March 23, 1971
Page 7417
REVENUE SHARING – REMARKS BY SENATOR MUSKIE
Mr. METCALF. Mr. President, on March 22 the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE), chairman of the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, spoke to the leaders of our Nation's cities about revenue sharing. The Senator is no stranger to the subject. Last year the subcommittee held hearings on his revenue sharing proposals. In this speech, Senator MUSKIE outlined proposed legislation to be submitted this year. I commend it to the attention of the Senate and ask
unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be-printed in the RECORD, as follows:
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE TO THE CONGRESSIONAL-CITY CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES AND THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS
Some years ago, a resolution was said to have been introduced at a town council meeting in my state. Its provisions were these:
1. That our town build a new jail.
2. That our town build the new jail from the materials of the old jail.
3. That our town continue to use the old jail until the new jail is built.
If any one group has heard that kind of resolution before, it is the mayors of America. In the 1960's, Americans embraced the cause of reaching the moon. In the 1970's, we must embrace a cause of equal vision, perhaps of even greater challenge – the cause of reaching each other.
Nowhere is that cause more urgent than in and around our cities. For if we fail to provide the public services people need in urban America, if we allow worn and dilapidated neighborhoods to go unredeemed, if we stand passively by while cities breed crime and deprivation and despair, then we will become two societies – the suburban affluent and the urban poor, each fearful and suspicious of the other, each bitter and hostile toward the other.
Plato once wrote, "Until the philosophers are kings . . . cities will never have rest from their evils . . .”
That may or may not be inevitable. But you know as well as I that if that is to be avoided, cities today need more than philosophy. Cities need more than expressions of concern for the so- called"urban crisis." Cities need money, and they need money now.
Money may not be the answer to all the problems of our cities. But without money, none of the talk of a so-called "New American Revolution" will bring anything but further frustration and disappointment.
I know many of you support the concept of revenue sharing, and so do I.
But 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 which need them the most.
I do not support a revenue sharing plan which provides inadequate safeguards against the use of funds to perpetuate discrimination.
Therefore, the Administration's revenue sharing proposals, as they are presently constituted, do not meet my objectives and do not have my support.
Under the Administration's general revenue sharing bill, Beverly Hills would be entitled to twice as much per capita as New York, and four times as much per capita as Cleveland.
Under the Administration's Law Enforcement revenue sharing bill, no provision is made for the pass-through of funds to the cities, where the greatest crime problem exists.
Under the Administration's general and special revenue sharing proposals, reliance is placed on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for protection against discrimination. But that reliance is not enough, certainly not when we have an Administration whose enforcement of Title VI has left something to be desired.
Revenue sharing which overcomes these objections would be sound, it would have my support, and we can work together toward that end.
However, as a practical political matter, I have serious doubts that a meaningful program of revenue sharing has as good a prospect in this session of Congress as other measures which are also worthwhile.
I therefore urge you to consider federal assumption of welfare – which is another form of revenue sharing, and a good one, as a viable political objective in this session of Congress, which we can adapt to your needs if we work at it.
Federalization of welfare, even under the present inadequate system, would relieve the states and cities of 7½ billion dollars in welfare costs they will spend this year. That figure is expected to climb in the next fiscal year above 9½ billion dollars.
But even more important, federalization of welfare can give us the opportunity to reform and to humanize our archaic welfare system, under which payment levels vary from state to state, and are inadequate for all. It can give us the opportunity to improve the lot of 9 million persons who presently receive some form of federal welfare assistance, and of millions of others who do not but should.
Federal assumption of welfare costs should include welfare reform. It should provide for a decent minimum annual income for every family receiving welfare assistance. In addition, it should provide that Washington will ultimately pay for the cost-of-living supplements which states and localities now provide.
Granted, there is no assurance that States, which pay most welfare costs, would pass on their savings to hard-pressed cities and towns. But we must devise incentives for having them do exactly that.
There is no single answer to help the cities, and we should not pretend there is. But the federal government must do much more to save the most vital places on the face of our national map.
The only answer available to most cities acting by themselves does not work anymore. The cities can continue to increase property taxes and business taxes and income taxes, but as they do, they will be emptied of the white, the affluent and the young, and of the businesses which are so vital to their health.
That is a trend this nation cannot long endure. Nor can we expect our cities, large or small, to reverse that trend by themselves. They have been the step-children of the federal system for too many years, and they simply lack the resources to improve their inheritance.
Part of the answer may lie in a rational revenue sharing plan, or federalization of welfare.
Part of the answer clearly lies in getting our economy back on its feet. In a growing, vigorous economy the States and cities can generate more of the revenue they need to meet their rising costs.
