September 25, 1967
Page 26680
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, earlier today, the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey severely criticized the President of the United States for an alleged vacuum of leadership in dealing with the problems of the cities. Among other things, he used this language:
There are times in the life of every man, and every nation, that demand the courage of conviction. I find it difficult to discern either courage or conviction in the actions of the Administration to date. The banner is raised, at least intermittently, but there is no drive behind it. The Administration marches backward.
Mr. President, the legislation which is pending before us is of great concern to all of us -- to the Senators from New Jersey, the Senators from Maine, and the Senators from all 50 States. The record shows that it is a problem of concern to the President of the United States. I think the record will show further, Mr. President, that no President in our history has shown more concern, forwarded more recommendations, or fought harder for programs dealing with the problems of the cities, than has President Johnson.
Understandably, among those who are concerned there will be differences of opinion as to specifically what programs should be enacted, what programs should be supported, or what programs should be pushed, and at what time. But to disagree as to these details, Mr. President, is something different from questioning each other's motives or each other's sincerity. I submit, Mr. President, that it does not serve the cause of the cities, the cause that so many of us seek to serve, to destroy the credibility of one who has been one of the best friends that the cities have had in the history of our country.
The record of the 89th Congress, Mr. President, is replete with new, imaginative, and meaningful programs dealing with the problems of urban America which were submitted to us by the administration. The 89th Congress enacted scores of programs having an impact upon the lives of the citizens in our cities. The number of grant-in-aid programs, for example, has increased from slightly more than 70 in 1960 to well over 200 at the present time; and most of those programs deal, in one way or another, with the problems of the crowded masses of people in our cities.
The Senator from New Jersey has criticized the President for the inadequacy of his programs. Let me say, on that point, that the President must deal with the political realities which confront him, as much as must the distinguished Senator from New Jersey.
(Mr. CLARK assumed the chair as Presiding Officer at this point.)
Mr. MORSE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for a moment?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. MORSE. I rise to support the Senator from Maine, because I think there is not the slightest basis in fact for criticizing the President of the United States in respect to the position he has taken in trying to help the cities, and particularly to help solve our ghetto problems. I think history will record that the President of the United States has exercised remarkable leadership in trying to awaken the American people to the nature of this very serious domestic problem.
As the Senator from Maine knows, I have worked very closely with the President ever since he has been in office, and with President Kennedy before him, in connection with our whole educational program. If Senators will just take a look at the record President Johnson has made in proposing legislation and supporting those of us who have handled his legislation in connection with Federal aid to education for special educational programs within the cities, they will have all the rebuttal they need to meet any partisan attack on the President of the United States.
Mr. President, I feel that I have some little right, as well as a duty, to express my support of the President, in view of the fact that when I find myself in disagreement with him, as in the field of foreign policy, I do not hesitate to express my disagreement.
I wish to say that this President is a great President, and I want particularly to stress the fact that his greatness is illustrated time and time again by the positions he has taken in connection with our city problems. He has again, as I have worked with him this year on our educational programs, recognized the importance of our doing something about the problems of education in the ghettos and the metropolitan areas of the country. I shall not take further time to state the documentation I can state in support of that position, but let me mention one very quickly: The leadership of the President in connection with the Job Corps training program, which seeks to get down to the slum areas and take out of them the school dropouts which, if we do not do something for them, will drastically increase the populations of the prisons of this country.
What the President seeks to do is to have them increase the number of men and women in jobs. For, when we do that, we give them the economic wherewithal with which they can develop their citizen responsibility.
I am therefore pleased to have this opportunity to say these few words in support of the position the Senator from Maine has taken.
The support he has given the President with respect to this issue is richly deserved,
(At this point, Mr. MORSE took the chair as Presiding Officer.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Oregon for giving me this support. He can speak first hand on this subject, especially in the field of labor and education legislation. I am delighted to have him help fill out the record.
Mr. President, I was speaking of the political reality which the President has had to face and which the Senator from New Jersey must face. For example, last year the President sent up his recommendation for the model cities program. He asked for $2.3 billion to be spent over 6 years.
In committee, where I was privileged to handle the legislation, in order to get the bill out of committee I had to agree to a reduction of that program from $2.3 billion to $900 million for a 2-year period.
We brought that bill to the floor of the Senate. I point out to the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey that a majority of his party on this floor voted against a bill which represented a sharp reduction from what the President had requested.
