[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 160 (Tuesday, October 17, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1955-E1956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE FEDERAL BUDGET

                                 ______


                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 17, 1995

  Mr. HASTINGS. Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine, Mr. Norman Hardy of 
West Palm Beach, FL, sent me the following article regarding balancing 
the Federal budget. Mr. Hardy said this article is ``right on the 
mark'' and I agree with him. The same municipalities and local 
governments that the new Republican majority claim were the ones to 
request the block grants are now the ones saying we may need to slow 
down. Balancing the budget and block-granting Federal funds might have 
sounded good in the abstract but the reality may very well be 
disastrous.

               [From the Palm Beach Post, Sept. 24, 1995]

          Washington's Message to America's Cities: Drop Dead

                           (By Nancy Graham)

       I am gravely concerned about where this country seems to be 
     heading. That puts me among the 60 percent or more of 
     Americans who would like to join a third political party.
       What I see at the state and federal levels in the way of 
     partisan politics disgusts me. As the elected leader of the 
     largest city in Palm Beach County, it is clear to me that our 
     ``elected representatives'' at those levels, particularly 
     those in Washington, have no knowledge of the world in which 
     most of us live--and, frankly, I don't think they even care. 
     If we have any hope of putting Americans first, the power 
     plays and the ego-driven, mean-spirited partisan politics 
     must give way to reason and logic.
       There is not and should not be anything partisan about 
     local government. We are closest to the people we serve, 
     provide most of the services, have to pick up the pieces of 
     people's lives fractured by the actions of the state and 
     federal governments and still try to maintain some quality of 
     life for all our citizens.
       There is no greater example of mean-spirited, ego-driven 
     partisan politics than in the current debate over the 
     proposed federal budget cuts. I think I will be sick to my 
     stomach if I see another 30-second sound bite by either party 
     extolling the virtues of its actions on the budget, or 
     slamming the other side's. What is frightening to me is that 
     most Americans will sit back and take these professionally 
     scripted sound bites for the truth. There is much not being 
     told to Americans, particularly about how these budget cuts 
     will affect each of us, no matter where we live.
       Don't get me wrong. I strongly support the goal of 
     balancing the federal budget, reducing the federal deficit 
     and reforming a number of federal programs such as welfare 
     and Medicare. We will all need to sacrifice to make them 
     happen. West Palm Beach has to balance its budget every year, 
     in good times and in bad. We know how to impose financial 
     discipline. We know how to cut popular services, to raise 
     revenues. West Palm Beach is ready to do our fair share.
       Congress, however, is asking local communities to take a 
     direct hit for its years of free-wheeling spending. The 
     budget currently under consideration does not ask cities and 
     counties to do their fair share to balance the budget. It 
     asks cities and counties to do the lion's share.
       Proposals in Washington would have a devastating impact on 
     crime prevention, economic development, housing, children and 
     our elderly. Amazingly, these proposals have received very 
     little scrutiny.
       So far, Congress has engaged in a ``stealth'' budget 
     process. It appears that Congress is hoping that the American 
     people don't figure out what's going on until it's too late.
       The new Congress went to Washington promising to reform 
     government.
       Unfortunately, all they did was pass the buck.
       The proposed budget doesn't actually solve problems, it 
     just shifts the problems and shifts taxes to the local level.
       Worst of all, this is a very short-sighted budget. It was 
     put together with virtually no public input or hearings. The 
     vast majority of the cuts being made are from only one-third 
     of the federal spending, the domestic spending for Americans. 
     In fact, the proposed budget adds about $7 billion in the 
     defense budget, an increase not even requested. We are 
     spending more for our foreign agenda than to preserve a 
     decent quality of life for our own citizens.


