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Opportunity Action Plan 2/27/91 [OA 6855] [5]
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Opportunity Action Plan 2/27/91 [OA 6855] [5]
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Opportunity Action Plan 2/27/91 [OA 6855] [5]
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26
21
3
1
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Date:
2/7
TO:
Mu G
FROM: JAMES P. PINKERTON
Deputy Assistant to the President
for Policy Planning
x6406
Why not ? Its
the cornerstone at our
agendr!
NY Economic Club
2/6/91
- 4 -
long overdue. I headed a task force when I was Vice President that I
thought came up with some very sound recommendations for regulatory
reform.
Now Secretary Brady has come up with some recommendations
that I think are even better. They're more simplified. The Fed
manages one set of organizations and the new organization under
Treasury another. And I should think this would renew confidence. I
think the interest rates coming down should instill confidence. And,
yes, I do believe that some of the regulators -- I'm not sure I can
answer it specifically on regulations per se -- but I think some of
the regulators in the past got overzealous, and I think that scared
some of the banks. (Applause.)
Just to be fair about it, I think some of the banks made
some bad loans. (Laughter and applause.) And so what I think we're
seeing is, in an effort in this reform legislation and hopefully as
the economy starts coming out, a banking system that is fundamentally
sound, a banking system that deserves the confidence of the American
people -- and I think these reforms will help on that -- a banking
system that will be able to make -- get into other forms of business,
as some of our competitors abroad do. And that, I think, should
usher in a whole new era of prosperity involving fundamental loaning
by these banks.
2 Mr. President, I was talking with an old friend of
yours, Tip O'Neill, the other day. (Laughter.) And he seems to be
now one of your greatest friends and advocates and supporters of your
-- particularly of your management of American foreign policy in your
presidency. But he asked me to ask you -- (laughter) housing is
fundamental to our economy. The rate of housing and construction is
less now than it was in 1982. And he feels it ought to be at least
20 percent higher. What do you have in mind, if anything, to correct
this situation?~
THE PRESIDENT: First, let me profess my love for Tip
O'Neill. (Laughter.) And I really, sincerely mean it, as I think
many people - I know Barbara knows, and I really feel strongly about
it -- the guy has not been well lately, nor has Millie, his wife, who
we love dearly. So I will take this opportunity through C-SPAN or
whoever to pay my genuine respects and affection to him. He knows
this. And I think you've phrased it very well -- we do have a
different approach on how housing should be done in this country. I
think when Tip goes back, he was talking about government-paid-for,
government-owned housing.
Our approach is something else. We believe that the best
way to do it is to have tenant management, encourage ownership,
voucher systems. We have a program called Hope, which relates
fundamentally to home ownership as opposed to federal ownership. We
have put much more money in the budget for this. We happen to
believe that enterprise zones going into low-income areas would do an
awful lot to bring business there and thus enable people to buy more
homes.
So I think that I hope that the program that we've put
forward - the Hope program will have the support of many of Tip's
former colleagues. I have a feeling it will. We'd made a good step
on it last year in the Congress and got good support from both sides
of the aisle. But if Tip is referring to the government-owned bricks
and mortar approach, we think that that has been tried, and we think
in many instances it has failed. We think it has build misery into
the system. You've seen program in St. Louis that at one time looked
good and then they had to tear them down in their entirety.
So I would like to encourage support for this new
approach which empowers the people and I think will lead to far more
housing. (Applause.)
Q Mr. President, you have talked several times about
basing the future on a new world order. Can you give us a definition
of a new world order? And if it depends on the collaboration between
MORE
Fall 1989
Issues & Views
Page 3
[The following is excerpted from "The Saving Remnant," a
society and the relationship of blacks to it. It ignored
review of Harold Cruse's book, Plural But Equal (pub. Morrow),
America's emphasis on private enterprise, profit
which appeared in the December 1988 issue of Reason maga-
zine.]
making, property ownership, and the high value placed
on technological development and industrial expan-
sion
Economic Wards of the State
Without Economic Progress,
There Is No Progress
The NAACP came to rely on Franklin Roosevelt's
New Deal as the "bountiful dispenser of black uplift."
Anne Wortham
The result, concludes Cruse, was that blacks were
Harold Cruse's Plural But Equal is an account of
made "economic wards of the state."
how the blacks who have represented the "talented
Cruse credits today's black critics of the welfare
tenth" in the civil rights and intellectual leadership
have led the masses, not toward the best within them-
selves and America-self-reliance and freedom-but
toward the worst, dependency and expropriation
The best alternative to bad
Cruse aims to show that by seeking full racial
integration, the 20th century civil rights leadership
leadership may be no leadership,
ignored the pluralistic reality of American society,
certainly no national leadership.
with its multiple groups, associations, and ethnic and
racial identities
Martin Luther King, Jr. could have told blacks
"how they might reorganize their lives to cope with the
state such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams with
demands of freedom in a plural society," says Cruse.
"correctly approaching black progress and achieve-
He was the first black leader in over 70 years with the
ment in economic terms." Like them, he takes the view
charisma, moral authority, and community base to do
that "without economic progress, there is no prog-
so. He should have delivered a message of self-deter-
ress."
mination that said, in effect, "Get your own minority
[Cruse believes that] an independent, black politi-
house in order." Unfortunately this was not King's
cal party is the initial step toward the reorganization of
message
black life into "first a political bloc, then cultural blocs,
Cruse identifies the key idea of civil rights leaders
and then into whatever internal economic organiza-
as "noneconomic liberalism." Defined by scholar B.
tions are possible within a capitalistic, free-market
Joyce Ross in her history of the NAACP, this position
system."
holds that "the black man's struggle for full civil and
But before this politics of plurality-the creation of
political rights must take precedence over any program
specifically black political institutions-can be ex-
of economic development, for once color discrimina-
pressed in organizational changes, changes must
tion had been swept away, the black man would be able
"occur within the black group itself." Blacks, Cruse
to compete successfully with his white counterpart in
urges, must accept the fact that "civil rights legislation
jobs, education, and other avenues to economic stabil-
has exhausted the power of the 14th Amendment to
ity." W.E.B. DuBois and others founded the NAACP
redress the historical civil rights wrongs against
explicitly to counteract Booker T. Washington's
blacks," that constitutionally, "civil rights justice has
emphasis on black economic development
been won."
