[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 132 (Monday, September 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9089-H9090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SEEKING A NEW STRATEGY IN AMERICA'S WAR ON POVERTY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, in listening to those who have
discussed the matters before Congress regarding the President, I agree
these are very pressing constitutional issues before us. Regrettably,
the Presidential crisis has magnified the extremes in our political
culture.
I have received troubling phone calls from both sides of the
political spectrum. Those supporting the President suggest that
Congress drop this matter immediately. And on the other side,
detractors of the President demand that we force him immediately from
office without receiving due process.
Like so many others across American, I believe there is a more
reasonable approach that emphasizes the importance of following the
Constitution. We must do our job, and at the end of the process, we
must prove two things:
First, for the sake of all Americans, we must show that no man is
above the law. Secondly, we must show for the sake of the President and
the public servants that work in Washington, D.C., no public servant
will be held ``below the law.'' We must not hold the President or any
official to a legally higher standard than any of us would face. Those
are our challenges.
I wanted to come to this chamber today, though, to speak briefly
about another Democrat, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) who today is
holding meetings and going throughout the city of Washington, D.C., to
address a crisis that is still press 35 years after the advent of the
great society. That crisis is poverty, and that crisis of poverty still
exists in Washington, D.C., and still exists across this country.
Sadly, it still is shocking to some people that poverty still exists.
Reports suggests that poverty is eradicated, that it has been
miraculously wiped away from the face of American civilization.
Regrettably, this is not true.
Two forms of poverty still exist today. One is the poverty that we
are familiar with, the poverty that we have grown up hearing about,
about children living in squalor, experiencing hunger. But a second
poverty exists that is a far more dangerous poverty. That is the
poverty of indifference.
The situation in Washington, D.C., remains dire. The first time I
came to this city I was shocked to see people living in the shadow of
the United States Capitol living in poverty, crime-riddled
neighborhoods. We were warned not to stray too far from the Capitol or
the Mall after dusk. How did we get to such a place in the United
States of America, within the shadow of our Nation's Capitol? Such a
situation is not acceptable.
Washington has repeated its mistakes over the past 35 years by
refusing to dare to make a difference. If inner cities faced a social
ill, Washington tried to micromanage each such problem by creating
huge, hulking bureaucracies. By taking money from Americans from Maine
over to Hawaii, and by bringing that money to Washington, D.C.,
Congress has long suggested that it knows better than communities how
to end the scourge of poverty. The war on poverty has almost
exclusively been waged from inside the walls of federal bureaucracies.
Sadly, the centralized, bureaucratic approach has not worked for the
past 40 years. It will not work for the next 40 years. Therefore, we
have no other choice but to dare to create a new approach for the war
on poverty.
``Insanity'' is defined as doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting a different result. That is what we have been doing in
Washington, D.C. We continue to take money from across America, funnel
it to bureaucracies, allow bureaucracies to singularly wage the war on
poverty, and ignore the failings we have fostered.
Drive through the South Bronx and decide for yourself whether we are
better off today than we were 40 years ago. Drive through South Central
Los Angeles or Gary, Indiana, and ask that same question. Or drive 5
minutes from the Nation's Capitol and go through Anacostia, and then
decide whether Anacostia is better off today than when we started our
bureaucratic war on poverty 35 years ago. I would suggest to my
colleagues things are not better today.
Bobby Kennedy once said, ``This is the violence of institutions:
indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that
afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their
skins have different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by
hunger, and schools without books
[[Page H9090]]
and homes without heat in the winter.'' And yet, 30 years after Senator
Kennedy's death the poverty of indifference still afflicts our
institutions.
Last week a small, incremental approach was suggested in a tax bill
that passed our House of Representatives. It was a tax incentive-based
approach that provided tax incentives for twenty defined renewal
communities. While the family development accounts, the commercial
revitalization credit and the work opportunity tax credits suggest a
hopeful beginning, these tax incentives by themselves are far too
incremental to make a difference.
Still, it is a beginning. Congress must be willing to begin the
unbridling of the free enterprise system in our center cities, and
provide businesses incentives to beat back the effects of poverty.
Waging and winning such a war is good for all Americans, save drug
dealers and demagogues. It is good for our soul and good for our
economy. Imagine moving through the next century with our center cities
emerging as economic engines instead of economic drains. It is a
possibility we must consider. Repeating the mistakes of the past 35
years is not an option.
We must seek a new strategy in our war against poverty.
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