                       Economic future sacrificed

       The proposed budget would sacrifice the long-term economic 
     future of this country for short-term political gain. At a 
     time when America should be investing in our people and our 
     economic foundation, this budget is a unilateral retreat. 
     This budget would cut job training. It would cut education. 
     It would cut youth programs. There is absolutely no logic or 
     rationale to the proposed cuts. No matter what political 
     party one comes from, we should all agree on the need to 
     invest in our economic future.
       The U.S. Conference of Mayors and National Association of 
     Counties recently conducted a survey of mayors and county 
     officials to see how these proposed cuts would affect our 
     cities and our citizens. The response was overwhelming--96 
     percent of the mayors believe the proposed cuts would hurt 
     their cities and residents. Ninety-three percent believe the 
     cuts would hurt their human-investment efforts; 84 percent 
     foresee negative effects on their cities' economies; 85 
     percent see negative effects on their economic development 
     efforts; and 86 percent believe that the effects of the cuts 
     would extend to their regional economies.
       For most city residents, the cuts would be felt in loss of 
     services and/or increased taxes. Eighty-five percent of the 
     survey respondents said that they would have to reduce city 
     services; 61 percent said they would be forced to lay off 
     city workers; 41 percent said they would be forced to raise 
     taxes.
       The survey responses from the National Association of 
     Counties were very similar.
       So what does this mean for West Palm Beach? If we are to 
     revitalize our city, we must reduce crime, clean up our 
     decaying neighborhoods, create economic development 
     opportunities (businesses and jobs) and focus heavily on our 
     youth. We have started these efforts over the past few years, 
     but much more needs to be done. We have developed 
     partnerships with the Palm Beach County School Board, our 
     business community and non-profit groups to save taxpayers 
     money. We have cut staff and worked to improve services. We 
     cannot stretch any further.
       Yet, several times a day I hear from frustrated people 
     about what they see as a declining quality of life, fear of 
     crime, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs and other 
     problems that are so complex and intertwined. Balancing the 
     federal budget almost solely on the backs of domestic 
     programs is going to substantially aggravate these problems 
     and increase the public's frustration with government. West 
     Palm Beach is by no means an isolated case.
       We want welfare reform--and rightly so. Yet we cut--and in 
     some cases eliminate--job training; we cut education, cut 
     student loans, fail to provide decent, affordable health 
     care, and penalize poor families who try to stay together. We 
     talk to the working poor, and we tell them, ``We want you to 
     go to work. We want to end welfare.'' But what does this 
     budget do? What messages of hope does it send to the working 
     poor? It increases the tax burden on the working poor by 
     lowering the earned income tax credit. The working poor will 
     pay $230 more a year in taxes. They are getting a tax 
     increase. In many cases, that's a substantial percentage of 
     their income. This is in the face of a proposed tax cut for 
     the wealthy.


                      Cuts will produce more crime

       Crime among our youth is rising at frightening rates. Young 
     people are dropping out of school at record levels. We talk 
     to them about staying in school so they can get a 

[[Page E 1956]]
     good, decent job. The one program that links them, while they're 
     students, to the job market and opens up opportunities for 
     them to get jobs is the Summer Youth Employment Program. This 
     money is to be completely eliminated. No jobs, no job 
     training--no question, higher crime.
       West Palm Beach receives about $1 million annually in 
     grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. 
     We currently rehabilitate 25 full-scale housing units and 
     handle 46 emergency ``rehab'' housing units each year. The 
     proposed 50 percent cut would drastically reduce West Palm 
     Beach's ability to assist low-to-moderate-income working 
     families to maintain their homes.
       We also receive $446,000 from HUD Home Funds. Seventy-five 
     percent is used for the Mayor's Renaissance Fund for first-
     time home buyers. This money generates between seven and 10 
     times the money in the form of investments by local lending 
     institutions. More than 30 families have been able to 
     purchase homes in the past year. There is a waiting list in 
     excess of 344 applicants wanting to buy a home. The city has 
     used HUD money to create attractive, decent, affordable 
     rental units for low-to-moderate-income people with the 
     Harris Music Building and Ballet Villages in the downtown 
     area.


