April 18, 1973
Page 12982
MAINE CITIZENS VIEW BUDGET CUTS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, several weeks ago I had the privilege of participating in a unique public hearing conducted by the Maine congressional delegation in our State Capitol at Augusta to determine the impact of the Federal budget on State and local budgets in Maine and to explore the capabilities of those governments to respond to the proposed shifts in the pattern of Federal expenditures. Gov. Kenneth M. Curtis, president of the Maine Senate, Kenneth McLeod, and speaker of the Maine House, Richard Hewes, joined the delegation at the hearing.
We heard testimony from citizens, the State legislature, town and county officials, and representatives from the Boston regional offices of HUD, HEW, and EDA. I ask unanimous consent that a list of those people participating in the panels be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the list was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
PANEL NO. 1 – CITIZENS PANEL
1. Introduction and Overview. – Ms. Bola Wakefield, President, Maine Conference on Human Services.
2. Aging – Jack Libby, President, State Council of Older Persons, Armand Pelletier, So. Berwick (Consumer). Technical Assistance – Mrs. Lynn Futon, Office of Community Services, Maine Department of Health and Welfare.
3. Health – Dr. Robert MacBride, Lubec, Director, Lubec Family Medical Center; Technical Assistance – Mark Knowles, Director, Maine Comprehensive Health Planning.
4. Housing – Mrs. Helen Talbot, Portland (and resident of multi-housing project area) Technical Assistance – James Mitchell, Director, Maine Housing Authority.
5. Child Care – Terry Morin, Portland (recipient of child care services funded by Title IVA) Technical Assistance – Ann North Cotter, Director of Maine "4C Program" (Community Coordinated Child Care).
PANEL No. 2 – MAINE GOVERNMENT PANEL
Senator Joseph Sewall, Old Town, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
Earl C. Banks, County Commissioner, Penobscot County, Hampden.
John L. Salisbury, Executive Secretary, Maine Municipal Association, Hallowell, Maine.
John C. Orestis, Mayor, City of Lewiston.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, what we heard from these concerned Maine citizens gave us a very human perspective on the controversy surrounding the administration's budget proposals. I think this controversy should be placed in that perspective so that none of us loses sight of the consequences of our words and actions on people's lives.
I know of no one in this Congress who does not share the President's stated goals that we must limit Federal spending – within a congressionally fixed ceiling – control inflation, keep taxes down, and streamline government. These are our common objectives, and these are not the issues we are arguing about in the current budget debate. What is at issue is a philosophy of government and a question of law.
The President views government as a necessary evil. The Congress sees it as an instrument for the common good, a means of restoring our sense of shared purpose and of great national enterprise.
For a State such as Maine, with limited means but a proven and practical desire to link Federal, State, and local resources for the purpose of meeting the needs of its citizens, the President's philosophy seems strangely out of touch.
Consider the case of the 74-year-old South Berwick, Maine, man who is both blind and diabetic, but up until now has been able to remain nearly self-sustaining in his own home because a homemaker has visited him twice a week. That man, Armand Pelletier, told the delegation hearing that despite his physical problems, "I am still a happy man. With homemaker services, I still have independence in my home – I look for no help, and would not accept any as long as I can manage by myself." But, Mr. President, an estimated 4,218 elderly or disabled Maine citizens may not be able to manage by themselves any longer if the President's proposed termination of the homemaker service program is carried out. This is just one example of a budget cut that fails to consider the human costs involved.
Another such example is a 12-year-old girl in coastal Maine who had never visited a dentist until a Federal grant made it possible for her to have dental care for the first time. Her dentist told me that this child needed to have every tooth in her head pulled out. When her ordeal was over, the little girl told the dentist that she could not remember a day in her life when she did not have a toothache. But the Government assistance that spelled the difference between constant pain or health for this one child is also scheduled to be terminated by the President's budget.
These are just two examples of the consequences of the President's budget cuts in Maine. Some of his other actions are having equally harsh results on Maine citizens.
For instance, last year this President impounded $200 million the Congress had directed to be spent on the construction of 144,500 low-income housing units.
Now he has frozen all direct subsidies to help build decent homes poor people can afford to rent.
What the housing moratorium means to Maine people is as instructive as it is painful. It means that 5,000 jobs in the construction industry will be lost. It means that an estimated 3,240 Maine families will be denied decent housing that would have been constructed with the help of Federal money. In the words of the director of the Maine Housing Authority:
In Maine, 50 percent of last year's housing was subsidized. We simply cannot live through an 18-month moratorium. We would have contractor bankruptcies and a severe economic reversal if we lost the projected $100,000,000 worth of construction out of our small economic base.
