The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a
previous order of the House, the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL) is recognized
for 5 minutes.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission
to revise and extend his remarks.)
1998 Ron Paul 37:1
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, education in
this country is facing a crisis. If we
look at our schools carefully, we find
out that there are a lot of drugs in our
schools, actually murders occur in our
schools, rape occurs in our schools, it
is infested with teenage pregnancies. There is total disrespect for authority
in many of our schools, and there is no
good record to show that the academic
progress is being made that is necessary.
1998 Ron Paul 37:2
The President happens to believe
that if we have national testing, this
will solve all our problems. And now he
is addressing these very, very serious
problems that we have in our schools
with saying that if we can only get
these kids not to smoke a cigarette,
maybe we are going to solve these educational
problems.
1998 Ron Paul 37:3
I would say that he is going in the
wrong directions. These are serious
problems and we must do something,
but pretending that we are going to
crack down on kids testing a cigarette,
as bad as it is, is not going to solve our
problems.
1998 Ron Paul 37:4
I have a couple suggestions to make
on what we can do to improve the educational
system. I have a bill that I introduced
recently. It is H.R. 3626. It is
called the Agriculture Education Freedom
Act. This is a bill I think everybody
in this body could support.
1998 Ron Paul 37:5
What it does, it takes away taxation
on any youngster who makes some
money at one of these 4-H or Future
Farmers of America fairs. When they
sell their livestock, believe it or not,
we go and tax them. Just think of this. The kids are out there trying to do
something for themselves, earn some
money, save some money and go to
school; and what do we do as a Congress,
we pick on the kids, we go and
we tax these kids.
1998 Ron Paul 37:6
I talked to a youngster just this past
weekend in the farm community in my
district, and he told me he just sold an
animal for $1,200 and he has to give $340
to the U.S. Government. Now, what are
we doing, trying to destroy the incentive
for these youngsters assuming
some responsibility for themselves? Instead,
what do we do? We say the only
way a youngster could ever go to college
is if we give them a grant, if we
give them a scholarship, if we give
them a student loan. And what is the
record on payment on student loans? Not very good. A lot of them walk
away.
1998 Ron Paul 37:7
There is also the principle of it. Why
should the Federal Government be involved
in this educational process? And
besides, the other question is, if we
give scholarships and low-interest
loans to people who go to college, what
we are doing is making the people who
do not get to go to college pay for that
education, which to me does not seem
fair. It seems like that the advantage
goes to the individual who gets to go to
college, and the people who do not get
to go to college should not have to subsidize
them.
1998 Ron Paul 37:8
I think it is unfair it pick on these
kids. I think it is time that we quit
taxing any youngster who makes some
money at a 4-H fair or Future Farmers
of America fair where they are selling
their livestock and trying to earn
money to go to college.
1998 Ron Paul 37:9
I think it is proper to say that they
should have no taxation without representation. They are not even old
enough to vote, and here we are taxing
them. I mean that is not fair.
1998 Ron Paul 37:10
So I am hoping that I get a lot of cosponsors
for this bill, because there
sure are a lot of youngsters around the
country trying to assume responsibility
for themselves.
1998 Ron Paul 37:11
I do not believe for 1 minute the
President’s approach that we are going
to assume that every kid is going to
grow up to be a smoke fiend, and if we
do not do something quickly, we are
going to have them developing all
these bad habits; at the same time, we
see the deterioration of the public educational
system.
1998 Ron Paul 37:12
Also, I would like to mention very
briefly another piece of legislation that
would deal with this educational crisis. The Federal Government has been involved
in our public schools for several
decades. There is no evidence to show
that, as we increase the funding and increase
the bureaucracy, that there has
been any improvement in education. Quite to the contrary, the exact opposite
has happened.
1998 Ron Paul 37:13
So I would say there is a very good
practical case. I know the constitutional
argument does not mean much. But the practical case is there is no
evidence that what we have done so far
has been helpful.
1998 Ron Paul 37:14
I have another piece of legislation
that would give $3,000 tax credit to
every family for every child that they
want to educate by themselves. So if
they would spend any money on their
child, whether they are in school or out
of school, in private school, at home
schooling, they would get this $3,000
credit. I hope my colleagues will take a
look at these two pieces of legislation.
Notes:
1998 Ron Paul Chapter 37
The C-Span video of this chapter was not found.
1998 Ron Paul 37:8 I think it is unfair itpick on these kids. perhaps should be,
I think it is unfair it picks on these kids. or perhaps I think it is unfair to pick
on these kids.
