September 14, 1978
Page 29394
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I understand that Senator CHILES also wants to speak. We have had two speakers on the side of the resolution. I assume the Senator from New York takes a different position. I am happy to yield time to the Senator. How much time would be like?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. If the Senator will yield 10 minutes, that will be sufficient.
Mr. MUSKIE. I would be delighted to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank the Chair and I thank the chairman of the committee.
Mr. President, I rise, as the Senator from Maine has suggested, to oppose the resolution and to make in brief compass, a few relevant statements.
The matter before us must be considered a vote of confidence on the President's urban program. It is the first we shall have in the Senate, and it comes at a moment when the President's program is clearly in great difficulty.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield for just a moment?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Surely.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Thomas Dougherty of Senator GLENN's staff may have the privilege of the floor during consideration and vote on this measure.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, when the administration first came to office, it announced that it hoped to develop a comprehensive national urban policy. A committee was established in the executive branch which worked for the better part of a year and which came forward last March with an extraordinarily detailed and comprehensive program.
It would, for example, establish long-term institutions that might change the fiscal realities of city government and the economic development prospects for urban areas — the URBANK is certainly one such measure, but it would change them slowly, as is perhaps necessary for changes in the institutional arrangements of the Federal Government in this area.
The President did propose two specific and immediate measures to channel funds into urban areas in order to provide resources to city governments. The first of these was the countercyclical revenue-sharing program; it was much needed and it was clearly the first priority. Several months ago, we learned, to our great concern, that by a very narrow vote — 7 to 6 — this bill had been defeated in a subcommittee of the House. If there is to be any hope for this program, it must now be revived in the Senate. The Finance Committee is at work with just that purpose in mind.
In the meantime, the President's proposal to continue the CETA program, the Comprehensive Employment Training Act, has been received favorably in both houses. And the House went forward with the third of his major programs, the labor-intensive public works program, and now indicates its strong intention to support this measure. It is now for the Senate to decide whether it will join in supporting the President and the House of Representatives.
The Committee on Environment and Public Works is considering the matter in the context of a $1 billion provision made in the First Concurrent Budget Resolution. While the committee is not fully of one view on the matter, I think it is clear that if this second resolution were to provide that $1 billion, we would in fact bring the bill to the floor, adopt it and it would become law; then, at least two of the three Presidential proposals will have been adopted. This last one, however, is critical.
I should like to note that the Senator from Oklahoma, in his characteristically open, detailed and responsible way, has suggested that the CETA program is an alternative. It is not. If it were, the President would have proposed it as such. It is one of the three essential measures we must act upon in this Congress.
The third measure responds to a new development in the condition of American cities. It has come about slowly, but commences now to be very conspicuous. I speak of the physical deterioration of our cities, of what city managers refer to as the plant — the streets, the sewers, the public utilities, the amenities and the necessities of the physical city. This is in some respects an altogether new, altogether alarming trend. The cities, which have had good times and difficult times over almost all of the past century, have nonetheless always been characterized by very high levels of maintenance and construction, by attractive levels of appearance, by the provision of the infrastructure of economic activity, by the general amenities that make for successful urban living. This has begun to change. In the North and East, especially, there are more and more cities which appear to be in physical decline; it is decline of an order not known since the late 19th century, when efforts were finally begun to construct cities with an overall sense of their amenities and their economic purpose in mind. The "City Beautiful" was the term used for that movement, and, by and large, it produced its intended consequences — in Manhattan, in Chicago, in Philadelphia, and in Boston. Great urban areas emerged from it.
Now they crumble before us in the most extraordinary, unexplained, but unmistakable manner. It is the purpose of this legislation to respond to that deterioration and to do so in a manner which will provide employment in the private sector, and which will produce tangible, physical results — things you can touch, see, use. With the greatest respect to the CETA program, how many of its results are so visible after the money has been spent? This is a program to repair and restore infrastructure in cities that desperately need that kind of construction. It is a response to a new condition in American cities — a condition about which we know little except that we can readily see its extent. We have authorized by law a study of the matter and the Department of Commerce has begun an investigation into the levels of investment in the infrastructure and the public facilities of American cities.
It is probably the case that we are disinvesting in our urban areas. It is probably the case that the value, if you will, of our public facilities and structures declines, year by year. If we do not respond, we shall end up with an urban America that more resembles a disaster area than it does the great, gleaming American cities which were so much the dream of planners a century ago.
I shall not detain the Senate except to make one further point.
We are informed by the House Budget Committee that the chairman of that committee will recede from the hope of securing a much larger program. They will accept the $1 billion proposal that the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works envisages, and which the first Senate budget resolution provided for. The House of Representatives is willing to go more than halfway with us.
I would hope that we might do the same with them.
I close by saying once again that this vote must be considered a vote of confidence on the President's program. I, for one, will certainly support it.
Mr. JAVITS. Will the Senator yield to me after yielding to Senator MUSKIE?
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I am happy to.
I believe Senator MUSKIE controls the time. Why do I not simply yield and then Senator MUSKIE can yield to the Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will cover the points the Senator has raised after other Senators have spoken.
I will yield 2 minutes to the Senator from New York.
Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, I just want to join my colleague from New York in expressing the dilemma in which this places us. It is very real and very honest.
We are so broke in terms of money, as everybody knows, otherwise the Congress would not have helped us in New York, that we need them all. We need the soft public works, and many of them are quite uneconomical, I have to admit.
We need CETA like life itself, and we need the other programs to which Senator MOYNIHAN referred. It places us in a very grave dilemma.
The only thing I would like to point out is that as far as the cities are concerned, take CETA, for example, which is half structurally unemployed, it is true, unemployment is abating, but we still have 3 million structurally unemployed, and that is us, because it is the blacks, the poor, the new entrants, the unskilled, and so on.
So whatever happens to this motion — as to what will happen, I have little doubt — I hope very much the committee will bare those problems we have and give very serious consideration to the case, as we try to state our case.
Mr. BELLMON. Will the Senator yield 1 minute to respond?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. BELLMON. The Senator from New York was not in the Chamber earlier when I gave figures about how much the Senate budget resolution anticipates doing in these structurally unemployed areas.
I support the Senator from New York's concern for this element of our population. But the Senate has authorized already substantial increases in funding for programs to combat structural unemployment.
The Senate-passed budget resolution assumes $5 billion a year to serve the structurally unemployed. In addition to that $5 billion, we are contemplating $1.5 billion for a youth program, and a new $400 million per year private sector employment training initiative for a total of about $7 billion targeted at the structurally unemployed.
Our concern is that this program as it is now contemplated does not really hit the structurally unemployed, and most of that goes for other purposes.
Mr. JAVITS. Honestly, the mayor of New York's analysis is that it does help us, but not as much as CETA, for the CETA allowance is fully made. But it does help us. So we are in a position where we are is such condition we have to accept, or try for, every rescue item which is thrown open as far as we are concerned.
Mr. BELLMON. I simply say, with the limited resources the Budget Committee has at its disposal, we feel those resources can be targeted more in other ways.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield myself 30 seconds, then I will yield to my good friend from Florida. Senators are making points which deserve replies. The Senator from Oklahoma has given response to one and I will cover certain points. But first, I would like to yield to other Senators who have asked for an opportunity to speak.
I yield to my good friend from Florida who has been a strong supporter in conference, then I shall yield to Senator PROXMIRE, then to Senator HOLLINGS.
How much time would the Senator from Florida like?
Mr. CHILES. Five or 7 minutes.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will yield within those time constraints to the Senator from Florida, but first, Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.