                     Long waiting list for housing

       More than 1,000 people are on the waiting list for public 
     housing in West Palm Beach. Most of these people are decent, 
     caring human beings who have not been as fortunate as most of 
     us who will read this article.
       I recently visited Dunbar Village on Tamarind Avenue. Most 
     of the units there leak badly when it rains, damaging walls 
     and floors. Is that acceptable for our seniors and poor 
     because they are throwaways?
       No summer youth jobs? Consider that last summer, the city 
     used $240,000 in federal money to get approximately 23 
     dropout youth back into education programs and job training. 
     Our success rate was about 70 percent--excellent. Most are 
     now continuing their educations, some at college. Others have 
     jobs. One young man received his high school equivalency 
     diploma, trained with the city to become a certified 
     landscape sprayer and is now employed by us full time. Most 
     of the youth we saved were headed toward becoming a criminal 
     statistic.
       We are all sadly aware of the problems in our schools. Yet 
     the proposed budget cuts education, food for hungry children 
     at school and money for Safe and Drug Free Schools. Can 
     children learn with empty stomachs and daily fear of 
     violence?
       There are many more examples I could give about what these 
     proposed cuts will mean here in Palm Beach County, but you 
     have probably gotten the point. The proposed cuts are unfair, 
     illogical and lack any rational basis.
       We do need to balance the federal budget and reduce the 
     deficit for future generations. We do need reform of 
     entitlement programs. These important objectives can be 
     achieved and still ensure a decent quality of life and vital 
     communities for us all. This can only happen, however, if we 
     demand that our elected representatives consider our best 
     interests as they were elected to do and put the good of 
     America over petty, mean-spirited partisan politics. We must 
     accept no less--our future depends on it.
       I would draw upon the maxim that the true test of a 
     democracy is the treatment of its poor, its young and its 
     elderly. Cuts will ``write off'' whole segments of our 
     country's population rather than building upon action that 
     can create improved national economic viability for our 
     future.
       West Palm Beach, as most cities in Florida, does not have 
     the option of raising property taxes. We are too close to our 
     legal limit. We can only cut services. The county can 
     increase taxes, but that money comes from the same 
     pocketbooks. The real irony is that if crime increases and 
     neighborhoods decline, property values decrease, and we end 
     up with even less revenue to meet the public demands.


                      Government for the wealthy?

       We can solve these problems, but the federal and state 
     governments must do so in a logical, rational, thoughtful 
     manner--not through immature bickering and posturing. Local 
     governments can't make all of these changes overnight; we 
     need time to adjust to some of them. We also have to make 
     sure that the effort to balance the federal budget is not 
     just a shift to local property taxes. Property taxes tend to 
     be regressive taxes.
       What is even more unbelievable to me is that while 
     Washington is proposing to drastically cut domestic spending, 
     at the cost of low- and middle-class Americans, it is 
     proposing a tax cut for the wealthy. Is Washington being run 
     only by the wealthy for the wealthy, with the interests of 
     lobbyists being put over us regular and less fortunate folks?
       Washington uses 30-second sound bites of abuses in domestic 
     programs to convince us they are doing the right thing. They 
     do not tell you the success stories. Let me tell you just 
     one.
       I was raised in a large, poor, but hard-working family. We 
     lived for a number of years in public housing, received free 
     school lunches and received some free medical care. I worked 
     and put myself through college and law school with the 
     assistance of student loans. (I have repaid every penny.) I 
     have one sister who had a child out of wedlock.
       Yet not one person in my family is on welfare or receives 
     federal assistance. I am not the exception; there are many 
     more like me. Under the proposed cuts, I can guarantee you I 
     would not have been able to succeed alone.
       Yes, there are abuses. But inept federal government and 
     complex regulations cause many of them. Yes, families must 
     also take responsibility for their well-being and that of 
     their communities. But if the federal and state governments 
     just dealt with their own waste first, we probably would be a 
     lot closer to balancing the federal budget and reducing the 
     deficit without the extreme measures being proposed.
       Call or write your congressional representatives in 
     Washington now. Demand truth in governance, responsibility 
     and accountability to the people they represent--us--and 
     demand that petty partisan politics stop for the sake of 
     America's future. Let them know you are not in favor of the 
     cuts as proposed and demand that they hold open hearings.

                          ____________________