June 9, 1966
Page 12835
MODERNIZING LOCAL GOVERNMENT A PRIORITY FOR LOCAL AND STATE LEADERSHIP
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, over the past few years our population growth and technological advancement have generated dramatic increases in governmental activities and services at all levels. Two trends have been especially marked during the sixties: the Federal Government, by the grant-in-aid route, has become involved in many functions formerly performed either by State and local government or not at all. Second, State, and local governments have been increasing their activities, outlays, and payrolls at a record pace.
The first of these trends is well known to all citizens. It has been in the center of national attention and domestic debate since the end of World War II. The second trend is not so well known; it surprises many people that State and local spending for domestic affairs is increasing more rapidly than Federal outlays for this purpose, despite the mass of domestic legislation enacted by the last two sessions of the Congress. However, not a small part of the State and local activities is financed through Federal grants about 20 percent at the present time.
Today Americans stand at the crossroads in shaping their position on the role of government in the late 20th century. We are faced with a certainty: government at all levels is bound to expand because we are going to have more people, our material world is going to be more complex, and as our living standards increase, citizens are going to demand more and more services and amenities from local government, and business will more and more need sound decisions by local government to help promote a strong, vibrant, and growing business community.
State and local government machinery today is creaking and straining with the new and unexpected loads being placed upon it. Governmental structure in our metropolitan areas is growing more and more complex. New municipal incorporations are being permitted and special districts are multiplying. The costs and benefits to individual jurisdictions of increasingly areawide programs, such as air pollution, mass transit, water pollution control, water supply, do not match.
Social and economic disparities of race, income, and age between central cities and suburbs and among suburban jurisdictions themselves are significant and based on incomplete information are growing. The need for services by residents of these local governments and the ability of local governments themselves to provide these services are drifting apart.
In the face of all of these problems, State constitutional and statutory restrictions on local government authority to act and to reorganize are removed slowly in some States and not at all in most. There is a paucity of area wide political leadership.
Too often in the past, citizens have viewed with apathy or even hostility attempts to modernize and revitalize our State and local governments, fearing that this would only make them grow and consume more tax dollars. Unfortunately, many of our State and local governments have been unable or unwilling to meet their responsibilities in full in recent years, with the result that increased demands have been placed upon, and acted on by, the Federal Government.
Today State and local leadership must decide what it is going to do about revitalizing local government in the United States. If State citizens leave it alone, and if the States continue to ignore it, they must reconcile themselves to Federal action of dominant proportions.
If, on the other hand, State citizens join forces to secure through State constitutional amendments, legislative changes, and local citizen action effective and responsive local government, they can help preserve the diversity upon which rests our present form of government in this country.
I was delighted to learn, therefore, from an item in the April 22, 1966, issue of Washington Report, published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, that the Chamber is undertaking a program to explore the problems, possibilities, and paths to effective local government. At this point I ask that the statement of the chambers executive vice president be placed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows
NEW PROGRAM WILL HELP LOCAL GOVERNMENTS BE MORE EFFECTIVE
A new national chamber program to help modernize local and state governments was announced this week by Executive Vice President Arch N. Booth.
"The welfare of the business community is directly connected with the existence of strong, vigorous, and self reliant local government, operating under broad standards set by state governments," Mr. Booth said.
"Local governments are best able to meet the needs of their citizens because they are closest to them and best understand their problems. Local governments must not become mere appendages of the Federal Government."
Under the new program the National Chamber will supply leadership, ideas and coordination at the national level. State and local chambers of commerce will have the responsibility at state and local levels.
Mr. Booth stressed that the Chamber would cooperate fully with the Council of State Governments, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the International City Managers Association, the National Association of School Boards, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, and all other national organizations which have the objective of developing sound and effective local and state government.
He said that action programs should and must be developed, agreed upon and implemented by state and local citizens.
The immediate aim is to help chambers of commerce work in unison with local and state government officials and interested citizens to improve state laws and constitutions so that local and state governments can get to work solving problems and grasping opportunities.
In several states, local and state chambers are ready to start programs. To kick them off, one day forums will be held (in cooperation with the National Chamber) for business leaders, state and local chamber officers, political scentists, and local and state government leaders. They will discuss the obstacles to modernizing local government existing in their state and the steps necessary to overcome them.
"Many local governments are trying to solve space age problems with Nineteenth Century laws," Mr. Booth asserted. "Because of unnecessary restrictions on their activities, some local governments no longer can provide their citizens with the best in educational programs, the best in transportation facilities, and the many other things necessary for the well being and economic growth of a community.
"Business leadership today must decide what it is going to do about local governments. If it doesn’t, we can be assured that the Federal Government will dominate local government.
"If, on the other hand, we join forces with other citizens to help secure the needed state constitutional and legal changes, we can go on to preserve and restore effective and responsible local government."
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am told that this is not an "efficiency and economy" program even though local government modernization would undoubtedly reduce waste. The chamber believes that modernization requires making local government responsible with authority to borrow, to spend, to regulate and to work with neighbors in coping with the burgeoning problems of urban and rural areas.
Solving these problems at home will not come cheap; progress will not be easy. Traditional attitudes of "doing business as usual," political and economic interests, and citizen apathy are all tremendous obstacles to be faced and overcome. But overcome they must be if State and local governments are to survive as viable partners in our governmental system.