Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Smith) time.

Madam Speaker, I am relatively new to Congress. When I first came here 2\1/2\ years ago, I was surprised and somewhat disappointed by the partisanship that I encountered. I was from a competitive arena, and yet I had really never encountered anything like it. And then 9-11 came, and for 2 or 3 months I saw Congress function as it could. What we saw was unity of purpose. Welfare of the country was the primary priority. Partisanship, personal ambition was set aside.

Now here we are 2 years later and it seems as though we are drifting toward and have drifted toward business as usual. We are told that this is an election year that is coming up. Partisanship is escalating and some people say, well, we really cannot get much done next year because this is going to be an election year. Yet I would submit that the threat to our Nation is just as great as before 9-11 at this time. The battle lines are more clearly drawn. The stakes are higher. And still the internal dissension intensifies.

To me, this is a little bit mystifying. The great majority of people I have gotten to know, both sides of the aisle here in Congress, are genuinely good people. Yet that is really not the image that we project. Most people in my district are totally turned off by the discord they see. They do not seem to understand it; and they dismiss it as, well, that is just politics.

Certainly not all Democrats are tax-and-spend liberals with no moral compass. Certainly all Republicans are not heartless pawns of big business. And yet many times that is the way we portray each other. Certainly the President of the United States has not started a war to boost his approval ratings. Those types of comments are alarming, and they are very disturbing.

Unfounded congressional comments impugning motives and denigrating character only give substance to the belief we have no national resolve or unity. Where there is unity of purpose, the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. And I saw that consistently in athletics. If people were committed to a common goal, they pulled together and the dissenting factors tended to fall away. But where there is a lack of unity, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Sometimes I feel that that is what characterizes this body as we get fragmented, as we throw rocks at each other.

It is critical at this time in our Nation's history that both parties pull together, that civility is exercised. As far as I am concerned, we are at war. It is a different type of war. At a time of war we cannot afford partisan strife that weakens national resolve.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2040. As has been mentioned, this extends irrigation contracts between the Bureau of Reclamation and the irrigation contractors in Nebraska and Wyoming.

A proposed cooperative agreement between Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming was established in 1997. Parenthetically, I might just mention that this agreement was to provide additional water in a 50-mile stretch of Platte River in Central Nebraska. This water is to provide habitat for the whooping crane, the least tern, the piping plover and the pallid sturgeon, all of which are either endangered or threatened, according to the Endangered Species Act.

However, less than 2 percent of the whooping crane population ever visits the Platte River during their migration. As a matter of fact, many years the whooping crane is not seen at all on the Platte River. The least tern and the piping plover do not seem to nest in this area of the river, and the pallet sturgeon is located 150 miles away in the Missouri River. Therefore, there is considerable confusion as to whether this is really critical habitat.

Therefore, the cooperative agreement, which has been formed to preserve water for critical habitat, is under study. We currently have a National Academy of Sciences study, which you have graciously encouraged and we appreciate that. Until this study is completed, the cooperative agreement really cannot move forward.

Therefore, we are requesting this 2-year extension. Because of the delays in finalizing the cooperative agreement, it is necessary to extend existing irrigation contracts until such time as the cooperative agreement is finalized. So I urge passage of 2040.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the chairman and ranking member for their support and urge passage.

Mr. Speaker, I spent roughly 40 years working with young people, and over those 40 years there was a growing concern about drug abuse. Drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamines were unheard of in 1960 and became more and more prevalent as those 40 years moved forward.

My observation was the primary drug problem that we had with young people really revolved around alcohol. Last week the National Academy of Science came out with a report on underage drinking that I think underscored this observation. The findings were as follows:

Number one, underage drinking results in $53 billion of costs to the Nation annually; $19 billion of this is for alcohol-related traffic accidents; 2,339 15- to 20-year-olds were killed in 2000 by alcohol- related traffic accidents.

Number two, availability apparently is no problem. Ninety percent of twelfth graders say obtaining alcohol is easy. Fifty percent of seniors drink each month, and 25 percent of those drink heavily.

Third, underage drinkers drink more than adults do. The report indicates that underage drinkers consume nearly twice as much alcohol on each occasion than adults. In other words, underage drinkers are more likely to drink to get drunk than adults.

Number four, underage drinking is more addictive. Due to psychological and physiological immaturity, alcohol dependency progresses much more rapidly in young people. Sometimes it progresses in a matter of weeks or months, whereas in most adults the disease may progress over a period of years.

