March 25, 1971
Page 8065
THE PRESIDENT'S GENERAL REVENUE SHARING PROPOSAL
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, when I introduced President Nixon's general revenue-sharing proposal in the Senate on February 9, I made a determined effort to make it very clear that the President wants a program and not an issue.
I said at that time that "simple arithmetic makes plain the fact that enactment of a revenue- sharing program will require bipartisan support in a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party." I have repeatedly solicited – in public and in private – the support of members of the Democratic Party for the concept of general revenue sharing with State and local governments.
Prior to introducing the administration bill, I sought the cosponsorship of every Member of the Senate. I was extremely gratified by the cosponsorship of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, the Senator from Alabama (Mr. SPARKMAN), and other Democratic Senators who joined with us. But the number is small. And since that time, unfortunately, very little concrete support for the proposal has been forthcoming from the majority party. I am discouraged, I must confess, but not by any means at the point of despair.
In fact, several events and news reports in recent days have given me renewed cause for cautious optimism about the prospects for significant Democratic support for general revenue sharing. Not the least of these is the interest generated by a speech delivered to a special conference of city officials by our distinguished colleague from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) on March 22.
When I first came to the Senate in 1967, I was assigned to the Committees on Public Works and Government Operations. I sat at that time on two subcommittees chaired by Senator MUSKIE – the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, of which I am still a member, and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations. It was during those early days of my term that I became familiar with the remarkable work that Senator MUSKIE had done in the area of the complex relationships between Federal, county, and city governments. As a former State legislator and Governor, Senator MUSKIE was well aware of the need for revitalizing our federal system, and he was in the vanguard of efforts to do just that, by providing incentives for the training of State and local personnel, by pressing for uniform relocation assistance, and by becoming an early champion of the concept of sharing Federal revenue sharing with the States.
As a member of the Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations, Senator MUSKIE had an additional forum from which to pursue his great and creative interest in strengthening the Federal nature of our Republican system of government.
Even in our work on the Subcommittee on Air and Water Senator MUSKIE has pursued a set of policies that emphasizes the primacy of State and local responsibilities. In each of the major programs designed by that subcommittee for pollution abatement and control, it is always the States which are encouraged to act first, to set their own standards and design their own plans for implementation of those standards. Some States have been slower in acting than we had hoped, but the principle of State responsibility is so strong that we have endeavored to preserve it.
It was in light of Senator MUSKIE's preeminent reputation as an innovative intergovernmentalist that his remarks on March 22 about revenue sharing generated such surprise among the assembled city officials, who had come together for the explicit purpose of supporting the President's proposal.
It has been pointed out – and should be pointed out – that in his speech Senator MUSKIE reiterated his longstanding commitment to the concept of revenue sharing. He said to the city officials:
I know that many of you support the concept of revenue sharing, and so do I.
He went on to say that he intends to introduce a revenue-sharing proposal of his own, similar to the one that he introduced in the last Congress. I am encouraged by this restatement of his support for the concept itself, and I look forward to seeing his bill. As devoted as I am to the concept of revenue sharing – and as little concerned as I am about who gets credit for its ultimate enactment – I may very well decide to support parts of or all of the Senator's proposal where I find it sound.
There were elements of the Senator's speech that I did not find so encouraging, however. Perhaps most disturbing to me was what appeared to be a surprising misreading of the President's bill. If Senator MUSKIE finds – for substantive or political reasons – that he cannot support the President's proposal, that is most certainly his prerogative. But it is not characteristic of my good friend, ED MUSKIE, to dismiss the bill with sweeping generalities unsupported by a careful analysis of the bill itself.
The Senator dismissed the President's proposal in three short sentences. He said:
I do not support a revenue sharing plan which would gut essential categorical aid programs. I do not support a revenue sharing plan which fails to allocate funds for the cities that need them most. I do not support a revenue sharing plan which provides inadequate safeguards against the use of funds to perpetuate discrimination.
Now let us take a look at each of these three statements. As to the first – that the President's bill would "gut" essential categorical aid programs – the Senator is perfectly well aware of the fact that no general revenue-sharing proposal would have any effect on categorical grant-in-aid programs. It is certainly true that the President's so-called "special" revenue-sharing proposals would involve grant consolidation. But that is a wholly separate set of policy considerations. The Senator appears to have confused in his own mind the quite different concepts of general and special revenue sharing. Or perhaps he seeks to promote such a confusion in the general mind. But whatever the case, general revenue sharing would have no impact whatsoever on categorical grants-in-aid, unless one wants to argue that the funds proposed to be shared under general revenue sharing could otherwise be spent on existing or new categorical aid programs. And that would be true of any general revenue proposal; presumably even that to be offered by Senator MUSKIE.
On the second point – that the President's bill fails to allocate funds to the cities that need them most – I would make several observations. First, the formula contained in the President's bill providing for direct aid to county and city governments – the so-called "passthrough" provision – was worked out through months of negotiations with representatives of State, county, and city officials of both major political parties. Second, in recognition of the many different fiscal arrangements between the various State, county, and local jurisdictions across the country, the President's bill proposes an imaginative feature called the "local option," which provides a bonus for those States and local governments that can agree on an alternative "pass-through" formula that meets the unique and individual needs of their own internal fiscal interrelationships.
