December 5, 1967
Page 35015
ROLE OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IN GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on October 13-14, 1967, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations sponsored a national conference on legislative leadership. This conference brought together speakers, senate presidents, majority and minority leaders from the various State legislatures, Members of Congress, and representatives from the academic community for a look at ways in which "bridges might be built between State legislative bodies and the National Congress." Over 125 State legislators and others attended the conference in Washington.
The Advisory Commission, of which I am a member, along with the senior Senator from North Carolina [Mr. ERVIN] and the senior Senator from South Dakota [Mr. MUNDT], is to be commended for its initiatives in holding this conference. In 1966 the Senate and House Subcommittees on Intergovernmental Relations considered the 5-year record of the Commission and made suggestions for its continuation, including some changes in emphasis and direction.
Among the suggestions made was that the Commission, from time to time, convene national conferences on major problems in the field of intergovernmental relations. The conference between congressional and State legislative leaders was needed because State legislatures have gone unattended and relatively unrecognized for too long, despite the fact that they are a very important part of our American governmental system.
Mr. President, in one of the conference sessions, Vice President HUMPHREY addressed the assembled delegates on the general subject of what State legislatures could do to help make Federal programs more flexible and realistic. As on many occasions, I find myself in complete agreement with the principal points made by the Vice President in his address to the legislative leaders. I was particularly impressed by his emphasis on the role of private enterprise in providing jobs for unemployed youth and for suggesting that the State legislatures begin to experiment in ways to further the cooperation between government and business in combating problems of unemployment and economic deprivation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the excerpts from the Vice President's remarks be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the excerpts were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EXCERPTS FROM REMARKS OF VICE PRESIDENT HUBERT H. HUMPHREY
The general theme of my conversation about the country is that through a partnership among Federal, State and local governments and the private sector, we are trying to upgrade the quality of American life, maximize the performance of the American community, and energize and revitalize the lives of our people. I don't believe that is a naive philosophy nor do I think it is a farfetched hope.
One of the main difficulties in America today is lack of satisfactory communication between the executives and the legislators of the different levels of government. We have this problem even at the federal level, and here we have had a determined and considerable program to keep in close touch with our legislative leaders in the Congress, both majority and minority. I mention this at the Federal level because I think this is the secret of governmental progress. You make progress out of cooperation, out of adjustment, sometimes out of compromise, but at all times out of promoting a better understanding among those who have responsibility, and the responsibility of a legislator, State or Federal, is tremendous.
We at the Federal level must work not only with our Congress, but we must also work with the legislators, particularly with the legislative leadership, at the State level. Practically every program initiated by the Federal Government in recent years requires active cooperation and participation by the State – if not by the State government, at least by an instrumentality of the State which must be authorized by State legislation.
All the programs we have, everything from highways to the poverty program, depend upon your cooperation. If we are going to do anything about air and water pollution or better education, about cities’problems or the problems of rural America, it will in large measure depend upon
what the State legislatures are willing to do. When the State legislatures do not give consideration to the needs of cities, the mayors just come pell-mell down to Washington and start a major war on you. That is exactly what has happened.
Many times we in Washington are prone to think of the United States of America as if it were one solid board with one permanent grain all the way through it, with no variations. But, this is a pluralistic society. It is a mosaic. It is not a monolith, it isn't a national community that has one culture, one ethnic group, one religion, one type of economy. It is a mixture. That is its vitality, its beauty, and that is also its complexity. Therefore, when national legislation is passed, we must realize that it must be rather broad in principle and have adaptations that fit the State and the community. That is where you come in with your advice and, with your counsel.
I have noticed in the last year that some legislative leaders are beginning to testify before Congress. That is exactly what we need. We need to hear from the majority leaders and minority leaders of the State legislatures on every bill of any consequence that requires State cooperation. We need to hear from your governor, too, who represents the total State. We really need your counsel and advice.
In one of our cabinet meetings, the President of the United States said, "Before you start sending. up legislation, I want you to double check with governors and with legislative leaders to see what the bugs are in this, to see if this is the sort of thing that will work, to see that this is the sort of thing that is needed." It doesn't mean that we will veto something that we planned on doing, but I think that rational and reasonable men will take your advice seriously.
Might I suggest that you do the same in your State legislature; that if there is legislation that affects local government, you should talk with the local people.
The partnership that we need between Federal and State, between President and Governor, between Senator, Congressman, and State legislator, between President and Vice President and between Majority Leader and Minority Leader is one of mutual respect and one in which we each carry our share of the load, where we can talk it out ahead of time.
Now I am going to be more specific. What are some of the critical needs today? I think you know them.
First of all, in our poverty areas, and every State has some, the basic need is a job! That job can best be provided through private industry, and I think it is the duty of every officer in the Federal and State Government to work with private industry to find out how those jobs can be provided.
The people that are unemployed today, most of them, are what we call unemployables. These people are unskilled, oftentimes poorly educated, all too often discouraged and frustrated, sometimes hostile and cynical.
They have a debate going on in Congress now about training people that are on welfare. I believe these people should be trained if physically able. We are not trying to build a Welfare State in this country. We are trying to build a State of Opportunity!
