[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1517-E1518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

VERMONT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT CONGRESSIONAL TOWN MEETING

______

HON. BERNARD SANDERS

of vermont

in the house of representatives

Monday, September 18, 2000

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done
by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this
summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students
from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as
teenagers, and about what they would like to see the government do
regarding these concerns.
I am asking that these statements be submitted into the Congressional
Record, as I believe that the views of these young persons will benefit
my colleagues.

Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives

on behalf of SCOTT DOBROWOLSKI

Regarding GUN CONTROL--May 26, 2000

SCOTT DOBROWOLSKI: I come here this morning to speak on gun
control, and as our schools have been noted, there is more
and more shootings in our schools. Now legislation has been
taking away handguns, assault rifles, many of the weapons
that have been used to kill our students.
Now as I see it, I have been raised with firearms in my
home and as part of this I have had a lot of training with
them. I have been told right and wrong, whether or not to
shoot, what to shoot. I deer hunt. Really a matter of my
training as I have been told not to kill people.
As we have learned there is more and more students killing
each other. A lot of these children have been decided and
acquitted for not knowing the difference between killing
their student and just merely playing around.
As I see it, there should be more education in school as to
avoid the shooting of their classmates. If we started at a
younger age, I believe that we could severely delay the risk
of having all these shootings. I am not saying hand-on
experience with firearms, but more or less just education on
right and wrong in our schools because apparently as we have
seen, parents no longer care or they are not doing their job.
My parents at a very young age taught me the difference
between right and wrong and responsibility and I feel this is
not being done anymore. Frankly, I went to France and instead
of fearing the fact that my plane would go down I have a
greater percentage of dying in my school because one of my
friends might get ticked off because I told him he looked
funny and he might shoot at me. I feel this is a great danger
and should be stopped at a more recent time where children
are more able to be influenced by what happens in their
lives.

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Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives

on behalf of NATHAN LOIZEAUX

Regarding COLLEGE FINANCING--May 26, 2000

NATHAN LOIZEAUX: Thank you very much. I would like to talk
to you about college financing. I am a Mt. Abraham senior

[[Page E1518]]

right now. I will graduate this year, and I have been trying
to get together finances to go to college and I am just
realizing how hard it is. Yes, there are a lot of
scholarships out there today. I have actually a book about
this thick.
Unfortunately, once you start whittling down parents,
grandparents, what activities you are involved in, your
heritage, all of a sudden you find out the white male does
not have to many scholarships out there, and then not only to
top that off, but he has got to compete with everybody else
in the state for the exact same scholarships.
Also my parents and great grandparents started a college
account for me. They started saving up money for me. My
parents were severely penalized for having a college savings
account. I think that is totally wrong. You and people in
Congress, people in government want teenagers and high school
students to be able to go on to college to get a better
education, and in this day and age you need a better
education to get a good job. Yes, there are thousands of jobs
out there for $6 an hour.
Unfortunately, you are never going to make it out of that
gene pool without a college education. Unfortunately, a
college education is very expensive. Take UVM here, for
instance. I work here as a temporary helper in the summer.
This college just recently raised its tuition. Colleges all
over the state are raising their tuition. It is harder and
harder to get into a college. You want us to get a better
education but are denying us the ability to do that by not
giving us the funds. And when colleges are constantly
bringing up their tuition to get in, it makes it all that
much harder. When parents are being penalized for having the
accounts for the children to set aside money to go to the
college it is even worse.
In this day and age if you are on welfare you're better
off. You can get into a college, no problem on welfare
basically at this point because they will pay for everything
to go to college. A friend of mine is on welfare right now
and she got accepted to the university here, UVM, and she
basically does not have to pay a thing while she is here the
entire time. She has lower grades than I do, she is not
involved in the community nearly as much as I am. I applied
for the same place here, but I cannot get in even though I
have better academic grades and I am involved in more things.
That does not really matter to me, I do not care about their
selection process. It is the fact that people like me are
getting denied money for setting aside money for this time
and because just the raising of funds to get into a college
and the expenses. We need to get a better education but in
order to do it we need to have the funds. The problem is we
do not have the funds.

____

Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives

on behalf of KATHY UNGER, MEREDITH BLESS, CULLEN BOUVIER and SCOTT WARD

Regarding CIVIL UNIONS--May 26, 2000

KATIE UNGER: I am going to begin. Okay. We are here to
support the Civil Union Law that Vermont passed recently, but
we are of the opinion that it should have gone further, and
we think that--basically we think that everyone should have a
right to be joined in marriage. And when you define marriage
it is sort of a celebration of life and of loving another
person and it is just something that everyone should be able
to do whether or not their partner is male or female.
MEREDITH BLESS: We also think that it should be forced on
the church to marry two people. It should be separate from
the church because it is kind of against the church for that.
But somebody who could do it like a justice of the peace.
SCOTT WARD: As Katie said, we commend Vermont for taking
the steps that it has, but we feel that it is more of a
national issue and that other states need to be involved in
this also. So we really feel it does need to be taken further
and not just Vermont.
CULLEN BOUVIER: I take the standpoint of Scott as well. I
think that Vermont is doing a great job taking the first
steps in the Civil Union Bill and doing great things for
people, but you see different things in the papers about--
last week I can recall a man putting out a sign by his
driveway that was not very kind words toward homosexual
people, and you just realize that there is a lot more that
can be done.

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Hon. BERNARD SANDERS in the House of Representatives

on behalf of THALIA SPARLING and KATE EARLEY

Regarding BIOENGINEERING--May 26, 2000

THALIA SPARLING: I wanted to raise the issue of genetically
modified food which the FDA has refused to label on products.
Genetically modified food has been on the market for six
years now and there is very little awareness from the common
people, the public about this issue. And there is a really
strong grass roots movement in Vermont right now over this
issue, and it is an issue that really needs to be addressed.
KATE EARLEY: I feel that we do not know enough about this
issue that they should not be able to label it, because
basically they are just feeding us things we do not know
thinking about. And if they have to say how much of what is
in certain foods and they have to label food now, they should
not be able to not label this, because it does not give a
person a choice of what they are putting in their body. And
they do not know enough of what could happen 20 years from
now from doing this or 30 years from now or generations from
now how it could effect us physically or in the environment
or anything. We need to do a lot more testing before they can
be allowed to put this in the food, or label it, at least
label it.

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