Budget requests of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education-Continued ARTS AND HUMANITIES EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES 8 Continuation costs plus $70,000,000 for new awards. Total of $25,000,000 authorized from fiscal year 1959 through duration of act. 10 Represents balance of $17,500,000 total authorization for fiscal years 1966 through 1968; 11 Total of $17,500,000 authorized for fiscal years 1966 through 1968; total authorization 12 Represents balance of $16,000,000 total authorization for fiscal years 1965 through 1967; 18 Represents balance of $1,875,000 total authorization for 1966 through 1968; $850,000 14 Total of $1,875,000 authorized for fiscal years 1966-63; total authorization was appropriated in 1966 and 1967. 15 An amount of $15,000,000 is authorized for pt. B of title II, HEA, including library 16 Includes $2,500,000 proposed supplemental. 17 Includes $200,000 for administration which is reflected under "Salaries and expenses" 19 $100,000,000 authorized over a 5-year period. 20 An amount of $15,000,000 is authorized for pt. B of title II, HEA, including librarian NOTE.-1967 appropriation adjusted for comparability with 1968 new appropriation structure. Mrs. GREEN. Yes; I would. Did you request 100 percent? Mr. Howe. No; we did not request that. You are addressing yourself to title I? Mrs. GREEN. I am addressing myself to title I. I don't have it broken down in separate titles. On higher educational activities, for example, you requested only 52 percent. You have only requested 50 percent of elementary and secondary in the authorization. You surely made a much larger request than that originally. Mr. Howe. Our requests were larger than the amounts that have emerged from the total process, but I just haven't the figures here. We can give them to you. Mrs. GREEN. Were you given any suggestions to cut it to 80 or 90 percent? Mr. HowE. No; no percentage suggestions. Within my office and within the Department, we went through the usual process that you go through in building a budget. We started with what I suppose we all know to be somewhat larger thinking than will ultimately work out. We honestly believe we have come up with a program that represents some progress and good support of commitments we have already made. This is part of a complex operation which also involves a number of new programs. Whereas I quite agree that you can zero in on one of these appropriations and be critical of it, I think we would want to defend the broad picture here. Mrs. GREEN. I guess I am really trying to make a defense for the Office of Education, with the keeper of education, so to speak, in this country. If the school people across the 50 States get the impression that the Office of Education is less than enthusiastic in asking for appropriations, the brunts of the criticism will fall upon the Commissioner of Education and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and not on the Budget Bureau, which is where I think it might well fall. Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we might someday get the Bureau of the Budget over here for questions, since they are making educational policy. Mr. Howe. That would be an interesting exercise. Mrs. GREEN. I hope it would not be an exercise in futility. Mr. SCHEUER. I think it would not be an exercise in futility if we had the costs-benefit study so we could prove to them in hard, cold, economic terms, from the points of view of the income statement that this investment is so rich and productive that we cannot afford as a financial matter not to make it. Mr. Howe. I would like to say that the Bureau of the Budget is just as interested as you are in getting cost analysis figures of this kind, and are extremely anxious to have these for their decisionmaking as you are for yours. Mrs. GREEN. When I total a request that you have for five of the major programs, you have really a request for the year which is not much more than the cost of 1 month of the war in Vietnam. Chairman PERKINS. It seems to me if the Office of Education is going to represent the schools of the United States they could make the plea that would be as persuasive and effective as some of the Pentagon people. I have friends on the Armed Services Committee who tell me that the cost of the war is now up to the neighborhood of $3 billion a month. You make a request for all of the schools in the entire United States for $3,343 million, they are, I think, that maybe people who are vitally interested in education and war on poverty, and doing something about future generations, might be entitled to say that the Office of Education is not as good a salesman as the Pentagon is for its part, not as persuasive in convincing the Nation that our future may rest as much upon the education of our children as it rests upon the bombs which we are exploding 8,000 miles away. Mr. Howe. I will make two observations, one of which I made this morning. There are increases in the