The easiest thing for a man in government to do in a rich society is to write a check, even if he has to write it on borrowed money. You can have checkbook welfare and checkbook compassion, too. I believe that the handicapped, people really in need, children and mothers that cannot work, and children that are unable to work, of course, need to have welfare, compassion, and charity.
But I want to say that charity and welfare can be carried too far. What you really ought to do is start to separate the welfare cases from the opportunity cases. And that means that we need to emphasize the training, the education and the development of human resources, not by the opiate of a welfare check, but by the exciting experience of training and guidance and education and counseling and motivation.
I happen to think that this is where all levels of government have a role and it cannot all be done by the Federal Government by any stretch of the imagination. The Government of the United States is not in Washington. Just part of it is here. It is in the State capital, in the county seat, and in the city hall. That is where the government is closest to the people.
I think State legislative bodies, along with the State governors, should start to think about how they, in their States, can work through their school system, through their training institutes, through their private enterprise, to get the hard core unemployed employed, trained, on the job, and productive. The greatest single source of new economic power in America is in the poor.
We have hundreds of thousands of workers unemployed today because they are unemployable according to certain standards. We need to beneficiate those people. This is what can happen in America. I visited a training program conducted by the Alameda Central Labor Council in Alameda, California. They were training welders and on the morning I arrived, six welders got a job. And who do you think they were? They were hard core unemployed who never had a job in their lives, and most of them had been in jail or a reformatory. They had already placed over a hundred of them. Every one of them had been a welfare case or had been in a penal or a correctional institution.
Examples such as the Alameda program show that it can be done. I think the jobs ought to be in private industry. I think that we have had far too much emphasis upon the Federal Government trying to do it alone. I think every State legislature ought to take a look at its tax laws to see whether there are any tax incentives you can give your private industry to train workers in your State.
I am here to ask you to innovate at the State level. I think our State legislatures are the laboratories of democratic government, and I am of the opinion that when we're talking about what the Federal Government ought to be doing, we need some test areas to see how it really works.
So I ask you to give your attention to jobs and to urban legislation. In the model city bill we have put together for the first time a program that permits participation by State Government, local government, and private groups in the rebuilding of a neighborhood and of a city.
I have called the model cities program a Marshall Plan for the United States. I still do, because that is what it is. It provides for realistic planning – Federal, State, and local. And it provides for private initiative and private participation. We are not going to rebuild America out of Washington. We are not going to rebuild America out of public funds. We are going to do it out of private funds. The public can help. The public can give the extra measure, the loan guarantees, maybe the tax incentives. The public can help with the planning money and with the technical assistance. But to rebuild America as it needs to be in some areas is going to take private investment, private encouragement, private initiative, and that is going to require our cooperation.
I ask you to help us in our youth program. I am Chairman of the Youth COUNCIL. The youth opportunity Program is designed to help youth get started on the right foot. We have to find jobs for young people so that they are exposed to wholesome environments on the playgrounds, in jobs, and in training programs. I have called upon every Governor and every Mayor in America to set up a Youth Opportunity Commission. More crimes are committed by people 15 or 16 than by any other group. That young man or woman is a restless soul, and the greatest source of power is not atomic power but youth power. It should be directed to constructive purposes.
Last summer, we provided 1,400,000 jobs for young people. A year ago, it was a million. This last summer, we provided 25,000 camping experiences in Boy Scout camps across the United States, through the help of private individuals in your communities, and with some help from the Federal government.
What about a camping program in your State? What can you do about it in the next legislative session? Do you have enough camps? Are you really interested in getting these young people a camping experience?
What about a job program? Have you called upon the employers in your State? Has your Governor set up a commission or a youth council to energize the private and public resources of your State to take care of youth problems?
We have agencies and institutions that take care of those in trouble. Every time one gets arrested you give him attention. But they have to get in trouble before they can be rehabilitated. What about keeping them out of trouble? What about a youth program in every State – not in Washington alone? I call upon you to do something when you go back to your State legislature, if it is only passing a resolution called the attention of the people in your State to the fact that the number one asset is their youth, that in your State, there are a number of them without jobs, without part-time jobs, without adequate education, and that in the summer, they're standing on the street corners. They ought to be in a factory, in a wholesale house, or on a road job. They ought to be working, and they can be.
I'm happy to tell you that private industry is excited about this. All over America, we're getting help now.
In Kansas City this summer a hundred businessmen organized into a committee. They went from plant to plant and they put on 2,200 young people that never had jobs before in private industry. These were hard-core unemployed that would be involved in trouble unless they were at work.
In summary, we need you, and I think you need us. I think we ought to consult on legislation before the legislation becomes a reality. We need your counsel and advice. I ask you to take a good look in your home State. What can your legislature do to stimulate not just the War on Poverty but the Adventure of Opportunity. We need the revitalization of State government in America as we have never needed it before. We need to understand that the power of this Nation is in its people and its private resources. We need to follow that philosophy and we need to make our government a partner with the private sector. I appeal to you to take the lead and we'll try to cooperate.