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Thursday, October 19, 2000
Education spending bill stalled
President hopes to get Congress moving again
By Anjetta McQueen
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Despite bipartisan agreement to give the Education Department its most generous spending level ever, the approximately $40 billion is ensnared in an election-year debate over how local schools should use federal dollars.
Congress is close to finishing work for the year, a compromise remains out of reach and both parties blame each other for the inaction.
President Clinton planned a Capitol Hill visit today to put pressure on Republicans to make a deal.
"It's a fight with no fighters," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Wednesday, complaining that Republicans were unwilling to discuss a compromise.
Responded John Czwartzcki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss: "We could have been out of here Oct. 1."
In the House, GOP Rep. Bill Archer of Texas, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, accused the White House of trying to "jack up" the costs of school construction, a project that is a Clinton administration priority.
Meantime, black Democrats are accusing their own party leaders of not putting enough attention on improving the education of the poor.
The education budget is part of three spending bills being negotiated by lawmakers and the White House for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
Democrats are battling for specific funds to hire new teachers and repair crumbling schools. Republicans still want to give states the option of spending that money on other programs such as special education and reading lessons.
Bickering over education is hardly new.
Last year's education budget passed only after a deal to allow the new teacher money, but give states leeway to spend some money on other programs.
A key federal education law, parts of which expired last year, has not been renewed.
The last major education bill Clinton signed, in 1999, expanded an experimental program that exempts states from some federal requirements if the states can indicate improved learning by children.
Congress will have to answer for the lack of progress, said Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which wants the debate focused on the neediest schools.
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