The NAACP's early and continued rejection of
Moreover, Cruse recognizes that the black leader-
black economic development in favor of civil rights
ship must convince the children of the children of the
agitation had little to do with the reality of American
New Deal that the welfare state is not in their self-
Continued on page 4
as
Page 4
Issues & Views
Fall 1989
Economic Progress, Continued from page 3
interest and that free market capitalism and voluntary,
caretakers; and condescending liberators. It should
community actions are
also be welcomed by whites who, in fear of being called
racists or charged with "blaming the victim," refrain
Is There Need for Leaders?
from supporting those black Americans who insist that
blacks must take responsibility for their freedom and
Cruse gives the impression that without leadership,
help themselves.
especially the leadership he envisages, American
blacks have no hope for the future, because they are
incapable of fending for themselves. But his story of
[Anne Wortham is Professor of Sociology at Washington and
failed leadership is only a slice of black history. Still
Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. She is also a visiting
scholar at the Hoover Institution, and is author of the book, The
largely untold is the story of those leaderless masses
Other Side of Racism. Last year, she was the subject of a two-
who have struggled in their communities-first, be-
part television interview by Public Television's Bill Moyers.
hind the walls of imposed segregation and now behind
For the complete article from which the above is excerpted,
the absurdities of imposed integration-to survive
contact Reason Magazine, 2716 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa
Monica, CA 90405.]
without the help or support of the leadership
Across the country, groups are involved in
community self-help projects in enterprise develop-
ment, alternative education, foster care, crime preven-
tion, public housing administration, family preserva-
tion, and entrepreneurship training among youth.
To Our Readers
These groups operate outside the network of the tradi-
tional civil rights and social welfare leadership. It is
As you know, Issues & Views is a forum
debatable whether the independent self-help networks
for opinions that are seldom given equal time
require mobilization either by a new leadership, such as
in the conventional black or mainstream
Cruse proposes, or by the old (belatedly reformed)
media. We operate on a shoestring budget, but
leadership. The best alternative to bad leadership,
we get a lot accomplished. Your support by
which Cruse certainly documents, may be no leader-
subscription helps us to continue to share alter-
ship, certainly no national leadership
native perspectives on our nation's most seri-
ous domestic problems.
Individuals Free to Choose
We keep our subscription rates as low as
If individuals are to be free, they must be free to
possible, so that all can afford to subscribe. Be
choose. Group diversity reflects the choices of indi-
assured that whatever you pay above the regu-
viduals to pursue their opportunities through groups,
lar rates listed on page 11 will assist in greater
which function as "mediating structures" between
distribution of the newsletter. If you believe
themselves and the wider society. Pluralism, in this
that ideas do, indeed, have consequences, help
view, is based on the legal freedom of individuals to
us to share the ideas of Issues & Views with
strive, in cooperation with others, for social, economic,
others.
and political goals that do not require the violation of
individual rights.
Support freedom of the press by
Against this perspective of individualist pluralism,
supporting Issues & Views.
Cruse's pluralism leaves much to be desired. But
despite the flaws in its analysis and proposals, Plural
But Equal should be welcomed as intellectual ammu-
nition for blacks who have been demanding emancipa-
tion from various self-appointed leaders, exploitative
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
February 13, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR SPEECHWRITERS
FROM:
HANNS KUTTNER
K
SUBJECT:
Briefing on Mandated Benefits
A briefing on mandated benefits and other legislative
issues important to the labor movement will be held on Tuesday,
February 19, at 10:30 am in Room 180. Staff from the Labor
Department will provide an overview of the arguments raised on
both sides of the issue.
Please feel free to attend this briefing. In addition,
please extend an invitation to any of your staff or colleagues
who may be interested. If you would like to attend, please
RSVP to my office (x. 6563).
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Date: 2-11-91
TO:
Mary Kate Grant
FROM:
RICHARD W. PORTER
Special Assistant to the President
and Executive Secretary to the
Domestic Policy Council
For your information.
Republican State Governors Speech
How Cutting Capital Gains Taxes Empowers the Poor and Enriches the States
by Secretary Jack Kemp
YY
Department of Housing and Urban Development
A great political party must have a great purpose. Abraham
Lincoln helped found the Republican party nearly one hundred and
forty years ago upon the greatest idea in all human history, the
idea of the Declaration of Independence: equal rights, equal
opportunity and equal access to property for every human being.
That cause must remain our party's vital center if we are going
to lead American democracy into a promising new century.
I was thrilled when President Bush invoked these Republican
roots at the ceremony for our new housing bill. As he signed the
law to empower public housing residents with the opportunity to
manage and own their own housing, he recalled Lincoln's
Homestead Act of 1862, which gave 160 acres to any family who
wanted to make a go of it in the wilderness.
Lincoln's homestead Act of 1862, President Bush reminded the
East Room audience, was "one of the most successful endeavors in
American history -- causing the great land rush to the Wild West
-- and forming the vision for a new homesteading program in urban
American today
Because Abraham Lincoln's Homestead Act
empowered people," he said, "it freed people from the burden of
poverty, it freed them to control their own destinies, to create
their own opportunities, and to live the vision of the American
dream."
This vision is not unique to Americans. In the first decade
of the twentieth century, Pyotr Stolypin, the Russian Premier,
distributed millions of acres of cold, unused Siberian land to
the landless, impoverished, oppressed peasants. Stolypin's goal
-- so similar to Lincoln's -- was, in his own words, "to offer
the peasant a way out of poverty to enable every hardworking
tiller of the soil to farm on his own account, applying his own
labor without encroaching on the rights of others.'
From the Czars until Brezhnev, Siberia's only use seemed to
be as a gigantic prison. Yet within five years, over four
million persons moved to Siberia when offered the chance to
become homesteaders -- more than in the three hundred previous
years. All Russia prospered as Siberia went from a deserted
wasteland to a bountiful land full of thriving farms and
flourishing villages. Russia's budget was balanced. "After
three years," writes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "these people could
scarcely believe that they had once lived in penury, and wondered
why they had not set out for Siberia long ago."
The radical reform movment in Russia today, lead by such
democratic capitalists as Yeltsin, Popov, and Shatalin, is
Republican State Governors
PAGE 2
beginning to recognize, once again, the value of private property
and actually give people title to their own apartments and homes.
Imagine -- Stolypin's pre-Soviet reform movement has become the
model for post-Soviet perestroika!
Whether in Russian Siberia, the American West, or the urban
ghettoes, the idea of opening access to property and economic
opportunity, giving people a chance to better their lives and
achieve their dreams will work anywhere, anytime it is tried.
As the world moves to democratic freedom, it's ironic that
some here in our own country want to move in the opposite
direction. Senators Bill Bradley and George Mitchell say that
their proudest moment was defeating the President's capital gains
tax reductions. Congressmen Gephardt and Rostenkowski want to
raise taxes on millionaries to "soak the rich" and massively
redistribute income.
