Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2003

INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2003

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Gregg amendment and in opposition to the Hagel-Harkin amendment.

I begin by commending the leadership of my State's senior Senator, Mr. JUDD GREGG, on this issue. IDEA and special education funding is an issue that has been a hallmark of the leadership provided by Senator Gregg in New Hampshire and across the country.

In New Hampshire we still fund education locally. That is one of the reasons we have had historically such a strong school system. That means people really understand the shortfalls, the problems associated with education funding.

In New Hampshire people have recognized we have not done our job as a Congress and as a nation in funding the original commitment made well over 20 years ago to support IDEA and special education.

Since 1996, we have made enormous steps forward, again, under the leadership of Senator Gregg, Senator Jeffords, and others in this body, Congressman CHARLES BASS in the House, working on the Budget Committee, where I was privileged to serve as well. We have increased funding $8.7 billion for IDEA since 1996, increased funding $4.7 billion since 2001. That is the kind of leadership on meeting a funding obligation that had not been seen in this Congress in 20 years under Democratic support. I think that, to use a phrase, is putting our collective money where our mouth is, recognizing that IDEA funding needs to be a priority for American education.

The President's leadership on this issue has been outstanding. Those on the other side of the aisle might not like to admit this, but it is hard to argue with the budgets that President Bush has sent up where IDEA funding is concerned. There have been historic increases year after year since President Bush took office, increases in commitments in funding for special education that put the prior administration's budget requests to shame. That needs to be recognized as well as part of the debate.

We have a lot more work to do. Senator Gregg has outlined the need to continue these funding increases and, in the 2005 budget, that commitment is there, continuing the fight to meet our funding obligations. But putting the spending on autopilot, creating a new area of mandatory funding is not the solution.

Even more to the point, to the Harkin amendment, this new idea where only the increases are mandatory is effectively a shell game, where current funding is left as discretionary, only the increases are mandatory. Under our current budget resolution and the 2005 budget resolution, these mandatory funding increases would require a dollar-for-dollar cut in other discretionary programs, of course, that are not specified in this legislation. That is simply wrong.

Placing funding on autopilot rarely, if ever, is the answer to the problems that we wrestle with in Congress. Even more problematic, this amendment falls short on oversight. Throwing the funding on autopilot removes Congress from its oversight responsibility. Most everyone who has followed the debate on this program recognizes that more needs to be done to make sure the program works better for those parents and children who are truly in need of the program's benefits.

Second, the Harkin amendment enables Congress to avoid setting priorities. That is simply wrong. It enables Congress to put the funding on autopilot, this mandatory spending idea, and then not have to make sometimes very tough but important choices around funding priorities. I ask my colleagues on the other side whether they have ever voted for amendments that actually reallocate appropriations from other programs in the Department of Education or anywhere else in the Labor-Education bill and put it into additional discretionary special education funding, much less offered such an amendment? It is not always an easy vote to take, but it is a vote that I have taken in the House to actually stand up and say: Given a current level of spending, whatever our budget is, I am willing to vote to take funding from one program and put it into special education because we recognize that it is the most important funding priority we could have at the Federal level where education is concerned. I am willing to stand up and take that vote.

I am anxious to see whether the authors of this amendment bring other amendments to the Senate floor in the appropriations process that reallocate those funds. It is always easy to come to the Senate floor with an amendment that adds $2 billion or $3 billion or $4 billion or $5 billion, increasing the deficit without regard. It is a lot tougher to come to the floor with an amendment that moves funding from one area to another and show that we are willing to set priorities and make sometimes difficult choices we are elected to make when we come to serve in the Senate.

I believe putting this spending on autopilot takes us away from that commitment to make tough choices and set priorities. That is why I will not support the Hagel-Harkin amendment and will stand with Senator Gregg and the important work he is trying to do as chairman of our Education and Health Committee.

I yield the floor.