It is estimated that there are 3 million teenage alcoholics in our country today, and those that are addicted to other drugs, it could be a fraction of that 3 million, and yet that gets most of the attention.

Number five, the average age of the first drink is decreasing. At the present time the first age of drink is about 14 on the average. Twenty percent of eighth graders use alcohol frequently.

Six, the side effects of adolescent drinking are devastating. Underage drinking leads to violence, suicide, academic failure, date rape, unwanted pregnancy, it can impede brain development, and it is a gateway to other illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, because all of those drugs usually do not start with the drug itself but rather alcohol consumption.

Number seven, a point that I would like to bring out is why has underage drinking become such a huge problem. I would say parental factors have been a major issue. Many parents subscribe to the myth, which is false, that if a young person is using alcohol then they will not use other drugs, when the reverse is absolutely the fact. If you start using alcohol early, you are more apt to be addicted to all kinds of other drugs as well.

Oftentimes parents will purchase alcohol for children. And then, of course, there is the issue of lack of parental involvement. A recent study indicated that parents today spend 40 percent less time with their children than they did a generation ago, and of course that leads to some problems in the alcohol area.

Then of course there has been a problem with media influence. Young people are often targeted by alcohol commercials, and those of you who may watch NCAA football this next Saturday will undoubtedly come across a number of beer commercials, and these commercials will not show you an overweight 50-year-old or an automobile accident or somebody whose wife walked out on him. Rather, they will be young, they will be attractive, they will be athletic and they will be having a good time. And so NCAA sports, which should be aimed at improving things for young people, is, I think, in this case part of the problem. Also, much music targeted to young people glamorizes alcohol.

So some of the solutions provided by this report I think are worth noting.

I think we need to reallocate government resources. Twenty-five times more money is spent on preventing illegal drug use than preventing illegal drinking by young people, and yet if we can keep people from drinking, particularly at an early age, we are going to do a tremendous amount to cut down use of other hard drugs, and our money would be much better spent in that regard.

We need to hold alcohol advertisers accountable for targeting young people. There is no question that many of their advertisements are aimed directly at people, and some of those are underage drinkers. We need to hold the recording industry, the motion picture industry and the television industry accountable for ratings. Many of these ratings are rated G or PG and have heavy alcohol content in them.

We need to enforce regulations banning the sale of liquor to underage drinkers. Many times people who violate these rules just get a slap on the wrist. It has been proposed, also, by the NAS study that we raise the excise tax on alcohol to promote a campaign to reduce underage drinking, much as we have to reduce smoking.

So all of these things I think are worth considering, and I certainly urge the membership to take a hard look at the NAS report.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to introduce the ``Improving the Community Services Block Grant Act of 2003'' to reauthorize the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program.

The CSBG is an anti-poverty block grant that funds a state- administered network of over 1,100 public and private community action agencies delivering social services to low-income Americans. The CSBG Act was established in 1981 in response to President Reagan's proposal to consolidate the Community Services Administration and 11 other anti- poverty programs.

Block grant funds may be used for a wide-range of anti-poverty activities to help families and individuals achieve self-sufficiency. Such activities may include providing assistance in finding and retaining employment, obtaining adequate housing, and providing emergency food services. The CSBG also includes funding for certain discretionary activities, including community economic development, rural community facilities improvement, the community food and nutrition assistance, and the national youth sports program. The CSBG program is an essential tool in meeting the unique needs of each area and serves as a conduit for community services.

The bill I am introducing today would build upon improvements made to the program during the last reauthorization. It would promote increased quality by requiring states to reevaluate whether the lowest performing grantees should continue to receive funding. It modifies the current grandfather provisions that are tied to the definition of eligibility that guarantee funding for current grantees to a provision giving all current grantees a priority for continued funding based on their ability to meet grantee determined goals.

This bill promotes increased accountability by ensuring that states are monitoring local grantees to ensure services are being provided in the most efficient manner and that services are reaching those with the greatest need. The bill also requires the development of local grantee determined goals that each local grantee is responsible for meeting.

The bill further encourages initiatives to improve economic conditions and mobilization of new resources in rural areas to help eliminate obstacles to the self sufficiency of families and individuals in rural communities, and expands opportunities for providing youth mentoring services to encourage education, life skills training, and youth crime prevention.