overall Office of Education budget. The $3.3 billion figure you just gave I don't quite recognize. Our total budget figure for the Office of Education is just under $4 billion. You must add to that the additional amounts that we will receive to operate Operation Follow-Through. We will have very close to a 10-percent increase in the total expenditures for which the Office of Education will be responsible in fiscal 1968 as compared to fiscal 1967. Mrs. GREEN. Yes, but let us talk about the authorization for 1968. Your requests are 55 percent of the authorization. Mr. Howe. In terms of authorization, I haven't worked out the percentages, but I presume that is correct. Mrs. GREEN. That is on these five major programs. Mr. Howe. Our requests are somewhat below authorizations as they have been in earlier years, and may well continue to be. The authorization, whereas it gives us something to shoot for, is not automatically a legislative piece of financial policy. Mrs. GREEN. But Yankee traders, too, recognize if they cut down their original request on appropriations they may not even end up with 55 percent. Mr. HowE. I have to say also that I very much like your remarks about the needs for the Office of Education to provide leadership, and I believe it should. It is also a part of the Government of the United States and has to very much be a part of the total budget planning process. I believe it should be. Its financing through that planning process that eventually makes up the President's budget will, in the long run, benefit from the interaction of total planning that the Government must make. Mr. ESTES. I would point out also at this point, if I might, that to take the total figure and estimate the increase is somewhat misleading. I mentioned this morning that in title I we have about a 14-percent increase over last year's appropriation, or request, not counting in excess of $100 million that we will have for the Follow-Through program. This would bring it up to a 19- or 20-percent increase over last year. In title III we have an 80-percent increase over fiscal year 1967. If our amendment to title V is approved there would be an approximate 60-percent increase. So as you look at individual programs within elementary and secondary education, I think where you find that we are purchasing services, we are purchasing people, we have a rather commendable record. Mr. HowE. Picking up Mr. Estes' remark here, what you find in our total budget is a heavier investment in what we call human resources or human investment programs, and a somewhat lower investment in facilities and things programs, the purchase of materials and facilities. But the human-resource programs that run broadly through the Office of Education have been increased enough to bring out of the balance of the whole enterprise an increase of not quite 10 percent. Mrs. GREEN. I haven't studied your complete paper. If the information in my head is correct, the amount you asked Congress to authorize last year is much greater than the appropriation you are asking Congress to make this year? Mr. Howe. I don't think that is correct, Mrs. Green. The President's budget for the Office of Education last year? Mrs. GREEN. I am talking about these major programs. What did you request last year, for instance, in elementary and secondary, for the authorization? Mr. Howe. The request for fiscal 1967? Mrs. GREEN. For fiscal 1968. Mr. Howe. $1.2 billion for fiscal 1968. Mrs. GREEN. For the total Elementary and Secondary Education Act? Mr. Howe. No, excuse me. I don't have that figure right here. Mr. ESTES. That was the appropriation for fiscal 1967. Mr. Howe. In fiscal 1967 the actual appropriation for the entire act was $1.3 billion. Mr. ESTES. But the actual authorization for title I was $1.4 billion. Mrs. GREEN. And for 1968 it is what? Mr. ESTES. $2.4 billion is the authorization for title I. Mrs. GREEN. And this year you are asking us to appropriate $1.6 billion. You are doing this on all of your programs. You asked us last year to authorize a much larger amount for fiscal year 1968 and then you come to us this year and ask us to appropriate less than you asked us to authorize a year ago. Mr. Howe. This is correct. We have not fully filled out the authorizations in appropriation requests. Chairman PERKINS. I think the greatest concern, I might say, is under title I where we have authorized $2.440 billion and we only have in there $1.200 billion, which, in reality, amounts to 50 percent. That is where the biggest complaint is as I see it. Mrs. GREEN. I just express disappointment that this is your area of responsibility and you don't come to the Congress with at least the equivalent of the authorization of last year. My experience with other departments and agencies is that they do. I realize your problems with the Budget Bureau. I would think it should be made as a serious request that we ask them to come up. Mr. ERLENBORN. I wonder if some of us with lesser seniority might get our 5 minutes. |