What has happened this year? This year the President asked for full funding of the model cities program in the amount of $662 million. What happened to that request? The House cut it to $237 million. And how did the Members of the House from the political party of the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey vote? One hundred and forty-one Republicans in the House voted against the measure, or voted for the cut.
I do not use these figures to question the honesty of the support which the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey gives to these programs. I use these figures to point out that, just as he must face the political reality, so must the President.
With respect to the pending legislation, the poverty program, has the Senator from New Jersey forgotten that it was this President who created the war on poverty? I can recall vividly when he sent that recommendation up to us shortly after he became President, the cries of ridicule and political expediency with which it was greeted by Members on the Republican side of the aisle.
The President fought to get that program created. He has fought to keep it alive ever since. And it is interesting to note the reaction of another member of the political party of the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey to the President's leadership in this respect.
I will read from this morning's issue of the New York Times, a statement of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, of New York, made on the program "Issues and Answers."
Mr. Rockefeller, when questioned whether President Johnson had failed to recognize the racial problem, said:
To the contrary, I personally think he, as much as anyone, has anticipated the situation, and his poverty program will go down in history as one of the truly significant programs.
This is not Senator Muskie speaking. This is not President Johnson speaking. This is the Governor of the State of New York, a member of the political party of the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey, speaking.
Returning to the subject of political realities, the President sent up a request this year for funding of the rent supplement program, and on the House side it was completely eliminated from the bill -- 163 Republicans voted against it; 12 Republicans voted for it.
Mr. President, in his speech the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey used this language:
The banner is raised, at least intermittently, but there is no drive behind it.
Mr. President, I would like to refer to some copies of correspondence which indicate that the President not only sends up these recommendations and appropriation requests, but also works unceasingly day in and day out behind the scenes to rally congressional support for the programs.
One would think that in these days when he is beleaguered by our overseas problems that he might let up, and that he might be forgiven for letting up, on these domestic programs. However, in August of this year -- and I have copies three letters were sent by the President to the appropriate leaders on the Hill pleading for their support for programs of the cities.
On August 23, 1967, he wrote to the distinguished minority leader, the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DIRKSEN], in which letter he said:
I am glad I had an opportunity to speak to you Friday about the critical importance of obtaining favorable and prompt legislative action on the problems of our cities.
We are all very much encouraged by your support for the Rent Supplement Program and I wanted you to have copies of letters I have sent to Senators Mansfield and Magnuson. I hope you will study them and give your support to these programs which are so important to all of our cities, some of the most important of which you so eloquently speak for.
On the same date, he wrote to the Vice President, and in the opening paragraph of that letter, he said:
As we discussed at breakfast this morning, it is of critical importance that the programs for the cities now pending before the Congress be enacted with the funding we have requested.
On the same date, the President wrote to the distinguished Senator from Washington [Mr. MAGNUSON], who so ably handled the independent offices appropriations bill last week, and the President said in the opening paragraph:
I am writing to you about three vital requests now pending before the Subcommittee on Independent Offices Appropriation: the rent supplements program, the Model Cities program, and a program of urban research and technology. These three new, far-reaching and innovative measures are, I believe, among the most important measures of this decade.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the complete text of the three letters be printed at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, D.C.,
August 23, 1967.
Hon. HUBERT H. HUMPHREY,
Vice President of the United States,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR HUBERT: As we discussed at breakfast this morning, it is of critical importance that the programs for the cities now pending before the Congress be enacted with the funding we have requested.
As you know, both you and I have met over the past several months with hundreds of Governors, Mayors and urban specialists and we have attempted to enlist their support in the major effort that must be mounted at every level to attack successfully the problem of the cities.
The most critical point of our attack at this time must be directed at enacting the programs carefully and thoroughly planned and thought out by our Task Forces and Special Commission Groups, the Bureau of the Budget and Cabinet Officers involved. As you are well aware from our many meetings and discussions of this subject, this is the legislation outlined in the letter I wrote to Senator Mansfield and the enclosed letter which I have sent to Senator Magnuson.
I want you to intensify your efforts in this area with the Cabinet and work closely with my staff in obtaining prompt consideration and action on this legislation.
Sincerely,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, D.C.,
August 23, 1967.
Hon. EVERETT DIRKSEN,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR SENATOR DIRKSEN: I am glad I had an opportunity to speak to you Friday about the critical importance of obtaining favorable and prompt legislative action on the problems of our cities.