Finally, the bill continues the CSBG grants and discretionary programs at current authorization levels and extends them through FY 2009.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to back this important legislation that supports improved services for low-income individuals and families.

Mr. Chairman, during the vote on Representative Tom Davis's amendment to the fiscal year 2004 D.C. Appropriations Bill, H.R. 2765, I mistakenly voted ``aye.'' I intended to vote ``no.'' At the time, I was involved in a conference call with constituents. I left the floor after voting on the Davis amendment to participate in the call believing that I had voted in opposition to the Davis amendment. I have heard from hundreds of my constituents who are opposed to voucher proposals. I fully intended to continue my position of opposing all school voucher proposals. I sincerely regret my error.

I did vote in favor of the Norton amendment to strike funding for this voucher proposal. My vote on the Norton amendment is a true indication of my position on this issue.

While I understand the strong feelings behind the prospect of providing voucher to children in the District of Columbia, I have had a longstanding and well-known position of opposing Federal funding for school vouchers. I would much rather see additional investments made in the D.C. public school system than to have funds used in private schools. The D.C. voucher proposal will provide options for a very small fraction of children in the District of Columbia public school system. But every child in the District of Columbia deserves a high- quality education, not just a few thousand. I strongly believe that a high quality education system will only be possible through additional investments to the public school system, rather than by using public funds for private schools.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to the floor today to raise an issue that I know many of my colleagues have been very concerned about, and that is additional funding for AmeriCorps. Currently, AmeriCorps is facing a very severe funding crisis. Local programs around the country are facing severe cuts.

Thousands of social service organizations across the country depend on AmeriCorps for manpower and service for constituents. If we do nothing, many of these programs won't be able to survive or make up the difference in funding in another way. This means that fewer meals will be delivered to the elderly and fewer children will be mentored. When national AmeriCorps officials announced a major cut last month in grants for volunteer positions, leaders of hundreds of volunteer programs across the country warned they will have to reduce operations or shut down. These programs and the people they serve should not be made to suffer because of problems in Washington that could be addressed by short-term solutions, such as agreeing to $100 million in supplemental funding for AmeriCorps.

While I realize that today's bill is focused only on addressing issues facing FEMA, I did want to make sure to note that a majority of members of this House signed letters in support of additional funding for AmeriCorps. We have heard from the wonderful programs all around this country that are doing such important work. I will continue to work to see if additional funding can be provided to improve this situation which is so critical to so many non-profit programs in all of our districts.

Mr. Speaker, as I have talked to my colleagues here in the House, I have been really surprised and somewhat dismayed at the amount of misunderstanding and misinformation we have had regarding this particular bill. We have already heard some of those: We are going to dismantle Head Start. I do not think anybody on this side or the other side intends to dismantle Head Start. Everyone values Head Start. Head Start is not being transformed into a State-run program. It is not a block grant program. That is absolutely not true.

So currently what we are talking about is the possibility of eight States entering a pilot program, if they so choose. Now, if all 50 States say we want to keep Head Start like it is, they can keep the program in all 50 States like it is. So the maximum would be eight States in a pilot program, 42 States in a similar program that we have had previously. So it is entirely voluntary. Pilot States must increase spending for early learning and not decrease it, so it does not take money from Head Start.

I have often heard, as I talk to people around the floor here, Well, we are afraid that this is going to take money away from Head Start. This is not structured in this way. Actually, the State must increase its spending; no Head Start dollars will be transferred to the State.

This will create a seamless, coordinated early learning program in pilot programs instead of a two-track system. Right now, we have Head Start in most States and we have State-run early learning programs, and they exist side-by-side. There is no coordination. There is no commonality of standards. We think this is wasteful and inefficient.

So what we are talking about is a program that will serve more children

and will have higher standards, not lower.

Also, the Castle bill increases Head Start funding, as we have said previously, by $202 million, up to $6.9 billion, which, as the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) said, has more than doubled since 1995. It raises the standards for teacher qualifications. It does not lower standards at all.

Head Start continues to be administered by Health and Human Services. It not being transferred to another department. Again, that is a myth that has been out there for some reason.

Health and nutrition programs remain in place. They will not be changed at all.

Underachieving Head Start programs receive additional funds. This is one thing I think we really need to look at and think about.