Democrats seem to be more concerned that some people are
getting rich in America, than that poor people are falling deeper
into poverty as a result of their anti-growth policies.
Like Mr. Lincoln, President Bush believes in a different
course when he calls for a lower capital gains tax for the
nation and elimination of the capital gains tax in pockets of
poverty we would designate as Enterprise Zones.
Some claim that Democrats will beat Republicans mercilessly
with the dreaded "fairness" argument. I say bring it on. As
Lincoln taught us, fairness does not tear down the rich, it
forges stronger links between individual human effort and reward;
it does not quarrel about dividing old wealth, it concentrates on
creating new wealth; it doesn't recognize limits to growth and
life as a static, zero sum condition, it expands opportunities
for all people of any color, condition, or background to reach
their God-given potential.
Take the Democrats' notion of "fairness" as equality of
result and match it against the Republican principle of equality
of opportunity. I have no doubt that Republicans will be
overwhelmingly elected today just as Lincoln's party won
virtually every election from 1860 to 1932 by drawing a clear
dividing line over fairness -- rightly understood!
But we've got to do a better job not just describing but
advancing our principles. The capital gains tax cut is truly
fair because of what it will do for the poor, indeed for everyone
in the country.
Contrary to the Democrats' hysterical claims, cutting the
capital gains tax is an overwhelming incentive for small
Republican State Governors
PAGE 3
businessmen and women -- especially in our inner cities and among
minority entrepreneurs -- who seek opportunities to become rich.
Between 1977 and 1982, when the Steiger Amendment cut the
capital gains tax from 49 percent to 28 percent, the number of
black-owned businesses exploded by nearly 50 percent -- one of
the largest gains on record. We need to at least double the
number of minority-owned businesses in the next few years. But
it can't be done under the current high capital gains tax rate.
Capital gains taxes could reach 75 percent or more for long
term assets purchased during the inflation of the seventies.
This is the highest capital gains tax in American history.
Faced with a 75 percent effective tax bite, most people simply
will not sell their assets, thereby locking up capital in status
quo companies and current investments.
No one needs new capital more than minorities, who own a tiny
portion of American's total assets. Cutting capital gains would
help free up existing capital to fund high risk new enterprises.
These businesses create most of the new jobs and business
opportunities for poor and minority Americans.
For most of American history a low or non-existent capital
gains tax opened opportunity for millions of immigrants to join
the mainstream of society. Tragically, just as legal and racial
barriers to millions of poor and minority Americans have come
down, another wall, the high capital gains tax rate, may condemn
today's minorities and poor to yet another chapter of denied
opportunity and economic despair. Cutting capital gains is
today's pressing civil rights issue.
The Democratic leadership rejects this tax rate reduction
because they say it would help the rich and lose revenue. That's
not surprising. The Democrat-dominated Congressional Committees
who control the revenue "black box" always tell us that our tax
reductions are costly and unfair and their own special interest
programs and budget gimmicks are equitable and beneficial to
the Treasury.
But static revenue estimates have been repeatedly proven
false. The truth is that the capital gains tax is largely a
voluntary tax for the wealthy. They can avoid paying it simply
by not selling their assets. By lowering the capital gains tax,
upper-income earners will be more willing to sell their assets
and realize their accumulated gains. As such, the government
will collect far more taxes from the wealthy and lift the tax
burden proportionately from the poor and working Americans.
If revenue gurus took account of this "unlocking effect"
Republican State Governors
PAGE 4
fully, the government would gain revenue from cutting the tax in
the short run and upper income earners would contribute more to
the U.S. Treasury. But "unlocking of assets" is only a one-time
phenomenon, the critics counter, and in the long run, revenues
would fall.
The dynamic consequences of cutting capital gains taxes go
beyond the short term unlocking. There is also a boost to asset
values and a permanent boost to the economy by reducing people's
preferences for consumption and increasing their demand for
stocks and bonds, farms, factories, real estate, and other
investments.
S & L bailout costs would also be reduced, because cutting
capital gains taxes would raise the value of the government's
real estate holdings. And by helping the real estate and
financial industries, a reduction in the capital gains tax would
boost those economic regions and coastal areas which are
experiencing severe economic problems.
Astonishingly, the Congressional revenue estimators in the
Joint Committee on Taxation don't take these dynamic consequences
into account -- not the higher assets values, not the reduced
budget outlays for the S & L bailout, not the stronger tax
collections from federal income or payroll taxes, not the higher
stock prices or real estate values, not even -- except in the
tiniest, most understated way -- the unlocking of trillions of
dollars in unrealized capital gains.
No wonder the Joint Committee on Taxation calls the capital
gains tax a revenue loser. Others, not so tunnel-visioned say
just the opposite -- that it raises revenue. Fiscal Associates,
a Washington economics firm, estimates that cutting capital gains
would generate anywhere between $25 and $65 billion over four
years. Even economist Allen Sinai -- never a strong proponent of
tax cuts -- has concluded that cutting the capital gains tax
would raise federal revenue by $30-40 billion between 1990 and
1995,
Our economic future must not be determined by the folks who
told us that the Reagan/Bush tax cuts of the eighties were a give
away to the rich, and should not have been passed -- the same
folks who lost the debate when Jimmy Carter lost the White House.
Because President Reagan and then Vice-President Bush had the
courage to tell the zero sum thinkers to go back to their
computers, tax rates were cut, the eighties economy boomed,
inflation came down, and -- despite the naysayers -- the higher
income earners pulled out of tax loopholes, tax shelters, and tax
exempt bonds and put their money into new taxable investments.
Republican State Governors
PAGE 5
The result: the rich shouldered a higher portion of the
total income tax load; the poor and middle class less.
According to recent IRS statistics, between 1981 and 1987, the
tax burden on the top 1 percent of taxpayers shot up by nearly 40
percent; the top 5 percent pay a 23 percent greater share; and
the top 10 percent of income earners saw their share jump by over
15 percent. Meanwhile, the lower half of income earners saw
their income tax burden fall by about 19 percent.
Many middle and lower income families saw their total tax
bill go up because the payroll tax rose. We can and should
remedy that payroll tax hike, and also give the economy the
stimulus it needs now by cutting capital gains. Allen Sinai
estimates that cutting capital gains would increase GNP by almost
3% or over $150 billion, create 2.5 million new jobs, and boost
business capital spending by 1.3%.
Minorities and the poor have the most to lose from the
liberal left's anti-growth campaign. The poor most need the
jobs, higher incomes, and business opportunities that the capital
gains cut would help guarantee.