Third, I would suggest that the revenue sharing bill introduced by Senator MUSKIE in the last Congress hardly met his own objection to the President's bill on this point. The Senator's bill in the 91st Congress provided that only some 35 percent of each State's allocation be passed through to the cities and counties, whereas the President's bill requires a passing through of roughly 50 percent of the State allocations. The Senator's bill in the 91st Congress excluded cities and counties with populations of less than 50,000 from the receipt of any funds at all. This could hardly lead to balanced economic growth and an intelligent policy for the development and growth of rural America. The Senator's bill in the 91st Congress provides for local allocation on the basis of revenues raised locally, essentially the same approach taken by the President's bill but without the local option feature to encourage State and local initiative.
As to the Senator's third objection to the President's bill – that it does not provide adequate safeguards against the use of the funds to perpetuate discrimination – I confess a degree of astonishment. Section 1101 of S. 680, the administration bill, establishes the most elaborate defenses against the discriminatory use of the funds, including a cutoff of such funds by direct reference to title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Senator's revenue sharing bill in the 91st Congress contained no mention of the discrimination question. Some have even objected to the provision in the President's bill on the grounds that it would greatly extend the Federal jurisdiction under title VI, because of the wide variety of uses that the shared revenues would be put, many of which are now funded entirely by State and local revenues.
It is by no means my intention to argue with my distinguished colleague about the relative merits of various revenue sharing proposals. On the contrary, it is my explicit intention to put such arguments behind us. My most sincere and earnest hope is that those of us who believe deeply in the concept of general revenue sharing can resolve our differences on technical points – as important as they may be – and come together in a great bipartisan effort to enact a revenue sharing bill in this Congress.
I assume that in drafting his new revenue sharing proposal to be introduced next month, Senator MUSKIE will repair the seeming deficiencies of his earlier measure. I look forward to seeing the bill and would even welcome a role in the drafting of it, if he were so inclined.
I want a revenue sharing bill. Senator MUSKIE wants a revenue sharing bill. Senator HUMPHREY wants a revenue sharing bill. Congressman REUSS wants a revenue sharing bill. President Nixon wants a revenue sharing bill. The Governors and mayors and county officials of this country want a revenue sharing bill. George Gallup reports that 77 percent of the American people want a revenue sharing bill. Surely, surely we can have a revenue sharing bill, if only we can come together and work cooperatively toward our common goal.
Senator MUSKIE said in his March 22 speech:
As a practical matter, I have serious doubts that a meaningful program of revenue sharing has as good a prospect in this session of the Congress as other measures which are also worthwhile. I therefore urge you to consider federal assumption of welfare.
It may well be that Federal assumption of welfare would be good policy. I reserve judgment on that question. But it is not an alternative to general revenue sharing. Welfare assumption – as compared to revenue sharing would benefit only 11 States and penalize the remaining 39. It would provide virtually no relief to the hard-pressed cities and counties. It is no alternative.
And why must we make the "practical political" judgment that revenue sharing cannot be enacted by the 92d Congress? Trust 77 percent of the American people, State and local elected officials, and scores of Members of the Congress bow to the intransigence of a small group of admittedly powerful but mortal men? I will not make this "practical political" judgment, because it only tends to shore up this arbitrary exercise of power on the part of a few, in a situation where the country requires something better.
When I introduced the administration bill on February 9, I said the following: No one would be more surprised than the President if this bill were enacted line for line and word for word. If during the course of close congressional examination, improvements are indicated, they should and will be made.
Senator HUMPHREY is quoted as having said yesterday that he was willing to work out some accommodation with the Nixon proposal and be "willing to call it a Nixon-Humphrey bill." That would be just great, and I hope it can happen.
As far as I am concerned, it does not bother me one iota if it is called a Nixon-Humphrey bill, or a Muskie bill, or a Mills-Byrnes bill. We can call it anything we want to call it, Mr. President, as long as the concept of general revenue sharing is enacted into law by this Congress, to meet the urgent requirements and demands of the elected officials and the population of this country.
I want to cooperate. The President wants to cooperate. Senator HUMPHREY wants to cooperate. Senator MUSKIE wants a bill. Let us get going on all of this cooperation and come up with a single bill that we can all agree on, or at least a majority of us, and enact it in this Congress.
I hope that the Senate Committee on Government Operations will hold early hearings on the Humphrey bill or the Muskie bill or both. Such early hearings would provide a useful forum for the airing of all the issues. I have no doubt that support for the concept of revenue sharing at such hearings would overwhelm what little opposition there might be to it.
Mr. President, I have tried as hard as I know how to keep this vitally important issue of bipartisan origin and bipartisan support from becoming a political football in the preliminary skirmishing for the presidential campaign. I confess that I have not been wholly successful in that respect. But it is not too late for the Senate of the United States to say, clearly and unequivocally, "We will respond to the legitimate needs and requirements of the people of this Nation, and to local government in the United States, and we will do it on a bipartisan basis, before it is too late."
It may be later than we think as far as local government at the county and city levels is concerned. I admonish my fellow Senators to realize that it is later than many think, and to recall a quotation attributed to an official in the State of Pennsylvania, in trying to point up the extreme economic exigencies of that State's situation, when he remarked solemnly, "Would the last man out of Pennsylvania please turn out the lights?"
Mr. President, we must do something. This is one of those rare instances in the history of the Republic and the history of the U.S. Senate when we have got to lay aside our native instincts and tendencies to make political capital out of minor variations, and enact the basic proposal. It is time to act, and act now; and I signify my willingness to do my part.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.