[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 22, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     TAX REBATE TO FIGHT CRIME ACT

 Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, the statistics in the war on crime 
are appalling. A murder is committed every 21 minutes, a rape every 5 
minutes, a robbery every 46 seconds, and an aggravated assault every 29 
seconds. One-third of all Americans will be robbed in their lifetime; 
three-fourths will be assaulted.
  With memories of the 50th anniversary of D-day so fresh in our minds 
and the brutal realities and sacrifices called for in that situation, 
it is rather horrifying to hear that a boy born in 1974 stands a 
greater chance of being murdered than a soldier in World War II stood 
of dying in combat. That's according to Norvel Morris, ``Letter to the 
President on Crime Control.''
  Citizens of this country do not want to live through war on their 
streets and elected representative respond to that fact with the best 
of intentions. It is a mistake, however, for those at the Federal level 
to try and take matters into their own hands, the hands of a large, 
centralized government, by federalizing local and State crimes, 
fostering a dependency upon a Federal police force and spending Federal 
tax dollars in an imprudent manner.
  I am concerned that in our zeal to protect the American public, we in 
Congress are federalizing crime which may ultimately make it more 
difficult to solve the problem. Fighting crime has traditionally been 
the responsibility of State and local governments for good reason. Only 
they know the true scope of the problem and the effect it has on their 
communities, and only they know how best to solve it. State and locally 
elected and accountable officials must pass and enforce laws to keep 
communities safe and healthy, not some distant bureaucrat located 
inside the beltway.
  But we are doing more than encroaching on the province of the States, 
we are encouraging communities to rely upon the Federal Government for 
their local safety and security. The Senate bill contains nearly $9 
billion, and the House some $3.4 billion, to put 100,000 new police 
officers on the streets. This would be a 20 percent increase in the 
current number of local police officers patrolling our neighborhoods, 
responding to community concerns, and making communities safer places 
to live and work. A government powerful enough to provide all your 
needs can also take them away at will.
  I also have grave concerns about the focus of the Federal spending, 
as well. Of the estimated 5-year, $30 billion price tag for the crime 
bill expected to emerge from the House-Senate conference, more than $9 
billion of that amount is currently earmarked and will likely go to 
unproven social welfare programs. It is an abuse of the taxpayers' 
trust for Congress to assure Americans we are tough on crime on the one 
had and then spend their tax dollars for midnight basketball programs, 
arts, crafts, and dance programs on the other, all under the guise of 
fighting the war on crime.

  More than half the money in the House bill is dedicated to the 
expansion of social welfare programs--``the kind which, it has been 
argued, contributed to building the kind of society that permits crime 
in the first place,'' according to Stephen Moore, director of fiscal 
policy studies at the Cato Institute. Mr. President, I ask unanimous 
consent to include in the Record an excellent article by Mr. Moore--
WSJ, June 13, 1994--which delineates this problem with the crime bill 
which is likely to come out of conference.
  Fighting crime is, and should be a high priority, but the problem is 
real and the solution must be also. Congress is not going to solve the 
problem by throwing money at it to prove we care. This crime bill may 
be good for Congress, but is it good for the country?
  I submit that it is not, Mr. President. Therefore, I am introducing a 
bill to address the issue of crime in this country in a manner which I 
believe is the only effective solution--by allowing State and local 
governments to crack down on crime and getting the Federal Government 
out of the way.
  This bill, a companion measure was introduced by Mr. Sensenbrenner in 
the House, will basically provide a tax rebate to fight crime. Two 
percent of the Federal personal income tax paid by residents of each 
State would be returned to the State for four purposes: to pay police 
officers, build and operate prisons, pay criminal court judges, 
prosecutors, and public defenders, or rebate the money back to 
taxpayers themselves. Taxpayers could use the rebate to buy burglar 
alarms, join with others in their community to hire a private security 
guard, install lights in dimly lit areas, or whatever else it takes to 
safeguard their homes and families.
  This is a very simple concept, one that actually will increase the 
amount of money spent to fight crime. Approximately $55 billion would 
be rebated to fight crime over the next 5 years.
  That crime inflicts an enormous fiscal toll on States is not 
questioned. They must dedicate money to that problem which could be 
directed to schools, hospitals, and local infrastructure. The Federal 
Government already hinders States in their efforts through the use of 
Federal mandates, directing State and local governments how to spend 
their money and stripping them of control over their own budgets. The 
safest investment we can make in fighting the war on crime is to simply 
get out of the way, let the States handle their own problems and deal 
with the epidemic at the level where the money would make the most 
difference. That is what this bill is all about, Mr. President.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1994]

                        What the Crime Bill Does

                           (By Stephen Moore)

       Don't look now, but after 18 months in office, Bill Clinton 
     is finally going to get his long-awaited fiscal stimulus bill 
     through Congress. This year the White House and big city 
     mayors have used an House and big city mayors have used an 
     ingenious marketing strategy: They call it a crime bill. In 
     fact, it's a well-kept secret on Capitol Hill that this 
     year's crime bill is the largest urban cash program to come 
     through Congress since Richard Nixon invented revenue 
     sharing.
       The current price tag for the House Crime Bill is $28 
     billion over five years--with some analysts speculating that 
     the figure may rise to $30 billion in the House-Senate 
     conference. In 1985, the federal government abolished the 
     Urban Development Action Grant program after many years of 
     poor results and a wasteful $3 billion outlay that included 
     building tennis courts and luxury hotels. Yet the crime bill 
     is roughly the equivalent of adding 10 new UDAG programs or 
     three new CETAs (the federal job training program) to the 
     budget.
       It's easy to understand the temptation facing the urban 
     lobby. Although more than half the money in the bill is 
     dedicated to prisons and cops, much of the rest expands our 
     social welfare programs--the kind which, it has been argued, 
     contributed to building the kind of society that permits 
     crime in the first place. Unlike most of the great social 
     welfare legislation of the 1960s and early 1970s, this bill 
     doesn't even make the pretense of starting small.