But it's not the poor alone who would benefit by cutting
capital gains taxes. Localities and the states most of you
govern have an enormous stake in this capital gains debate; and
we need your help to get this tax cut at the top of our
party's national agenda and passed through Congress.
It's no secret that the states experiencing the greatest
budget difficulties and electoral discontent are those which
passed major new tax increases. Massachusetts, New York, and New
Jersey, just to name three, are obvious and dramatic
demonstrations that popular tax revolt is alive and well. As
soon as he was elected, Governor Jim Florio carried out a "tax
the rich" agenda which created a backlash that nearly cost
Senator Bill Bradley his reelection.
Unfortunately, so many States have raised taxes recently
that a national recession may be resulting as much from State as
federal policy developments.
It's also no coincidence that the fiscal condition of many
states began to deteriorate steadily after the 1986 law which
raised federal capital gains taxes. In the eighties states
enjoyed cumulative surpluses of $10 to $30 billion. Today, two-
thirds of states are in the red. New York and California, which
were in large surplus in 1986, are both facing an estimated $1
billion budget deficit in the current fiscal year.
Ways and Means Chairman Rostenkowski has warned governors
and mayors not to expect any additional help from the federal
Republican State Governors
PAGE 6
government in balancing your budgets. "You can't get something
from us that we haven't got," Rep. Rostenkowski was quoted as
saying in the Washington Post.
Well, there is such a thing as a free lunch! We need a
Bush/Quayle tax cut that will do for the state economies in the
nineties what the Reagan/Bush tax cuts did in the eighties. If
the capital gains tax is cut, not only would the federal
government gain greater revenues, but states and localities will
also reap revenue windfalls, since the new asset sales pass
through state and local "tax gates" as well as federal ones. One
economic group with a good track record estimates states would
enjoy between a $15 and $40 billion windfall from cutting capital
gains taxes.
This is not an inside-the-beltway accountants' squabble.
There is a struggle going on here for the heart and soul of the
Republican party, and it can be stated simply: Are we going to
be the party of economic growth, expanding opportunity,
entrepreneurial capitalism, and free market solutions to poverty?
Or are we going to be the status quo party that regards all
wealth as fixed, static, and immutable?
The truth is that the 1980s were not built on credit cards,
but on record private sector investment in plant, equipment,
jobs, and new businesses. The President's policies of tax
reduction, sound money, and less regulation generated the
strongest peacetime expansion on record, created over 21 million
new jobs during the past eight years, launched over 4 million new
businesses, and generated record increases in real after tax
income for all income groups and all sectors of our society.
While the Nation's gross national product grew by 26.3 percent
between 1983 and 1989, federal tax revenues expanded by 35.7
percent, twice as fast as they did in the 1970's.
The Republican party's legacy of economic expansion is not
the only thing under attack. Empowerment ideas to fight poverty
are being challenged as new and untried. These ideas are no more
untried than Lincoln's homestead act or Stolypin's land
privatization was. There really is no such thing as the "New
Paradigm." There's only the tried and true paradigm of democratic
capitalism -- the ideas of private property, free markets, and
individual incentive on which America was built.
George Bush said it well, "we know what works
freedom
works." I think it was audacious for President Bush to say that
-- one of this Administration's defining moments.
The President has appointed me to head up his Economic
Opportunity and Empowerment Task Force. He charged our Task
Force with coordinating and outlining a far-reaching agenda to
Republican State Governors
PAGE 7
fight poverty using the principles of markets, choice, and
incentive.
I want to recommend some ideas that I would put forward for
consideration in that agenda.
First, we've got to create growth and jobs. The debate
over getting this economy moving again is just getting started.
In my view, we need tax rate reductions on labor, capital, and
the family to spark a prairie fire of new job creation and
entrepreneurial risktaking all across America, especially in
America's inner cities. Cutting capital gains tax for the
nation, eliminating capital gains taxes on assets held for more
than three years, and abolishing them in distressed areas are
crucial priorities. But so are reducing the payroll tax and
expanding the personal and children's exemption.
Second, we've got to expand access to homeownership and
property, and create more affordable housing. While HOPE has
been authorized, we've got to get funding in 1991 and 1992. If
we can get that funding, poor people will be given a chance to
own more than 2 million government housing units -- an estimated
$100 billion in public property. More than 250 housing projects
will be in resident management by the end of 1992, and we are
targeting more than 1 million new first-time homeowners by 1992
through all programs of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, including HOPE.
Third, we've got to improve the quality of education and
job training. Our nation's primary and secondary schools have
been the traditional route for enterprising poor people to move
up and out of poverty. Yet, far too often, these inner city
schools are providing disgracefully poor education. I believe
the Republican party should foster quality education by expanding
educational choice. Along with such champions as Wisconsin's
Polly Williams and Detroit Councilman Keith Butler, I think that
choice expanding options like magnet schools, tuition tax
credits, and educational vouchers can help open up new paths of
opportunity to our nations poor.
Fourth, we must help welfare recipients move to economic
independence by reducing effective tax rates on persons trying to
leave welfare and take jobs. A woman on welfare, with a couple
of children, struggling to make it, faces the highest marginal
income tax in the United States of America, higher than any man
or woman in this room. Whether she takes a job at McDonald's or
McDonnell Doughlas, the government takes away the welfare and
taxes her income. I believe we should eliminate the tax on the
first two, three, or four rungs of the ladder so that the
incentive for work is greater than the reward for not working.
Republican State Governors
PAGE 8
Fifth, we must strengthen the family. Every social and
economic thinker today recognizes that one-parent families with
children are far more likely to be in poverty, remain in poverty,
and perpetuate poverty, than families in which both a father and
mother are present. Part of the reason for the upsurge in family
breakup is escalating taxation of the intact family. Adjusted
for the rise of inflation and incomes since World War II, the
personal and children's exemption would have to be over $6,000,
rather than about $2,000 as it is today. I think we should raise
that exemption to give families more after-tax income in order to
reduce financial pressures, to help families keep more of their
own resources to take care of their children, and to help them
break free from government assistance.
These ideas should be opening shots in a war on poverty. We
must become the party that awakens, liberates, and emancipates
the talent of people who've been left out and left behind.
No one said it better than Mr. Lincoln. He was attacked by
his opponents and he had to defend Republican views of equality
of opportunity: "I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from
getting rich," he responded, "It would do more harm than good
I want every man to have the chance -- and I believe a black man
is entitled to it -- in which he can better his condition -- when
he may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and
the next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to
work for him! That is the true system."
Our party must rededicate itself to Lincoln's vision of
democracy -- creating new wealth, empowering the poor, and
opening access to property and homeownership. Thank you very
much.