Other Presidents have vetoed legislation. And other Presidents have had their vetoes overridden by Congress. Last October this President vetoed the Water Pollution Control Act and a few days later the Congress overrode that veto with only 12 Senators and 23 House Members supporting the Presidential veto. That bill required the Environmental Protection Agency to allocate $11 billion to the States for water and sewer construction programs this year and next, so that they could know what the Federal commitment to them would be. But this President has cut that allocation from $11 billion to $5 billion, directly defying the constitutional requirement that a law enacted over a veto be executed.
What does this impoundment mean for Maine?
It means that 44 municipal sewage projects, including those in the major cities of south Portland and Bangor, that are required by Maine law to be under construction by October 1, 1973, will not be started. It means that total construction work in Maine will be $64.5 million, instead of $142.4 million under full funding.
Additionally, sewer grant applications from 26 other small Maine communities have been rejected because of the President's impoundment of Farmers Home Administration rural facilities loan funds. For a community of under 5,000, it is totally unrealistic to speak of "local responsibility," and EPA funds cannot be stretched to cover these projects without further jeopardy to pollution control projects in larger communities.
Senator Joseph Sewall, Republican chairman of the Maine Legislative Appropriations Committee cited the impoundment of water and sewer funds by the administration as the source of greatest concern to him – not only because of the inability of Maine communities to raise such funds locally, but because of the impact the loss of funds will have on statutory deadlines and timetables for water pollution control.
Other Presidents have imposed their own interpretations on congressional actions. This President simply refuses to carry out the laws he does not like. Last September, the President signed a law extending the war on poverty for 2 full years. He signed that bill. He did not veto it. But now, without consulting the Congress, which passed the law he signed, he has decided to kill the Office of Economic Opportunity.
In Maine alone, this unilateral action means that 969 community action employees, 610 of whom are low-income citizens, will be out of work in the next few months. It means that 16 community action agencies, which have offered imaginative new services to people who have never been touched by Government programs before, will be forced to close.
All modern Presidents have issued regulations to clarify the workings of the law. This President has issued regulations to thwart the intent of the law.
Last October, Congress passed a law limiting Federal grants to various State social services to $2.5 billion a year. But this President's regulations have cut that program by more than half this year and may eliminate it altogether next year. One of his regulations – directly counter to the intent of Congress – imposes new, low limits on the incomes of mothers who can send their children to public day care centers. Such limits mean that many working mothers will be disqualified from the program. And many will have to give up their jobs to take care of their children – and will have to go back on welfare.
Ms. Terry Morin, a consumer member of the Maine State 4-C – Community Coordinated Child Care – committee described to us the disastrous effects of the proposed new regulations on Maine's working mothers:
There are currently 23 child care centers in Maine supported through Title IV-A. The new Federal regulations will force most to close and all will have to terminate services to many families because of ever more restrictive eligibility requirements. The cutback in Model Cities, the new restrictions on public seed money and the prohibition on private seed dollars spell the end to all of the 23 current programs.
Even if the private seed dollars are eligible, many families will lose child care because of the new eligibility requirements.
In our area, York, Cumberland and lower Oxford Counties, we polled nearly every family currently receiving child care services. Of the approximately 325 families we reached, 205 said they will lose their jobs when their child care center closes and 175 of these breadwinners said she will have no choice but to go on welfare ...
Another mother I know of just was able to work her way off of welfare the week of February 16th. The very week the new regulations were printed in the Federal Register. The new IV-A regulations will eliminate her from care now that she is working and she has said she will now have to go back on welfare.
Mr. President, the effect of these regulations is a perversion of the law. The whole sweep of this President's policy endangers a society built on law. He preaches economy, but his economics are false. They do not count the human cost.
For instance, his budget would eliminate more than 150,000 desperately needed public service jobs. In Maine alone, that means the loss of more than 1,500 jobs. For a State with a total labor force of 419,000 and an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent that continues to linger above the national average, the loss of 1,500 jobs will have an adverse effect. In addition, many of the Maine PEP jobs have been filled by Vietnam veterans who have a right to expect a decent break from the country they fought for.
Another false economy is the budget approach to health care for elderly Americans. For some of them hospital charges will be doubled. And do you know why?
The answer the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare gave me at a recent hearing on medicare is this: Old people go to the hospital too much. He says if we make them pay more for hospital care, they will use it less, and hospital costs will go down.
