President Clinton proposed $14 million of last year's $76 billion budget surplus be allocated to efforts to close that pay gap between men and women.

Clinton's plan proposes to triple the number of enforcement workers at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, provide assistance to employers to help them ensure compliance with EEOC laws and create public service announcements to inform women of their rights.

The EEOC has been working to address cases of wage discrimination, on the basis of sex and for other reasons, and this additional funding would allow it to tackle even more cases. With greater enforcement, employers would be forced to address an issue many have been ignoring for too long.

But simply throwing more money at enforcement will not improve the situation. Attitudes in the workplace need to change, and 30-second television spots about women's rights are not the way to educate employers and employees of their responsibilities and rights.

The money Clinton proposes to set aside would be better spent on education. It could possibly be allocated to additional scholarships or programs that would encourage more women to enter scientific and technological fields, areas in which women will be more likely to earn more.

The wage gap has been attributed to discrimination, women's need to balance work and family and a history of lower pay for female-dominated jobs. Creating advertisements that people will overlook is not the best way to use this money; using it to create incentives to get more women into the workplace with pay rates equal to those of men should be the goal of this proposal.