#
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Date: 2/15
TO:
Mary Varte Grant
FROM: JAMES P. PINKERTON
Deputy Assistant to the President
for Policy Planning
x6406
RYT thanks
to you help!
A NEW PARADIGM FOR NEW YORK
remarks by
James P. Pinkerton
Deputy Assistant to the President for Policy Planning
to the
New York County Lincoln Day Dinner
February 13, 1991
Lincoln Dinners are when Republicans usually gather to trade
cliches, but I am here to deliver a different message in
Manhattan, the citadel of the Old Paradigm. Because New York
urgently needs a New Paradigm. We should draw inspiration from
Lincoln, who believed that government's greatest purpose is "to
elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from
all shoulders -- to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all."
For 200 years we found our future on the Hudson. For most
of that time, the future looked bright. But now there are
clouds. As our first Republican President said: "the dogmas of
the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present." The people
of New York remain as strong, energetic and diverse as ever, but
their government is failing them.
Just as New York is in trouble, all 50 states face many of
the same challenges. Manhattan is not an island unto itself. It
is a nerve center. Leaders like Bob Mosbacher and John Shad
understand that global finance and communications require that
the synapses of the system be free to connect. That's why we
must oppose short-sighted efforts to gut the golden goose.
Thanks to decades of bad policy at the local, state, and federal
level, the goose is already in intensive care. New York City's
bonds were just downgraded. The State's rating is at the bottom,
behind Mississippi, tied with Louisiana and Puerto Rico,
threatening to turn your governor and your mayor into the junk
bond kings of the 90s.
If New York is the brain, then the United States is the
body. Just 20 years ago, the three largest banks in the world,
and nine of the top 30, were American. Today, only one of the 30
largest banks is American. Those who revel in New York's
difficulties should remember that a job lost in this city is also
a job lost in America, that an uneducated youth is a missed
opportunity, that every crime is a tear in the social fabric, and
that when a crack baby dies, the bell tolls for us all.
Copy
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Speechwriter
AD
Date: - 1-30-91
TO:
Members of the Domestic Policy
Reform Breakfast Group
FROM:
RICHARD W. PORTER
Special Assistant to the President
and Executive Secretary to the
Domestic Policy Council
The attached article is for
your information -- thought
you might be interested.
W
AUDEN
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Exiled Thucydides knew
Lays its honors at their feet.
All that a speech can say
For the error bred in the bon
About Democracy,
Of each woman and each mai
Time that with this strange excuse
And what dictators do,
Craves what it cannot have,
The elderly rubbish they talk
Not universal love
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
To an apathetic grave;
But to be loved alone.
Pardons him for writing well.
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
From the conservative dark
The habit-forming pain,
Into the ethical life
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
Mismanagement and grief:
The dense commuters come,
And the living nations wait,
We must suffer them all again.
Repeating their morning vow;
Each sequestered in its hate;
Into this neutral air
"I will be true to the wife,
Where blind skyscrapers use
I'll concentrate more on my WI
Intellectual disgrace
Their full height to proclaim
And helpless governors wake
Stares from every human face,
The strength of Collective Man,
To resume their compulsory ga
And the seas of pity lie
Each language pours its vain
Who can release them now,
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Competitive excuse:
Who can reach the deaf,
But who can live for long
Who can speak for the dumb?
Follow, poet, follow right
In an euphoric dream;
All I have is a voice
To the bottom of the night,
Out of the mirror they stare,
With your unconstraining voice
Imperialism's face
To undo the folded lie,
Still persuade us to rejoice;
The romantic lie in the brain
And the international wrong.
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
With the farming of a verse
Faces along the bar
And the lie of Authority
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Cling to their average day:
Whose buildings grope the sky:
The lights must never go out,
There is no such thing as the Sta
OE
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
The music must always play,
And no one exists alone;
All the conventions conspire
Hunger allows no choice
In the deserts of the heart
To make this fort assume
To the citizen or the police;
Let the healing fountain start,
The furniture of home;
We must love one another or die
In the prison of his days
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Defenceless under the night
Teach the free man how to praise.
Children afraid of the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Who have never been happy or good.
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
The windiest militant trash
Flash out wherever the Just
Important Persons shout
Exchange their messages:
Is not SD crude as our wish:
May I, composed like them
SEPTEMBER I, 1939
What mad Nijinsky wrote
Of Eros and of dust,
I sit in one of the dives
Accurate scholarship can
About Diaghilev
Beleaguered by the same
On Fifty-Second Street
Unearth the whole offence
Is true of the normal heart;
Negation and despair,
Uncertain and afraid
From Luther until now
Show an affirming flame.
As the clever hopes expire
That has driven a culture mad,
Of a low dishonest decade:
Find what occurred at Linz,
MUNDUS ET INFANS
2
,
Waves of anger and fear
What huge imago made
Kicking his mother until she let go of his soul
Circulate over the bright
A psychopathic god:
Has given him a healthy appetite: clearly, her rôle
And darkened lands of the earth,
I and the public know
In the New Order must be
Obsessing our private lives;
What all schoolchildren learn,
The unmentionable odour of death
To supply and deliver his raw materials free;
Those to whom evil is done
Should there be any shortage
Offends the September night.
Do evil in return.
She will be held responsible; she also promises
To show him all such attentions as befit his age.
Having dictated peace,
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
February 13, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR SPEECHWRITERS
FROM:
HANNS KUTTNER
SUBJECT:
Briefing on Mandated Benefits
A briefing on mandated benefits and other legislative
issues important to the labor movement will be held on Tuesday,
February 19, at 10:30 am in Room 180. Staff from the Labor
Department will provide an overview of the arguments raised on
both sides of the issue.
Please feel free to attend this briefing. In addition,
please extend an invitation to any of your staff or colleagues
who may be interested. If you would like to attend, please
RSVP to my office (x. 6563).
Washington Post
1-30-91
William Raspberry
What It Takes' to Deliver Social Services
Maybe America, newly mean-
specialists don't talk to housing spe-
professionals are hampered by the
exclusively on improving the delivery
spirited, has stopped caring about
cialists; welfare bureaucracies are on-
absence of support services that may
of government services and hardly at
poor people, including small children
ly marginally involved with schools;
be the technical responsibility of a
all on the importance of strengthen-
and their troubled families. But I
child welfare agencies often treat
separate agency.
ing communities in order to prevent
don't think so.
families as adversaries, not as the
One quote summarizes the dilem-
or ameliorate problems before they
What has happened, I believe, is that
setting in which children are most
ma: "To expect a single community
come to agency attention.
large humbers of Americans no longer
likely to flourish.
worker to master the whole array of
The great unintended consequence
believe that the programs they are
That's why I am 80 excited by a
available resources that relate to po-
of the way we address the social
asked to pay for make any real differ-
new monograph from a Washington-
tential youth needs may seem over-
problems of the poor-by parachuting
ence except, to make things worse
based Education and Human Services
For them demands for still greater,
whelming. However, to expect a
in the experts, in Robert Woodson's
Consortium Whatelt Takes: Struc
youth-in-crisis or his/her 44 often->
phrase-is its deleterious effect on
outlays are taken as an invitation to
turing Interagency Partnerships to
stressed parents to negotiatë, unas-
local leadership. The home-grown
pour yet more of their hard-earned tax
Connect Children and Families With
dollars down ever bigger rat holes.
sisted, the maze of agencies, pro-
problem solvers-the men and wom-
Comprehensive Services."
