percent increase in a 3-year period, when the increases in terms of inflation were in excess of 30 percent. That represents a constant decline in the number of children who are receiving educational benefits under title I.
So let us make no mistake about that, Mr. President, there is nothing that has been done by the Budget Committee or the Appropriations Committee that has increased the total number of children in rural and urban America that have been benefitting under title I of the Education Act.
(Mr. BELLMON assumed the chair as Presiding Officer at this point.)
Mr. KENNEDY. There has been nothing stated here by the chairman of the Budget Committee or by members of Appropriations Committee to dispute that. Somewhat more has been appropriated for higher education, somewhat more in terms of a variety of different education programs, but not in the areas of title I targeted on the most disadvantaged elementary and secondary schoolchildren.
As a matter of fact, there has been quite a dramatic reduction in the number of children that have actually been benefitting under that title I program since 1966.
In 1966, 8.3 million children were receiving compensatory education under title I. In 1976, 5.4 million. Almost 3 million less are benefitting under title I in 1976 than were benefitting in 1966.
That speaks, I think, clearly and precisely to the issue of whether this particular program has been given the desired level of priority.
I must say that I commend the Budget Committee for the efforts they have been making in trying to establish a system of setting priorities. But that does not mean that any of us, or any member of this body, particularly, should be restricted in indicating where we feel the Nation's priorities still lie.
The first budget resolution, now coming from conference, contains targets not ceilings. The appropriations process and the authorizing committees may establish other priorities during the year — with due regard but not bound rigidly to those targets. And in the second budget resolution, new action is called for to adjust those targets to take account of congressional action and to establish appropriate ceilings.
We never heard the kind of debate or discussion of reasonable versus unreasonable increases, when we debated where the Budget Committee went on the defense this past year. A 14 percent increase was approved in the first budget resolution, which is $14 billion — $14 billion, $7 billion in cost of living and $7 billion more; $14 billion.
Here we have an education program that reaches right into the heart of every community in this country, and we are talking about $1 billion for a program which those in the Department of Education have demonstrated to be an effective program.
Additional urgency, Mr. President, is voiced by the report that has been put out by the Office of Education on April 12 of this year pointing out that "the major finding of the study — is that title I programs seem to be boosting the rate of achievement of the title I participants during the school year up to the achievement level of the average U.S. youngster."
It is working. The children are there that need this program. We have the opportunity to take action to see that the benefits of this program reach those children by accepting this particular amendment.
Mr. MUSKIE and Mr. MAGNUSON addressed the Chair.
Mr. MAGNUSON. I yield to the Senator from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be printed in the RECORD at this point pages 53, 54, and 55 of the budget document for this year, which would outline the philosophy followed by the Budget Committee in providing funding for education in this year's budget.
There being no objection, the excerpt was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
(500) EDUCATION, TRAINING, EMPLOYMENT, AND SOCIAL SERVICES
MAJOR FUNCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services programs are designed to create greater lifetime opportunity and choice for the economically disadvantaged and other population groups with special needs.
Virtually all Federal education grants for preschool and elementary-secondary education provide support to local education agencies with concentrations of high cost pupils. Federal programs are intended to provide services to the economically disadvantaged and those pupils who require special services if they are eventually to compete successfully for jobs and income. Federal higher education programs provide loans for college-bound low-income students and help to higher education institutions in the provision of programs for disadvantaged students.
Federal manpower and social service programs provide supportive services, training, and temporary public service jobs to facilitate the entry of the economically disadvantaged into the job market and to provide assistance to individuals who are temporarily unemployed. Social services meet other needs such as protective services for children and homemaker services for the housebound.
MAJOR FACTORS INFLUENCING THE PRESENT SHAPE OF THE FUNCTION
The current Federal role in education, training, employment, and social services began with the attempt to eradicate poverty in America in the mid-1960's. The enactment of the Elementary-Secondary Education Act in 1965, and the Higher Education Act which followed, marked the beginning of a substantial Federal commitment to promoting equal opportunity through educational institutions. Federal outlays for elementary-secondary and vocational programs have grown from $724 million in 1965 to $4.8 billion in 1976 as a result of the initial enactment of ESEA and subsequent enactment of similar programs to facilitate racial integration and provide special services for the handicapped, bilinguals and migrants. Higher education programs for student and institutional aid have increased from $412 million in 1965 to $2.6 billion in 1976 largely as a result of legislated increases in the level of student aid and legislative expansion of the eligible population.