Only last year, the combination of unemployment, inflation and a stagnant economy placed an additional burden of 10 billion dollars on State and local governments, $4 billion in lost revenues, $3 billion in increased costs for welfare and unemployment compensation, and $3 billion in extra expenses due to inflation.
The economic policies of the Nixon Administration have added two and a half million people to the ranks of the unemployed. They have added a full point to the rate of inflation. They have caused corporate incomes to fall in 1970, 9.6 billion dollars below what they were in 1969.
That is why the welfare rolls are longer. That is why wage settlements are harder. That is why city and State finances are weaker.
I believe we must take these initial steps: First, we must invest the 600 million dollars which Congress appropriated last year for housing, for water and sewer improvements, for urban mass transit, but which the Administration continues to withhold. This is not a new commitment the cities seek, but an old promise which the Administration has not kept.
Second, we must keep other old promises – for Federal support of community programs. You don't keep old promises by wiping out of law enforcement assistance legislation the only provision that assures the cities a fair share of Federal funds.
You don't demonstrate commitment to the cities by gutting Model Cities, one of the new Federal programs which deals with the most blighted parts of our urban areas.
You don't demonstrate commitments to the cities by failing to appropriate the hundreds of millions of dollars for air and water pollution legislation.
You don't demonstrate commitment to the cities by reducing summer job funds for young people by 32 million dollars, or by doubling the proportion cities will have to pay under these programs.
And above all, you don't demonstrate the commitment that must be made to our cities by continuing and expanding a disastrous war in Indochina or by adding 4.2 billion in new obligational authority to the defense budget.
Third, we must accelerate some of the personal income tax cuts now scheduled for 1972 and 1973, to increase consumer buying power and to encourage the creation of at least half a million jobs.
Fourth, we must enact an on-going program of public service employment. Jobs in public safety and health care and pollution control are not leaf raking jobs. They deserve not to be characterized as "dead end", certainly not by a President who insisted on jobs for welfare recipients.
So I intend to support a rational system of revenue sharing and federalization of welfare.
But I shall work as well for making good on our old promises and for continuing the categorical programs which direct assistance to people who have been left out in the past.
I intend to submit the, following proposals to the Congress:
First, I will submit a revenue sharing bill similar to one which I proposed in the last Congress.
That legislation allocates Federal assistance to states and cities on the basis of relative need. It provides an effective way to reduce the imbalance in revenue distribution, and it improves the chances for equal opportunity without regard to geographic location. In addition, the legislation I will offer could encourage tax reform at the state and local level, shifting the tax burden from regressive sales and property taxes to the progressive income tax.
Second, I will submit an intergovernmental cooperation bill, similar to the one I introduced last year. This bill would provide for consolidation and joint-funding of grant-in-aid programs, for establishing uniform reporting procedures, and for periodic Congressional review to determine if these programs are accomplishing their purposes.
The need for this kind of legislation is obvious. A governor or mayor should not have to deal independently with a dozen or more Federal agencies before he can get a comprehensive program of assistance approved for his state or city. Nor should he have to hire a specialist to steer him through complicated application and reporting procedures every time he seeks to obtain a new Federal grant..
Third, I will submit a bill to create a state and urban fellows program, for the purpose of attracting outstanding young people into state and local government in greater numbers. This legislation would expand the benefits of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act which we enacted last year.
Fourth, I will support federalization of welfare assistance. Cities need help, not just to make people more affluent or less discontent. Cities need help to give people who live and work there a sense of freedom in a healthy environment.
We think of the environment as air and water and natural resources, which it is and which we must conserve and improve. But a healthy environment for man is also something else. It is a tenement house free of rats. It is a neighborhood free of deprivation and decay. It is a city street free of fear.
I believe no matter how long it may take or how much money, we must not lose sight of the ultimate goal – where we have cities of lively promise, of beauty, of spaciousness, where men and women are truly free to determine how they will live.
The freedom to escape to the suburbs is not a real choice. People will live in the cities if they are places which bring out the best in man and not the worst. People will live in cities if they are places of confidence and not of uncertainty.
This much is certain. The goal of urban revival in the 1970's must be our goal as a nation. The goal of providing a more hopeful life in our cities and a more tolerable environment for our people must be our goal as a nation.
There is no other choice. Let us be able to say by the end of this decade that we recognized the choice and acted upon it. Let us be able to say with a sense of achievement and continuing purpose what Thomas Wolfe once said:
"To every man his chance – to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining golden opportunity – to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him – this ... is the promise of America."