The evidence is on their side. Leav-
grams and eligibility rules in order to
en who live in the community and who
The 55-page monograph, written
get the help they need Is truly to ask
care about its residents, not as collec-
Ing aside such obviously successful
for a consortium that includes leaders
programs as Head Start and magnet
the impossible."
tion of problems but as people-can
in welfare, social policy, education,
schools, most of the programs de-
politics and business, begins by show-
The monograph (written by Atelia I.
be the glue that holds communities
signed to help the poor aren't work-
Melaville of the William T. Grant
together. Undercutting their authori-
ing how fragmented are the services
ing very well. Outlays for prenatal
for poor families, with little coopera-
Foundation Commission and Martin J.
ty by eliminating their problem-
care seem to have made no discern-
tion among agencies and virtually no
Blank of the Institute for Educational
solving role can reduce neighborhoods
ible difference in infant mortality
collaboration. Then it looks at some
Leadership, and available at 1001 Con-
to assemblages of clients rather than
rates among the poor. Ballooning
existing collaborative models and of-
necticut Ave., NW, Suite 310, Wash-
competent, self-healing communities.
school expenditures have not notice-
fers recommendations-and an op-
ington, D.C. 20036-5541) calls for full
Indeed the service-delivery improve-
ably improved public education for
portunity for feedback-on how to
collaboration at both the service deliv-
ments envisioned by the authors of
the poor. Public housing budgets may
improve the delivery and effective-
ery level and the system level "to knit a
the monograph could exacerbate the
Increase, but so does tenant abuse of
ness of services.
truly seamless web of services."
weakening of this natural leadership.
public housing-and homelessness.
It's hard to argue with the descrip-
The present practice, say the au-
Perhaps we'll get smart enough to
Welfare seems as likely to perpetuate
tion of what happens now. Services
thors, is for agencies "to concentrate
include these natural leaders—
poverty as to alleviate it.
are mostly crisis-oriented-designed
on a single solution to a specific prob-
whether as staff, consultants or unpaid
What are we doing wrong?
not to prevent problems but to deal
lem-focusing on their own narrow
volunteers-in the collaborative effort
One part of the answer is that we
with problems that have already oc-
objectives-rather than working to-
recommended by "What It Takes."
have forgotten to treat poor people as
curred. Agencies not only fail to col-
gether toward a common goal that
Excellent services. and adequate
full-fledged human beings, preferring
laborate; they seldom even cooperate,
addresses the range of situations on-
funding are important in fashioning
to chop them up into their component
except in terms of pro forma refer-
tributing to a family's problem or
remedies. But healthy communities
problems, with an agency (usually
rals. Often they are outright rivals,
standing in the way of its resolution."
capable of rearing healthy children in
underfunded and ineffectual) to deal
competing for scarce public funds.
If I have any criticism of this excellent
healthy families can prevent a lot of
with each component. Mental health
Even some of the most expert service
papers it is that it focuses almost
the problems in the first place.
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
AEI
The Challenge of a Political Reversal
By Irving Kristol
It is an iron law of democratic politics
nance in popular opinion. Similarly, a
that no two political parties can for long
On the Issues
constitutional amendment outlawing
occupy the same space on the political
abortion will probably remain in the
spectrum. So coercive is this law that the
Republican platform, but Republican can-
notion of "governing by consensus," al-
didates will, for the most part, be avoid-
ways seductive to those who wield execu-
ing any reference to such an amendment.
tive power, is also always a will o' the
wisp.
Posture and Rhetoric
Parties define their programs and
agendas in terms of the available politi-
It is the reversals, however, that are strik-
cal space. As one party abandons older
ing. Above all, there are the reversals
principles, in practice if not in its formal
with regard to America's position and
platform, the other party is likely to find
role in the world. The Democrats have
some version of these principles more ap-
become the party of economic protec-
pealing. This can, at times, lead to much
tionism; the Republicans, the party in
political confusion, since the parties them-
favor of free international trade. Up
selves are rarely entirely clear as to what
until recently, the opposite was usually
is happening to them. They evolve the
the case.
way biological entities evolve, though al-
One does not wish to exaggerate. There
ways insisting that they really haven't
are individual congressmen in both par-
changed at all or are merely responding,
ties who are exceptions to this generali-
in a perfectly rational way, to changed
zation. And it is also true-it is always
circumstances.
true-that in some cases just about any
Something of the sort seems to be hap-
congressman will be protectionist to ap-
pening to American politics today, in our
pease an interest group in his constitu-
post-New Deal, post-cold war world. Im-
ency. Nevertheless, the posture and
portant reversals are occurring in the gov-
rhetoric of the two parties have strikingly
erning principles of our two major parties,
diverged from past form.
while many of the traditional themes are
The Republican party has moved
muted. The minimum wage, for instance,
toward free trade as a result of its close
has pretty much dropped out of sight as
connections with the business community,
a significant political issue for the Demo-
especially larger multinational corpora-
cratic party. The party did fight for and
tions. The party has also doubtless been
win a modest increase in the minimum
influenced by its corps of conservative
wage, but it was a victory without reso-
economists, who have a classical animus
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036, 202/862 5800
2 -
against protectionism. Over the past
Democratic party to focus on the protec-
twenty years, those economists have
tionist issue. The political benefits could
played a much more important role than
be substantial.
in the past in shaping conservative think-
The more striking, as well as more fun-
ing on economic issues. The GOP remains
damental, reversal involves America's
pro-business, of course, but is now able to
role in world affairs. The end of the cold
define its posture in more universal
war has left the United States as the
terms-whose reference is to the common
world's sole superpower-but one that
economic good-as-distinct from an in-
has been spared the necessity of think-
stinctive, dogmatic bias in favor of
ing seriously about foreign policy for half
business.