Federal manpower and training programs began with the Area Redevelopment Act in 1961 and the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962. Manpower and training programs began to take their present shape with the enactment of the Equal Opportunity Act in 1946 as the training component of the effort that came to be called the "war on poverty." The work incentive program was enacted in 1964 as an amendment to the Social Security Act to slow the growth in the numbers of structurally unemployed and increasingly welfare-dependent populations. As a result of these programs, Federal expenditures for manpower programs, largely emphasizing support and training, grow from $299 million in 1964 to $1.6 billion in 1970.
As unemployment began to rise in 1971, a temporary employment focus was added to Federal manpower policy with the enactment of the Emergency Employment Act which included the public employment program, the first Federal involvement in direct public service jobs creation in many years. The new Federal focus on job creation increased in 1972, leading to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, enacted in 1973 to replace MDTA as the Federal Government's comprehensive training and employment strategy. The increases in permanent (title II) and temporary (title VI) public service jobs under CETA account for the major increase in Federal manpower spending, which grew from $1.6 billion in 1970 to an estimated $6.8 billion in 1976.
Federal spending for social services, a 75-25 Federal-State cost-sharing program, has increased largely as a result of an expanded State involvement. The program began with an open-ended cost sharing arrangement until increased State claims on Federal participation — growing from $196 million in 1965 to several billion dollars in the early 1970's — forced the Congress to cap the Federal contribution at $2.5 billion in an amendment to the State-Local Fiscal Assistance Act in 1972.
TABLE 1.—Function 500: EDUCATION, TRAINING, EMPLOYMENT, AND SOCIAL SERVICES
FUNCTIONAL SUMMARY
[In billions of dollars]
Budget authority Outlays
Fiscal year 1975 actual 15. 5 15.2
Fiscal year 1976 current policy 20. 3 20. 6
Fiscal year 1980 current policy 24. 1 23. 1
Fiscal year 1977:
Current policy 21.5 21.2
President's budget 16.0 17. 6
Appropriations Committee 21.8 20.0
Authorizing committees 29.8 26.9
Budget Committee recommendations 22.4 21. 4
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
The Committee recommends budget authority of $22.4 billion and outlays of $21.4 billion, which permits moderate increases over current policy and substantial increases over the President's budget for programs in this function.
The Committee's assumed allocation for education is $11.3 billion in budget authority and $9.4 billion in outlays, both of which are above current policy. There is sufficient money in the elementary and secondary education allocation to permit forward funding of vocational education, to meet anticipated supplemental requests for funds for the "hold harmless" provisions of impact aid programs, and to fully fund the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The Committee also believes the sum would accommodate increases in elementary and secondary education programs to compensate partially for cost increases in recent years.
Funds for higher education would be sufficient to fund the basic education opportunity grants program in fiscal 1977 and 1978 at maximum grant levels of $1,400 per student and at a participation rate of 75 percent of all eligible students.
The Committee target assumes $7.1 billion in budget authority and $8.0 billion in outlays to maintain training and employment programs at current policy levels. Although Committee members did not formally endorse any specific public service program, the discussion of funding for such programs focused on the possibility of budget savings that would result from temporary programs with low unit costs that would concentrate on hiring low-income household heads now drawing unemployment insurance or other public benefits.
The Committee's recommended levels of $4.0 billion in budget authority and $4.0 billions in outlays for social service programs are assumed to be adequate to carry forward new childcare legislation at full year costs. The recommended levels are $0.1 billion below current policy for social services generally.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, no one pretends that in one or two budgets it is possible to write a congressional budget which would truly reflect the priorities of each and every one of us.
I make no such pretense. But I do suggest we have made important changes in those priorities and that if those changes are to continue, we must make the process work.
Second, I do not challenge the Senator's argument that this amendment has been offered before. As a matter of fact, each year committees of the Senate request the Budget Committee for funding far in excess of available resources.
This year, for example, we were asked by the authorizing committees to approve a total of $439.9 billion in outlays for this fiscal year. We approved $413.
So there will always be a gap between worthy projects submitted by committees or individual Senators for consideration that cannot be approved or supported within available resources.
We do not pretend that all worthy projects have been funded, but those numbers will give the Senate some idea of the difficulty there is in funding worthwhile projects.
With that, I yield the floor and leave the debate to my colleagues. I see Senator ALLEN is on the floor.