There may be some accountant's logic in that answer, but there is no humanity and not much fact. It is not the elderly poor who are in and out of hospitals and overutilizing hospital beds.
Whatever overutilizing there might be is largely attributable to wealthier people whose private insurance policies and own resources assure them the best medical treatment.
But in Maine, where 11.5 percent of our total population, or nearly 115,000 people, is over 65, any increase in hospital costs under medicare bears an unacceptable human pricetag. What will happen to the more than 27 percent of our senior citizens whose incomes already fall below the poverty level?
The practical result – the human cost and the false economy – is that poor people who really need medical attention will now be further discouraged from getting it.
My description of our hearing in Maine would be incomplete if I implied that the concern of those directly affected by program reductions or terminations was the sole topic of discussion. The comments of elected officials of State, county, and municipal governments provided additional insight into the impact of the administration's proposals.
Several officials commented on the fact that they were acting to respond to cutbacks in the Federal budget with State and local appropriations. Three days before our hearing, for example, the Maine Legislature appropriated $3 million to continue certain social services to low-income persons no longer eligible for HEW supported services under the regulations proposed on February 16. This and similar actions, demonstrate not only the continued need for Government assistance but also the desire of State and local governments in Maine to respond to those needs in a positive manner.
However, the testimony of these public officials also revealed several basic flaws in the thinking of the President's budget planners
First, it documented that many of the programs which the President feels are no longer valuable are not perceived in this manner by Maine citizens. The result, therefore, is not the tax saving anticipated by the President, but a tax shifting from Federal to local taxes.
Second, the testimony revealed serious gaps in the President's announced plans for a transition from categorical programs to special revenue sharing. The mayor of the city of Lewiston, for example, noted that the termination of model cities and the freezing of other HUD programs this year is already having a sharp impact but that community development revenue sharing – which Congress has not even reviewed yet – would not go into effect until late in 1974. What, the mayor asks, is he supposed to do in the meantime?
Third, details of the President's budget proposals are only now becoming available to local officials – after town meetings in Maine have been completed, county budgets acted upon, and the State's fiscal program for the next 2 years prepared. It is too late to respond in many instances and there is too little time for an objective and reasoned formulation of a budgetary response.
Finally, local governments in Maine are in many instances willing to consider assuming responsibility for some of the social programs now administered with Federal funds but it will not be an easy transition for those programs which might legitimately be termed a "local" responsibility. County and municipal governments have not historically performed such services as senior citizens nutrition, homemaker programs, health care, et cetera. For the people now being served, however, the delay while local governments shift their attention is painful indeed.
Mr. President, Maine people are not known as wild-eyed liberals or government spendthrifts. We have a long tradition of fiscal conservatism and of viewing Federal programs skeptically until we see if they will work. We also share a humane philosophy that government must help those who need assistance in times of need.
The widespread fears of Maine citizens about the fiscal ability of their State government and local communities to pick up the costs of the Federal budget cuts, freezes, impoundments, and terminations clearly indicate the perceptions of concerned and sober people. The overflow crowd at the Augusta hearing, and the hundreds of letters I have received from Maine citizens, further support that conclusion.
Maine Gov. Kenneth M. Curtis has prepared a document explaining in detail the effects of this President's budgetary actions on the State of Maine. It shows that Maine will lose an estimated $44.36 million in fiscal year 1973 and $72.94 million in fiscal year 1974 as a result of those actions. I ask unanimous consent that it appear in the RECORD following my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[See exhibit 1]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the best political medicine in disputes like this is compromise, and I hope that compromise will emerge on specific questions of policy. But Congress will not abandon either its philosophy of Government action or its legal right to implement that philosophy.
We will, if we must, write such clear directives for executing our authorization and appropriations laws that administratin officials can only disobey them at the risk of a headon constitutional collision.
And we will, because we must, reform our own budgetary control procedures so that, using the information the executive now keeps to itself, Congress can set the Nation's priorities with coherence and restraint.
We will do these things because our country is not ready to abandon its national commitments to closing the great gaps in our social fabric – the disparities between rich and poor, between the races, between private opulence and public squalor.
I think we can narrow these gaps if we spend less time arguing over who is wasteful and give more attention to our shared concern with efficiency and economy in Government spending.
After all, what both the Congress and the President agree on is that America can do things better than it has. It is time to stop the shouting and finger-pointing and past time to get to work.
[Budget table omitted]