a century. Beginning with the rise of fas-
In contrast, the Democratic party is
cist totalitarianism and subsequently
now moving to occupy the protectionist
with the threat of messianic Soviet com-
space. This is a strategic move that makes
munism, American policy has been reac-
sense if it is to appeal to its traditional
tive-actually, defensive. It was our ene-
base in the trade unions and the work-
mies who pretty much defined our foreign
ing class. Trade unions today are so di-
policy. Now that such definition is left to
minished in power and membership, and
us, we are in a state of confusion and un-
so out of favor with American opinion as
certainty, affecting liberals and conserva-
a whole, that there is little Democrats
tives alike.
can do for them by way of specific legisla-
Out of this confusion, two main cur-
tion. Protectionism, however, which trade
rents of thought are emerging-isolation-
unions always endorse, since it protects
ism of a kind and interventionism of a
them from the effects of foreign competi-
kind. The qualifications are necessary be-
tion, can be presented as representing a
cause the intellectual atmosphere is so
common good. And while the working
foggy that precision is; regarded by most
class may no longer be so attached to
politicians as something to be prudently
unions, all workers-everywhere and al-
avoided. Still, the trends are there, and
ways-are well disposed toward
there is little reason to doubt that a ma-
protectionism.
jor reversal in party positions is well
This important segment of Democratic
under way, with most of the Democrats
support is not responsive to the newer
moving to isolationism while most of the
welfare state programs, which are spon-
Republicans try to construct a rationale
sored by middle-class advocates and favor
for the United States continuing to play
either the middle class or the underclass.
an activist role in world affairs.
(Child-care programs are a good example.)
This is, of course, a reversal. Ever
It also seems clear that workers are not
since Woodrow Wilson and Franklin
interested in paying higher taxes for any
Roosevelt, the Democratic party-both its
kind of welfare-state legislation. But pro-
Northern liberal wing and its Southern
tectionism, especially in difficult times or
conservative wing-has been the interna-
in particularly distressed industries, will
tionally activist party. The Republican
always get a respectful hearing.
party, under the pressure of circum-
Exactly what the political effects of this
stances had no alternative but to go along
reversal will be on the 1992 elections is
grudgingly, but there is no question that
still unclear. It all depends, basically, on
a traditional isolationist cast of mind-
the economy. In good times, protectionist
isolationist while nationalist-permeated
sentiment is relatively weak; in bad
the Republican ranks. With Richard Nix-
times, it is relatively strong. Since it is
on's presidency, a slow change became
unlikely that 1992 will be one of the econ-
visible, but even today one can hear Sena-
omy's better years, one can expect the
tor Robert Dole talk casually of "the Demo-
- 3 -
crat wars" of the past fifty years. His rhe-
Almost a Forgotten Language
toric, however, is by now singularly out of
place within his own party. Ronald Reagan
The Bush administration may talk
was no Robert Taft when it came to
grandly of a "new world order," with the
foreign policy.
United States acting as an arm of the
Again, one doesn't wish to exaggerate.
"world community" represented in the
The isolationist temper is of such long
UN. But that grand talk is empty, while
standing in this country that it always
the reality "on the ground" is that the
finds echoes within all parties. It is even
United States suddenly finds itself com-
possible that if we now had a Democratic
mitted to a continuing, substantial mili-
president, we would be seeing a reorien-
tary presence in Saudi Arabia, regard-
tation by degrees, not anything that could
less of how the problem of Iraq is resolved.
be called a reversal. But it is a reversal
One can, without much difficulty, come
we are now experiencing. When Senator
up with a rationale for such involvement
Sam Nunn and his colleagues on the
in terms of the need for a great power to
Foreign Relations Committee start sound-
preserve "stability" and "a balance of
ing like Senator Taft, true reversal is
power" in regions of the world where it
official.
perceives a "national interest" requiring
Just what such isolationism will mean
it. But that kind of thinking, and that
in practice remains to be seen. One sus-
kind of rhetoric, is almost a forgotten lan-
pects it will retain a patina of older liberal
guage in the institutions that shape
interventionism as more reliance is placed
American foreign policy. It is even
on the United Nations as the ultimate
regarded as a foreign language that it is
authority for a permissible foreign policy
shameful for an American to learn.
for the United States. This will surely
So we appear to have a neo-isolationist
please the UN, but will it for long please
impulse that cannot endure for long, the
the American people to see our foreign
world being what it is, and an interven-
policy shaped by an organization that is,
tionist impulse that lacks all coherence
more often than not, anti-American? In
because it too cannot accept the fact that
any case how can the new isolationism
the world is what it is-cannot accept
cope with, say, a revival of Japanese na-
the fact that, to the degree that the
tionalism or German nationalism? And
United States is a world power, it will-in-
how will it cope with the issue of nuclear
evitably have to behave like one, assum-
proliferation-an issue that will be any-
ing responsibilities not out of choice but
thing but academic in the years ahead?
out of historical contingency, and will
And can the United States really-be in-
have to pay the price, in blood and money,
different if whole regions, even continents,
for this "privilege."
collapse into chaos?
This is not the world Americans ex-
It is hard to believe that any kind of
pected to confront with the end of the
isolationism could provide the basis for
cold war. But it is about time that Ameri-
American foreign policy in today's world,
cans learned a measure of stoicism in
when our "foreign entanglements" are so
dealing with this world-which is, after
much less "foreign" than they used to be.
all, the only world we have.
At the same time, the alternative policy
[from the Wall Street Journal, December 17, 1990]
of active intervention is still undefined.
Indeed, there is a positive reluctance to
Irving Kristol is the John M. Olin Distinguished
make any such effort at definition.
Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
1991 - # 4
The National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise
S
tudy failure and vou learn how to
fail, says Robert Woodson. president
of the nine-vear-old National Center for
Neighborhood Enterprise. Study poverty
and you learn how to be poor.
But study success. Woodson
Robert Woodson operates according to a
argues-drug-free kids. low-
crime neighborhoods. well-
timeless principle: The best way to help
managed housing develop-
people is to help them help themselves.
ments-and you learn success.
"We highlight what works." Woodson says.
"and build from there."