We are all very much encouraged by your support for the Rent Supplement Program and I wanted you to have copies of letters I have sent to Senators Mansfield and Magnuson. I hope you will study them and give your support to these programs which are so important to all of our cities, some of the most important of which you so eloquently speak for.
Sincerely,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON.
AUGUST 19, 1967.
Hon. WARREN G. MAGNUSON,
Chairman, Independent Office Appropriations Subcommittee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR Mr. CHAIRMAN: I am writing to you about three vital requests now pending before the Subcommittee on Independent Offices Appropriation: the rent supplements program, the Model Cities program, and a program of urban research and technology. These three new, far-reaching and innovative measures are, I believe, among the most important measures of this decade.
As the subcommittee begins its deliberations, I hope you will consider several facts about these measures:
They embody the best thoughts, the newest ideas, and the wisest advice of the Nation's most eminent specialists on city problems.
They are programs which have enormous potential for our cities.
They are programs to stimulate local initiative and private investment, which are essential to effective action in the cities.
THE RENT SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM
The most striking feature of the rent supplement program, I believe, is its “multiplier effect” -- the power of a few million Federal dollars to call up many millions in private capital.
The $40 million I am requesting for this fiscal year will generate an estimated $500 million in private construction to plan and build more than 40,000 homes and apartments for poor families.
In the twelve months after I signed the first measure providing funds for the rent supplement program, commitments were made to assist more than 34,000 housing units.
At a time when inadequate and dilapidated housing afflicts so many neighborhoods, we dare not lose the momentum which we have already gained. This year, however, the House eliminated all funds I sought for continuing the program.
I believe that this was a step backward -- a serious blow at a time when interest in the program was high. When the House acted, Secretary Weaver was preparing to move forward on new applications for this fiscal year. The House action jeopardized that forward movement.
More than any other low income housing program, this new initiative brings into play the resources and the energy of private enterprise. For it is private developers who build and operate housing projects under this programing, who receive the incentive which rent supplements provide. I believe we can well afford to pursue this creative idea. It will bring new vitality not only to our neighborhoods, but to all private efforts in housing and community development.
THE MODEL CITIES PROGRAM
Nothing shames this modern nation more than squalor in the cities. But it would be unwise to suggest that mere dollars alone can cure that squalor. What is needed most critically is a concentration of manpower, imagination, and local initiative bolstered by public funds.
The Model Cities program provides exactly such a focusing of talent, planning and money. It is the cement which holds together the plans, efforts and programs to build a decent life in the cities. Perhaps more than any other program, Model Cities promises a new charter for American cities.
In 1966, I asked the Congress to approve this program at $2.3 billion over six years. Congress authorized $900 million over two years. This year, we have asked for full funding under that authorization -- $400 million, together with $250 million for special urban renewal projects and an additional $12 million in Model Cities planning funds, or a total of $662 million. This $662 million is the minimum that Congress should consider. Last month, however, the House reduced this figure by two-thirds to a total of only $237 million.
I believe that action was a serious setback for the approximately 200 cities, including most of the largest ones in the Nation, which have already applied for Model Cities funds. I think we owe those 200 cities and their citizens the hope and progress which the Model Cities program, adequately funded, can provide.
Like the rent supplement program, this approach is innovative. It is precisely aimed at the most critical urban problems and it is prudent. Like the rent supplement program, it features a striking economic multiplier effect.
Every dollar of Model Cities funds, for example, has the potential to attract ten additional dollars in local public funds, in private investment, and in other federal funds. The $400 million I am requesting can generate as much as $4 billion in other funds, private, city and state joining in.
When considered in terms of its direct cost to the taxpayers, the Model Cities Act is a modest program. But when seen in terms of its potential to generate new dollars and new efforts, this program has vast power to transform our cities.
I urge you to bring to the attention of each member of the Committee these facts and to restore funds for this program to the full $662 million I requested in January. Eight months have already passed since the request and the need is urgent and the cities need a go ahead signal now.
URBAN RESEARCH
We need the tools which these two programs offer for city building and city planning. But we must also advance in another vital field: urban research and technology.
Since World War II, we have seen truly revolutionary technological advances in space, in defense, in health and medicine. But in meeting city problems, we too often rely upon the same techniques which sufficed decades ago.