The academic content of Head Start is strengthened while maintaining important socialization components. So as has been stated earlier, there is an emphasis on pre-mathematics, which currently is not something that happens in most Head Start programs. There is also an emphasis on pre-science, which again is not emphasized in Head Start programs currently; also in pre-reading.

Currently, most Head Start programs say all you have to do is be able to recognize 10 letters of the alphabet. Well, by the time you are four years old, you had better know the whole alphabet. So we think that we can make considerable improvements.

What we would like to emphasize here is that according to the Family and Child Experience Survey, the average child entering Head Start in terms of school readiness ranks in the 21st percentile. Two years later, $6,500 a year later, that child leaves Head Start at the 24th percentile, which is hardly statistically significant.

We cannot afford to do this. So if you start in the lower one-fourth of readiness and you end Head Start in the lower one-fourth, by the age of 16, you are probably still in the lower one-fourth, because where you start is usually where you finish. Now, that is critical. So something needs to be done to address this problem. So that is all we are saying.

Let us make some changes here. This is not a perfect program, but it is a good program, and we are trying to make it better.

So we hope that people will consider and will understand the bill better. We think if they understand it, they will vote for it.

Mr. Chairman, I certainly agree with all those who have spoken tonight that Head Start is an excellent program. It is a necessary program. Yet many people feel that no changes are needed to the program.

I guess if you put it in any context, let us say you ran a business for 35 years, a football team for 35 years, a school for 35 years, and you said over and over again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it and you stayed with a pat hand, my feeling is you would drift toward mediocrity. There is no organization that can stay the same year after year after year. I think there are a couple of things that really can be fixed. I think

there are some things that need to be done here.

The first question is, does Head Start do what it is designed to do, which is to get kids ready to go to school? As we have mentioned earlier tonight, the Family and Child Experience Survey, which is the best measure I know of of school readiness, says this. They said that the average student entering Head Start is at the 21st percentile in terms of readiness to go to school. And then 2 years later, $6,500 a year, $13,000 later, we see those same students ranking at the 24th percentile, a gain of 3 percent in 2 years.

I think that is unsatisfactory. I do not think we are doing the right thing by our children. When they enter Head Start, they are in the bottom fourth of school readiness, when they leave Head Start they are in the bottom fourth, and the best statistical prediction we can make is that at age 16, they are still going to be in the bottom fourth. This is something that I think needs to be rectified.

As we have mentioned, the Castle bill does introduce some academic rigor to Head Start. I think this is critical. I think this change needs to be made. Pre-math, pre-science, ramp up the reading programs. We think students ought to be somewhere around the 40th percentile on average after leaving Head Start instead of the 24th percentile. I think that can be done. I think that is doable.

Secondly, there are 1.5 million children eligible for Head Start; 900,000 are in Head Start and there are 600,000 left over. Of that 600,000, some are in State programs, and we have State programs here and we have Head Start and then we have got a whole bunch in the middle that are falling through the cracks. They are not in anything. That is why we think the demonstration program is critical, because we need to have a more seamless program where those kids are not falling through the cracks, where we have some type of a comprehensive plan as to how we are going to take care of all of them. I think that is going to be important.

The last thing I will mention, that in fact we might think about a little bit, is one of the real strengths of Head Start is we involve the parents. We are expecting now that there is a transition from Head Start to the elementary school where those kids' parents stay with the student. That is something that we have incorporated in this bill which we think is very important.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and the gentleman from Delaware (Chairman Castle), and also the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for his thoughtful amendment. I think his amendment does represent some improvement.

I would like to just briefly discuss eight State demonstration programs. That seems to be the crux of the problem right now. I can point out that no State has to join the demonstration program. This is totally optional.

We may have all 50 States say, Let's keep the thing like it is. I do not believe any State will join unless it feels it can actually better serve children. So what is the fear? Why are we concerned about this? Is it the argument of a camel's nose under the tent, maybe it will work and then it might spread? I do not think this is a dangerous issue at all.

So it only makes sense that two programs that are now existing side by side, a State program and Head Start, can be better coordinated, can serve more children, and can do a better job than what we are doing at the present time.

So I recommend that we defeat the substitute and pass the Head Start reauthorization.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

I think ultimately each of us has to be responsible to our constituents, and what I hear from Nebraska seniors contacting me is much more concern about high prescription drug prices

than safety issues. Many of those Nebraskans are already getting their prescription drugs from Canada, and if drug prices continue to escalate as they have been and as they will continue to do, the $400 billion prescription drug benefit passed by the House will be insufficient. I think we all know that intuitively, and I think OMB knows that empirically.