                              bad program

       Almost $10 billion would be earmarked for ``prevention and 
     rehabilitation'' programs, including such proven successful 
     crime-bustling initiatives as:
       Educational programs to ``increase the self esteem'' of 
     young criminals and ``provide youth with the skills.''
       Funding for ``cultural programs, arts and crafts, health 
     education and dance programs.''
       Expanded job-training centers. (Jobs training programs 
     already in existence used to push kids through federal job 
     training centers currently cost about $20,000 per recipient, 
     the equivalent of a year at Harvard.
       Training funds for teachers, social workers, and guidance 
     counselors.
       $50 million for an inner city Midnight Sports Program. 
     (Presumbly kids are supposed to get out of bed in the middle 
     of the night to go play basketball so they won't get involved 
     in crime.) For the basketball league, each team has ten 
     players and each league must have eight teams.
       $40 million family unit demonstration project. The aim is 
     to carry out demonstration projects that enable offenders to 
     live in community correctional facilities with their 
     children.
       $450 million for drug treatment in prisons. Some of 
     Washington, of course, has noted the surprising elements of 
     the bill. ``It's amazing the ideas that found their way into 
     the crime bill,'' laments Tim Penny, a retiring Democrat. For 
     example, the bill contains a $1.3 billion ``Ounce of 
     Prevention Program'' sponsored by John Conyers (D., Mich.) 
     and enthusiastically supported by the ``root causes of 
     crime'' crowd. Only on Capitol Hill would a billion-plus 
     program be labeled ``an ounce''!
       Some $2 billion would be allocated to the Local Partnership 
     Act, or LPA, which is revenue sharing, the flow of federal 
     funds of state programs, resurrected under another name. In 
     truth it is worse than revenue sharing, because part of the 
     formula for distributing the cash is based on local tax 
     burdens: the more oppressive the local tax regime, the 
     more money the city gets from Uncle Sam. (This rewards 
     cities for high taxation.) For the cities, this is a big 
     gift. For the urban lobby, the LPA promises to become 
     Uncle Sam's gift that never stops giving.
       Don't blame just Bill Clinton and the Democrats for this 
     election year spending stampede: This bill is bipartisan pork 
     at its very worst. A high-ranking GOP House staffer 
     complained to me that Republican members have ``little 
     interest in cutting the costs, just getting their fair share 
     of the sausage.''
       Of course, virtually no one truly believes that this 
     avalanche of spending will do much to get muggers, drug 
     kingpins, and murderers off the street. If social welfare 
     spending were the answer to crime, the street corners of 
     America's cities would be far and away the safest in the 
     world. America already spends just over one trillion dollars 
     (that's $1,000,000,000,000) on social welfare, and crime is 
     getting worse. A huge portion of these funds go to the 
     nation's inner cities. Since 1965 the federal government has 
     spent an estimated $2.5 trillion on the War on Poverty and 
     urban aid. This is the equivalent of 20 Marshall Plans, in 
     real dollars.
       Supporters of the crime bill argue that all the new 
     spending will be paid for by reducing federal employment by 
     about 200,000 positions over the next four years. But this 
     bill alone could add well more than 200,000 lawyers, social 
     workers, teachers and so forth to the federally subsidized 
     payrolls of state and local government. Even this picture 
     assumes that the promised cutbacks in federal payrolls can be 
     achieved. The history of new social welfare programs is that 
     they are inevitably well beyond their original predicted 
     price tag in a very short time. Budgets for Great Society, 
     community development programs, for example, expanded more 
     than fourfold in their first ten years.
       Many Republicans tout the billions in new hand-outs to 
     states for building prisons as evidence that the bill is 
     ``tough on crime.'' Who could be against building prisons? 
     Yet here are Republicans, who have been complaining for years 
     about Congress handing down mandates on states, supporting a 
     program that steals money from the states and then hands it 
     back minus carrying costs with a host of strings attached, 
     including compliance with Truth in Sentencing guidelines and 
     other federal dictates. The principles of federalism are the 
     crime bill's first casualties.
       Some conservative supporters of this bill trumpet the new 
     death penalty provisions for a whole federal litany of 
     crimes. The death penalty is certainly a good thing, but 
     isn't $30 billion a steep price to pay to get it? After all, 
     the swift and sure execution of hardened criminals ought to 
     save money, not cost it.
       My prediction is that future Congresses will spend the next 
     20 years trying to weed out all the garbage that has been 
     inserted into this fund. In the current version, the 
     Democrats have succeeded in defining crime control in terms 
     of how much Washington is willing to throw at the problem. 
     That is a proven failure in fighting every other social 
     pathology in America.

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