If we are to provide the new housing and new knowledge which our Nation urgently needs, we must develop new and faster and more efficient housing techniques. If we are to improve the cities, we need to learn more about the life of cities and their people. The key to that knowledge is intensified research.
I therefore urge that the Committee approve the full $20 million which I requested in my budget for research in urban technology, which the House recently reduced to $5 million.
Today, as never before, those of us in position of national leadership face historic choices. And today, as never before, it is the city which occupies the center of our concern. I hope that you and the other members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and all Senators, will act and act promptly in the light of our historic opportunity and obligation to improve the life of America's city dwellers.
Sincerely,
L. B. J.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, it is not my purpose this afternoon to attack the distinguished senior Senator from New Jersey [Mr. CASE]. I understand that this is a very political year and that we are on the threshold of another year which will be even more political. The newspapers are full of the alleged problems of the President in the political field. So, understandably, it must be a temptation to those on the other side of the political aisle to take a potshot at the program.
But the problem we are discussing, the problem of the cities, is perhaps the most critical domestic issue with which this country has been confronted since the Civil War, if not since the founding of the Republic. If we are to solve it, we must mobilize all of the support, all of the friends, all of the ideas, all of the imagination, all of the courage which is available from any source and apply to them the greatest wisdom of which we are capable. It does not serve that cause to undertake to destroy the credibility of the best friend the cities have ever had in the White House.
The President has sent to Congress more and more innovative programs dealing with these problems than has any other occupant of the White House. I fully understand that there are those in this body who think that we ought to do more at this particular time than the President has recommended. I happen to think that we ought to be doing more in supporting the program to clean up our waters than the President has recommended this year; but because he and I disagree as to the amounts we should make available this year does not make him less a friend of clean waters, less a friend of conservation. His dedication, his interest, and his concern fully match mine in that respect, and I would not for a moment, when I express disagreement with him on the dollar amount we should spend this year, question his motivation.
I am suggesting that we should use the same standard with respect to the problems of the cities.
The distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania is the principal author of title II of the bill pending before the Senate, to create jobs in the cities. I have great sympathy for that title and may vote for it. But the fact that the President has not given that title his support does not take away his credentials as a man dedicated to the problems of the cities.
Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. CLARK. I completely agree with what the Senator from Maine has just said. The President has a very different problem than we do in the Senate. He has the fiscal problem, the budgetary problem. He has on his shoulders the entire responsibility, in large part, of the war in Vietnam.
We in the Senate try to do what we believe is right for our constituents, within the level of our legislative competence and our legislative experience. The fact that the committee has reported this emergency employment bill is not a reflection in any way on the President of the United States.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am happy to have that comment for the RECORD from the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania.
In addition, I wish to make the point I was about to make, that in order to get maximum support for that concept over the long run and, hopefully, the short run the sound tactic is not to divide the friends of the cities but to unite them.
The President supports title I. He created the basic program which title I seeks to advance further.
I do not see that we are serving any useful purpose by undertaking to criticize the President's motives or his effort or his courage or his convictions. If ever leadership has moved into this field, it moved in in the person of President Lyndon B. Johnson. I believe history will give him full credit for that effort, as Governor Rockefeller has suggested. Whatever else happens in his Presidency, whatever has happened in his Presidency, I am sure that the President himself will count as one of his great services to this country the effort he has made to awaken America to the dangers which abound in urban America.
At the turn of this century, my hometown celebrated an anniversary. The principal speaker on that occasion was the president of Brown University. One of the remarks he made which I believe will live for a long time up there, is that Americans have succeeded nobly in founding States, but they have not yet learned to govern cities. This was true in 1900. It is still true in 1967.
President Johnson did not create the problem in 1900, but he is the first President since that time to fully respond to the challenge and to give us programs so sweeping and so broad that Congress itself has not yet given the full support he has requested.
At such time as Congress surpasses the President's recommendations, then perhaps we can stand on the floor of the Senate and say that the President has not done as much as he should have. But at this point no Member of Congress can say that about the President, and there is still a full agenda of possible action in the field of urban problems with which Congress must work.
On August 16 of this year, the President sent to the distinguished majority leader, the Senator from Montana [Mr. MANSFIELD], a list of the programs dealing with urban problems upon which Congress has not yet acted.
So I suggest, Mr. President, that we address ourselves to this agenda. When we have completed action on it, then let us measure what we have done against what the President has requested, and judge each other accordingly. I doubt that the President will come out second best when that evaluation has been made.