1998 Ron Paul 96:1 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the
opportunity to express my opposition to H.R.
3892, the English Language Fluency Act. Although
I supported the bill when it was
marked-up before the Education and Workforce
Committee, after having an opportunity
to study the Congressional Budget Office
(CBO)’s scoring of H.R. 3892, I realized that
I must oppose this bill because it increases
expenditures for bilingual education. Thus, this
bill actually increases the Federal Government’s
role in education.
1998 Ron Paul 96:2 I originally supported this bill primarily because
of the provisions voiding compliance
agreements between the Department of Education
and local school districts. Contrary to
what the name implies, compliance agreements
are the means by which the Federal
Government has forced 288 schools to adapt
the model of bilingual education favored by
the Federal bureaucrats in complete disregard
of the wishes of the people in those communities.
1998 Ron Paul 96:3 The English Language Fluency Act also improves
current law by changing the formula by
which schools receive Federal bilingual funds
from a competitive to a formula grant. Competitive
grants are a fancy term for forcing
States and localities to conform to Federal dictates
before the Federal Government returns
to them some of the moneys unjustly taken
from the American people. Formula grants
allow States and localities greater flexibility in
designing their own education programs and
thus are preferable to competitive grants.
1998 Ron Paul 96:4 Although H.R. 3892 takes some small steps
forward toward restoring local control of education,
it takes a giant step backward by extending
bilingual education programs for three
years beyond the current authorization and according
to CBO this will increase Federal
spending by $719 million! Mr. Chairman, it is
time that Congress realized that increasing
Federal funding is utterly incompatible with increasing
local control. The primary reason
State and local governments submit to Federal
dictates in areas such as bilingual education is
because the Federal Government bribes
States with moneys illegitimately taken from
the American people to confer to Federal dictates.
Since he who pays the piper calls the
tune, any measures to take more moneys
from the American people and give it to Federal
educrats reduces parental control by enhancing
the Federal stranglehold on education.
Only by defunding the Federal bureaucracy
can State, local and parental control
be restored.
1998 Ron Paul 96:5 In order to restore parental control of education
I have introduced the Family Education
Freedom Act (H.R. 1816), which provides parents
with a $3,000 per child tax credit to pay
for elementary and secondary education expenses.
This bill places parents back in
charge and is thus the most effective education
reform bill introduced in this Congress.
1998 Ron Paul 96:6 Mr. Chairman, despite having some commendable
features, such as eliminating consent
decrees, the English Language Fluency
Act, H.R. 3892, is not worthy of support because
it authorizes increasing the Federal
Government’s control over education dollars. I
therefore call on my colleagues to reject this
legislation and instead work for constitutional
education reform by returning money and control
over education to America’s parents
through legislation such as the Family Education
Freedom Act.
Note:
1998 Ron Paul 96:5
a $3,000 per child tax credit probably should be hyphenated:
a $3,000-per-child tax credit.