So I see that the only solution, that I can think of at least, is holding drug prices down through competition in the free market, which I think most of us believe in. We import meat, fruit, wine, cheeses for direct consumption without undue alarm about safety. Americans take millions of dollars of imported prescription drugs each year, and yet no deaths or significant problems have occurred.

I have a lot of confidence in this country. I believe we can have cheaper drugs and also have the intelligence and technology to have safe drugs.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Fiscal Year 2004 Departments of Commerce, Justice, State, the Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. I commend the gentleman from Virginia, Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Serrano for their hard work on this legislation.

This important spending bill provides critical funding for state and local law enforcement's crime fighting initiatives. I am particularly pleased that H.R. 2799 provides $500 million for the Byrne formula grant program. Byrne formula grants have long proven to be an important aid to law enforcement agencies and I know that Nebraska law enforcement officials have put this funding to good use.

In Nebraska, these funds support the multi-jurisdictional drug task forces that are invaluable in the state's efforts to combat the influx of methamphetamine (meth) in our communities. In addition, Byrne grants have enabled effective inter-agency and multi-jurisdiction cooperation, information sharing, and technology improvements.

According to the Nebraska Clandestine Lab Team, the number of methamphetamine labs busted in the state increased from 18 in 1998 to almost 250 last year. I cannot overstate the negative impact this dangerous drug is having on rural communities in my district. Given the vital role Byrne grants play in helping law enforcement officials fight meth production, I appreciate the committee's commitment to this important program.

As a Member of the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamine, I strongly support the $60 million in funding for the Methamphetamine Enforcement and Clean-Up program included in H.R. 2799. This legislation sends a strong message to our local law enforcement agencies that the federal government is a partner in fighting the meth scourge in our communities.

Finally, I want to thank the committee for their commitment to the Nebraska State Patrol to carry out their comprehensive strategy for combating methamphetamine in Nebraska. These additional resources will enhance the efforts already in place in Nebraska to address the presence of clandestine labs, distribution of methamphetamine and the need for treatment.

I congratulate the Committee on bringing this legislation to the floor today, and urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2799.

Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that appropriate committees in the House and the other body are investigating those issues of concern to the previous speaker. If those committees do not appropriately handle the issue, then I am certain that an independent investigative commission would be in order.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak about Head Start. This week it is scheduled to be reauthorized on the House floor. Currently, there is much confusion about Head Start and its reauthorization. The facts are these: number one, Head Start serves approximately 1 million children. Secondly, state-run early learning programs service another 1 million eligible preschool children. That is 2 million out of 3 million, so that means 1 million essentially are falling through the cracks. Of course, this is of great concern because where you start out in the learning curve usually signifies where you are going to end up. So we are serving only two-thirds of those children who are eligible.

Head Start is effective in social development, language proficiency, and some early learning skills and is very worthwhile. I think most people that know anything about Head Start certainly advocate the program and feel it is something that we really need to continue to reauthorize. But I think it is important also to realize that Head

Start children enter the program at the 21st percentile of school readiness. They leave the program at the 24th percentile of school readiness. So after 2 years, $6,500-per-year education, they are improving roughly 3 percent. Certainly that can be improved. That is essentially one thing that will be addressed in this reauthorization.

Reauthorization does this: it certainly strengthens the present Head Start programs and increases funding by $202 million to $6.9 billion. So there is a funding increase. It improves teacher qualification requirements. It does not weaken the teacher qualification in any way. It keeps Head Start under Health and Human Services. There has been a misperception that it is being moved to another Department. That is not true. It preserves the current health and nutrition programs. It does not change them at all. And provides extra funding for underachieving programs. These are all things that have been similar in the past.

There are three significant changes that I think are worthy of note: number one, the reauthorization strengthens the academic components of curriculum and improves school readiness, so such things as vocabulary, early reading, learning letters, learning numbers will be ramped up; and we hope that instead of ending up at the 24th percentile of school readiness, they might end up at the 35th or the 40th or the 45th percentile. This definitely needs to be improved and it will be.

