Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
January 19, 1999 -- Page: S312

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are finally getting to introduce bills today. This is, of course, the first day that we have had that option. I want to talk about the legislative priorities of the majority party in Congress as well as several of the bills that I will be introducing that I believe reflect those priorities.

The leadership of the majority in Congress has just had a press conference talking about the opportunity and the security that we are going to provide with our major bills and priorities this session. We are talking about Social Security reform, trying to make sure we have the security for those who have retired. We are going to add to that pension reform to give more Americans the opportunity to add to that Social Security base. Social Security is supposed to be a base, but every American ought to be adding savings, tax free, as an incentive to have retirement security.

We are going to address education as an opportunity, making sure that every child in America has a chance to succeed with a public education. By that, we are going to give more choices. I will introduce today a bill that I call Options for Excellence in Education, to try to replace the paperwork and bureaucracy of federal education programs with rewards for innovation, excellence, and choice.

In a bill that I will introduce today, the Options for Excellence in Education Act, we are going to give incentive grants to states and school districts that demonstrate exceptional educational progress and practices that translate directly into better student performance. The bill will also build upon a very successful program to place military veterans who wish to teach into schools where there is a need for qualified teachers by expanding the concept to include civilian professionals. Under the program, individuals with special skills and experience will be given stipend while they seek teacher certification under a streamlined state process so that they can translate those skills into benefits for students. We are going to give help to expedite certification so that if a retired military or civilian professional has the ability, for example, to speak Russian or French or has experience in computer science or math, and the school district has an unmet need for teachers with those skills, those professionals can enter the classroom much more easily and cheaply than they could otherwise.

And then we want to grade the ability of the schools through the ability of the children. If those schools that are in the bottom part of the achievement levels don't come up, we want to give more educational options for their students. States will be able under the bill to use federal funds for a variety of school choice options, including allowing students to attend another public school in their area, the expansion of charter schools, magnet schools, or even private school choice if that's what the state wants to do to give kids trapped in failed schools the chance to succeed.

Finally, the bill addresses the need for the construction of new schools that so many of our school districts are facing by giving tax incentives for the private construction or renovation of public schools in low-income and high-growth parts of our country. So that is what my Options for Excellence in Education bill that I am introducing today will do.

We in Congress must also address the issue of economic opportunity. More people in this country are paying more taxes than ever before in our peacetime history. Thirty-eight percent of the average American's salary goes to pay taxes to some government entity. Well, I want to give more of the money people earn back to them to spend as they wish. So one of our key priorities is going to be tax cuts. We are going to propose a 10-percent across-the-board tax cut for every American.

We are also going to supplement that by doing away with the marriage tax penalty. Why in the world do we have tax laws that say to people, if you get divorced we are going give you $1,400? That is essentially what we have today. Twenty-one million American couples pay $1,400 more, on the average, just because they got married.

So I am introducing two bills today to grant marriage tax penalty relief. The first will allow a married couple to split their incomes right down the middle, if doing so would be better for their bottom line tax liability.

The other option for married couples I am proposing to alleviate their tax penalty for having said their vows to just double the standard deduction. Today, the standard deduction for a married couple is $7,100. Instead, we would double the single exemption so it would be $8,500. These are things we can do to equalize the tax burden for those who choose to be married and those who choose to stay single. So certainly in the area of economic opportunity, tax cuts have to be our very first priority.

So we are going to try to do these things and also at the same time make sure that we have a strong national defense. Security for our country as a whole is the No. 1 responsibility of Congress. So we are going to immediately propose legislation to raise military pay.

I will also soon introduce a bill that will go beyond the important issue of pay, and address one of the critical quality of life factors facing our service men and women and their dependents--the quality of health care for military personnel and retirees. One of the biggest complaints that I get when I visit bases in Texas or bases overseas, when I am talking to our troops, is they worry about the health care of their families. They worry that their families are not getting the quality health care that they were promised, that they deserve, and that they must have. Beyond that, they worry about what will happen to their health care and that of their families if they make a long-term commitment and retire from the military.

So I am introducing a bill that will give more choices to our military families so that they can receive quality health care for themselves, and for their families, so that we can retain the best people in the military. We need to recruit better; we need to retain better. To do that, we must pay them a wage that is fair, more competitive with the outside civilian life, and we need to make sure they and their families have quality health care.

On top of that, we want to give them the equipment they need to do the job.

Senator Warner, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is going to have a comprehensive bill that increases the spending on the equipment and on the technology for the future. The main technology that we want to deploy immediately is a missile defense system for our country. Senator Thad Cochran has introduced a missile defense technology bill in this Congress. Last year, he lost that bill twice by only one vote. He is going to be up front and center with an absolute priority for our missile defense technology, to go forward at the earliest moment that we can because we don't have a ballistic missile defense not only for our own country and our own shores, but we don't have an effective missile defense for our troops to protect them in the field wherever they might be in the world. That is not acceptable for the world's greatest superpower.

Mr. President, you can see that our priorities for this Congress are fairly simple: enhance the security and expand the educational and economic opportunities of all Americans. Security and opportunity. Security for America through a strong national defense. Economic security for every American to have more of the money they work so hard to earn, to give them more opportunities for retirement security, for better Social Security, and more pension options, and economic opportunity so that every child in America can fulfill his or her potential with a quality education. That is what sets us apart from every other country in the world--a universal, quality education system, which ensures that every child who works hard can reach his or her full potential.

We are eager to move forward with this agenda for security and opportunity for our country. We believe we have a solid agenda with good bills to back it up. And we are starting today. We are going to focus on the people's business. We are going to make sure that at the end of this year we can say we have given more Americans the money they earn back in their pockets, better retirement security with Social Security reform, and the feeling that they can be secure in the quality of both their national defense and educational systems.

I appreciate very much the opportunity to start talking about our agenda today, to introduce our bills, to get them into committee and to get started on the people's business.