This is historical material, "frozen in time." The web site is no longer updated and links to external web sites and some internal pages will not work.
PRESIDENT CLINTON CALLS ON CONGRESS
TO ACT ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION PRIORITIES
October 19, 2000
Today, President Clinton will join Senator Daschle, Congressman Gephardt
and the Democratic Caucus to call on Congress to complete its work and
send him a fiscally responsible budget that pays down the debt while
investing in America's key priorities -- especially the education of our
children. The President will challenge the Republican leadership to not
leave town without producing a responsible budget that offers tax cuts
targeted toward working families -- such as our school construction
initiative to help communities modernize crumbling schools -- and
invests in key education initiatives, such as after-school programs;
reducing class size, strengthening accountability for fixing failing
schools; and helping put a qualified teacher in every classroom. The
President also will call on the Republican leadership to act on other
important priorities before adjourning for the year -- including an
affordable prescription drug benefit for all Medicare beneficiaries, a
meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights, a minimum wage increase, hate
crimes legislation and a proposal to increase fairness in immigration
laws.
REPUBLICAN BUDGET IGNORES AMERICA'S EDUCATION PRIORITIES. In February,
President Clinton and Vice President Gore sent Congress a balanced and
fiscally responsible budget that makes investments in key education
initiatives. Three weeks into the fiscal year, the President has signed
three continuing resolutions and Congress has yet to complete and send
to the President 8 of 13 spending bills. In particular, Congress still
has not completed an education budget, and is now neglecting America's
priorities and loading spending bills with election-year, earmarked
projects for special interests. The Republican budget provides:
No guaranteed funding for urgent school repairs, $1.3 billion below
the President's budget. President Clinton's plan would help school
districts repair roofs, heating and cooling systems, and electrical
wiring. The Republican plan could deny much-needed renovations to up to
5,000 schools;
$0 in new School Modernization Bonds, while the President's budget
would support $25 billion in bonds. The Republican plan would prevent
the modernization and construction of 6,000 schools;
$600 million for after-school programs, $400 million below the
President's budget. The Republican plan would deny safe extended
learning environments to 1.6 million children by supporting 3,100 fewer
centers in 900 fewer communities than the President's budget would;
No guaranteed funding for class-size reduction, $1.75 billion below
the President's budget. The Republican plan fails to ensure that school
districts can hire 20,000 new teachers and support the 29,000 teachers
already hired under the Class Size Reduction initiative, potentially
denying smaller classes to 2.9 million children;
$473 million to improve teacher quality, $527 million below the
President's budget. The Republican plan would fail to fully fund
support for teacher professional development, recruitment, and rewards,
and would not help ensure a qualified teacher in every classroom;
$0 for the Accountability Fund, $250 million below the President's
budget. The Republican plan would deny resources to states and school
districts to turn around low-performing schools and hold them
accountable for results.
CONGRESS SHOULD COMPLETE WORK ON AMERICA'S PRIORITIES. Republican
Congressional leaders have also failed to pass targeted tax cuts for
working families, an affordable prescription drug benefit for all
Medicare beneficiaries, a meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights, hate
crimes legislation, or reform of our immigration laws. Congress also
has made virtually no progress toward passing a minimum wage increase,
despite a commitment from Speaker Hastert to do so. President Clinton
will call on Congress to complete work on major priorities before
adjourning to return to their districts to campaign for re-election,
including:
Pass Targeted Tax Cuts: President Clinton's package of responsible,
targeted tax cuts provides more tax relief for middle-class families at
less than half the cost of Republican plans. It would allow America to
maintain our fiscal discipline, strengthen the solvency of Social
Security and Medicare, invest in key priorities, and pay off the debt by
at least 2012. President Clinton's fiscally responsible plan provides
tax cuts that reward retirement savings, expand college opportunity, and
help families with the rising costs of long-term care. To ensure that
all Americans share in the nation's unprecedented prosperity, the
President has proposed New Markets tax credits to spur investment in
under-served communities across the nation.
Increase the Minimum Wage. At a time when we are experiencing the
longest economic expansion in history, the proposed $1 increase before
Congress would merely return the real value of the minimum wage to the
level it was in 1982. This small raise would help more than 10 million
workers, including millions of women and hard-pressed families, make
ends meet. Full-time workers would receive an annual raise of about
$2,000 a year -- enough to pay for nearly 7 months of groceries or 5
months of rent.
Provide an Affordable, Accessible Prescription Drug Benefit Option
for All Medicare Beneficiaries. Three out of five Medicare beneficiaries
have inadequate prescription drug coverage or none at all. In the
context of broader reform that ensures that Medicare revenues are only
used for Medicare, the President has proposed a voluntary, affordable
Medicare prescription drug benefit for all beneficiaries. Beginning in
2002, it would provide prescription drug coverage that would have a zero
deductible and cover half of all prescription drug costs up to $5,000
when fully phased in. It would limit all out-of-pocket medication costs
to $4,000. This optional benefit would also provide negotiated
discounts that would guarantee that Medicare beneficiaries no longer pay
the highest prices in the marketplace. And, it would explicitly pay for
the cost of prescription drugs in managed care plans beginning next year
to ensure that they continue to offer this important benefit.
Beneficiaries would be guaranteed access to all medically necessary
drugs and their community pharmacies.
Enact A Meaningful Patients' Bill Of Rights. The majority of the
United States Senate supports passing a strong, enforceable Patients'
Bill of Rights, similar to the bipartisan Norwood-Dingell Patients' Bill
of Rights. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership continues to
support an approach that leaves over 135 million people without
protections and does not assure that plans are held accountable when
they make decisions that harm patients. The Norwood-Dingell
legislation, endorsed by over 200 health care providers and consumer
advocacy groups, is the only bipartisan proposal currently being
considered that protects state-based accountability provisions already
available under current law and includes: protections for all Americans
in all health plans; protections for patients accessing emergency room
care from financial sanctions; guarantees that assure access to
necessary and accessible health care specialists; and meaningful
enforcement mechanisms that ensure recourse for patients who have been
harmed as a result of a health plan's actions.
Pass Legislation to Prevent Hate Crimes. Congress should send the
President meaningful hate crimes legislation to sign into law
immediately. This legislation would enhance the Federal government's
ability to prosecute violent crimes motivated by race, color, religion,
or national origin and would authorize Federal prosecution of crimes
motivated by sexual orientation, gender, or disability. There have been
strong bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate on hate crimes. In
June, the Senate voted 57-42 in favor of adding hate crimes legislation
to the Defense Department authorization bill. In September, the House
voted 232-192 to retain hate crimes as part of that bill. With these
strong bipartisan votes there is no justification for failing to pass
hate crimes legislation this year.
Reforming Immigration Law. People who have been living in the
United States for many years and have developed strong ties to their
communities deserve the opportunity to normalize their immigration
status, and families should be allowed to stay together while an
adjustment of status application is pending. Congress should address
these injustices in the immigration system by updating the registry
date, amending the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act
(NACARA) to ensure fairness for Central Americans, Haitians and
Liberians, and reinstating Sec. 245(i). The President will insist that
Congress enact these common-sense measures, supported by both business
and fundamental fairness, this year.