Secondly, this reauthorization provides an optional eight-State pilot program, so 42 States will remain the same and only eight States who choose to do so will enter into this pilot program. What this does, it provides a seamless program that coordinates State standards for early childhood education with Head Start so we do not have two programs on the same track existing side by side which is very expensive and furthermore causes a lot of children to fall through the cracks. We will serve more kids.

Then lastly, it encourages parental involvement to transition from Head Start to elementary school. One of the great things about Head Start right now is that parents are involved with children in Head Start. Traditionally and typically when kids go on to elementary school, the parents drop out of the picture. And so in the reauthorization, we are trying to make sure that parents stay involved with their children from Head Start on into elementary school, and this certainly is one of the things that can tremendously benefit children in this program.

We encourage our colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this reauthorization. This is an important program. I believe that the reauthorization strengthens the Head Start program. We urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the King amendment.

Actually, there are two conflicting rulings right now that govern flows, and so it is not just one. The idea here is that we want high flows in the river in the spring, which will flood thousands of acres of farmland, and very low flows in the summer, which prevent any kind of navigation. The reason to do this is so the piping plover will build their nests high up on the banks of the river and will not get flooded out.

The best way to handle this is to manually move the nests up the bank. They do not have to flood thousands of acres. They do not have to shut off the barge traffic. That is the simple way. It is the logical way to do it. And yet we are trying to mandate this thing by managing the river all because the piping plover and the least tern are endangered species or threatened species.

So we think that this whole thing can be fixed, and we support the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here tonight. I feel a little bit, like in my previous profession, in the middle of a major conflict here.

I appreciate the intent of the gentleman on his amendment, and I also understand some of the legal arguments. I would like to just point out a couple of things here that have not been mentioned heretofore.

One is that there are over 400,000 acres of private lands that are currently blocked by the roadless rule. These are private landowners who have no access to their land. The reason is, what happened primarily was much of that forest that is affected by the roadless rule was not mapped. Nobody knew when they designated it that there were private lands in there. That is not right. That is a problem.

If my colleagues talk to the people who are in the field, the Forest Service field managers, they say the roadless rule affects their ability to maintain ecosystems, watersheds, protect species, and protect human lives and property.

There has been quite a bit mentioned tonight about the fact that there are fewer fires in roadless areas. Yet the largest fire in the history of Colorado was the Hayman fire. That burned primarily through roadless areas; and so when we do have a fire in a roadless area, there is very little that we can do to slow it down.

So I think it makes sense. It is only logical that if the Forest Service feels that they need more access and if firefighters say they need more access and if landowners say that they need more access, that we should listen to them. It is only logical, and so I certainly support defeat of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to lend my support for the 2004 Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Much has been said today by those in opposition to the bill regarding the lack of aid to social projects and education, and the reason I wanted to come down here today is to call special attention to one program that has been given significant increases, and that has to do with mentoring. Those dollars have gone from practically zero a year ago to a significant amount. As a matter of fact, those mentoring programs have been funded by an increase of roughly 300 percent this year.

This is very important. The reason I think this is important is to realize that over the last 10 years, we have spent an additional $80 billion on education. That is both Republicans and Democrats. We have increased it $80 billion. We have seen no increase in the level of test scores, we have seen no improvement in drop-out rates.

So just spending large amounts of money does not fix the problem.

One of the things that has happened here is we have seen a tremendous increase in social pathology. We have more and more kids who go to school each day who are so troubled by their environment and their home life that they cannot really learn anything because they cannot focus. So mentoring

is one thing that does work. There are statistics and research that indicates this, that mentoring significantly reduces dropout rates, cuts drug abuse by roughly 50 percent, absenteeism from school by roughly 50 percent, teenage pregnancy by 30, 40 percent, violent behavior by 30 percent. It improves graduation rates, personal hygiene, and relationships with peers and with parents. It costs about $300 to $500 a year to run a good mentoring program per student. It costs about $30,000 a year to lock somebody up. Somebody addicted to meth will cost probably roughly $50,000 to $100,000 for a community, because they are going to commit 60 crimes a year, on the average. So we feel that this is very cost effective. This money will come back to society many times over.

So I would like to thank the President for his interest, as well as the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) for his interest in mentoring, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for his help, and particularly the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula), because as I have found the chairman, he has been very fair. He has listened very carefully. He does care about children. He cares about education. He has a difficult balancing act to perform and has done it, I think, with great effectiveness. I just wanted to come down here and thank the chairman. I appreciate it.