With that credo Woodson founded the
NCNE. a public policy and advocacy orga-
nization that helps low-income communities become self-suf-
residents will have five vears to buy their own units-for as
ficient by acting as an "honest broker" between grass-roots
little as $10,000 each-from the management corporation. To
groups and the political and corporate establishments. The
make this happen. NCNE set up meetings between the tenant
center's philosophy is simple: the problems that plague Amer-
organization and government officials: provided training in
ica's inner cities-drugs, crime. unemployment. inadequate
writing proposals. raising capital. accounting. and business
housing-can best be solved by the people who live there.
procedures: and drew national attention to the project via tele-
The center offers help matching local organizations with the
vision. radio. and newspapers.
money. technical assistance, professional connections. and
In addition. the NCNE provides grants of less than $10.000
publicity they need to do the job themselves.
to grass-roots groups that have trouble getting funding
In 1985 the center established the Public Housing Resident
through other channels. and works to promote alternative ed-
Management Demonstration (with a $1.9 million grant from
ucation options for the poor. (Woodson is a strong advocate of
the Amoco Foundation) to help tenant groups in thirteen cities
controversial "education vouchers"-similar to the GI Bill of
learn how to manage and eventually own the developments in
Rights-that will allow low-income parents to purchase the
which they live. The biggest success story: the 464-unit Kenil-
best possible education for their children. be it at a public or
worth-Parkside public housing project in Washington. In 1982
private school.)
the project lacked heat and hot water. had the highest crime
"We have social policies that discourage independent ac-
rate of any city-owned property: and numbered its welfare re-
tion," savs Woodson. who this year was the recipient of a
cipients at more than 80 percent. A resident management
$320.000 MacArthur "genius" grant and who regularly at-
group. led by a determined and resourceful Kimi Gray. has
tracts at least some criticism for his strict devotion to the ideas
since renovated the property with a $13.5 million HUD grant.
of independence and self-help. "I'm interested in empowering
launched businesses run by and for tenants. increased rent
low-income people to do for themselves."
collections 130 percent. reduced welfare dependency by 5i)
percent. and lowered crime by 75 percent. In September the
The National Center for Neigbborhood Enterprise. 1367 Connecticut
group purchased the development from the city for one dollar:
Avenue NW Washington. DC 20036 (202-331-1103).
D
70
DECEMBER
The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, January 15, 1989
To be black in America
Self-reliance vital
- a leap of faith
By Robert L. Woodson
entrepreneurs ready and willing to
purchase a slave's freedom or guar-
SPECIAL TO THE SENTINEL
antee his safety after escape, with
the formation of all-black towns
H
as the civil rights movement
and the building of a self-sustain-
finally run out of steam. its
ing support apparatus, 'black
esprit de corps content with quotas,
Americans exhibited backbone,
set-asides and other race-based for-
resolve, energy, vitality, creativity.
mulas for black progress?
innovation and intellect at a time
when the country was generally
Oh sure. there will be the usual
either indifferent or hostile to black
clamor and chorus of self-help rhet-
interests.
oric from a potpourri of commenta-
tors - some will even say the right
Thus it is ironic that while civil
things - on the occasion of this
rights gains were being made, the
year's Martin Luther King Day
self-sufficient economic infrastruc-
celebration. But unless there is a
ture of black America was being
radical departure from traditional
eroded. Small black firms. the
orthodoxy, a Martin Luther King-
backbone of the racially localized
sized leap of faith, not only can we
black economy, could not compete
expect the death knell of the move-
with the newly integrated. low-
ment as we know it but an end to
priced, large-volume department
the nation's doctrinal commitment
stores, supermarkets, fast-food
to civil rights as well.
chains and shopping centers. Many
Already those black Americans
black businesses became casualties
who have experienced a measure of
of racial progress.
progress are perversely questioning
Government aid programs, as it
the source of their gains. Surely we
soon became clear, would also exact
understand that there was no evi-
a price from the black community.
dence to support King's commit-
These programs, from the begin-
JILL SHARGAA/SENTINEL
ment to non-violence, no reason to
ning, did not address the problems
believe that. because they should,
of the poor with the solutions that
nently undermining black prog-
maximizing independence, eco-
white Americans would suddenly
had the input of the poor. The poor
ress.
nomic opportunity and freedom of
be transformed into benevolent
and the disadvantaged, if pulled
proponents of black justice and
Blacks are at a turning point in
choice for those receiving govern-
into the government's social wel-
progress. King's movement was an
history. The era of the great civil
ment-funded services. Regulatory
fare industry machine, were turned
act of faith, a belief in the convic-
into passive "clients" to service and
rights marches is over. Although
and procedural barriers that pre-
passage of the civil rights legisla-
vent a community from starting its
tion. in his words "that the uni-
be led by the hand into poverty
verse is on the side of justice."
tion aroused hopes that blacks
own schools, day-care centers and
limbo. This government-knows-
could finally enter the mainstream
adoption agencies should be done
King wrote in a 1968 essay, pub-
best policy herded low-income fam-
of society, this has proved to be
away with.
lished after his death, that "today's
ilies into highrise buildings that
more illusion than reality. Old strat-
It is time to approach the needs
problems are so acute because the
bred crime and frustration, discour-
egies have run their course; new
of the black underclass from a dif-
tragic evasions and defaults of sev-
aged the work ethic, fostered
efforts must focus on ending
ferent perspective - one that is
eral centuries have accumulated to
dependency on public assistance
dependency on government by
cognizant of existing strengths
disaster proportions
the interre-
and stifled the initiative of small
encouraging the growing move-
within the black community; one
lated problems of war, inflation,
entrepreneurs with programmed-
ment among blacks to. once again,
that recognizes the abilities and
urban decay, white backlash and a
to-fail bureaucratic restrictions.
rely on themselves for an improved
ingenuity of individuals and groups
climate of violence" have found the
life.
in handling their own affairs; and
nation completely ill-equipped to
Of course, while faith is about
one that keeps government inter-
respond. Much the same climate
acting in the absence of supporting
The current risk-averse black
vention to a minimum. one like
exists today - and for much the
evidence, it is folly to act contrary
leadership is still content with
King's civil rights movement that
same reason.
to evidence.
smoke-screen issues, such as Afro-
is an act of faith.
In the past, the black community
Blind adherence, for example, to
American VS. black, and is unlikely
had to rely on its own resources to
traditional orthodoxy is exacting an
to even deal with the issues that
can make a difference.
Robert L. Woodson is president
survive. Black advancement was
incredible toll on black Americans.
of the National Center for Neigh-
inextricably linked to black self-
The much more sophisticated Jim
People who are now protected by
borhood Enterprise in Washington.
determination. With a sassy and
Crow era of the 1980s, while not tar-
government aid programs need
fearless newspaper published dur-
geted specifically to black Ameri-
instead to be empowered by them.
He wrote this article for The
Orlando Sentinel.
ing the height of slavery, with
cans in most instances, is perma-
Policies should be geared toward
HIGHLAND PARK, MI.
MICHIGAN CITIZEN
W. 42,000
DETROIT METROPOLITAN AREA
MAY
1990
How to help poor neighborhoods-a conservative view
port a large class of counselors,
enable them to join the
recipients to invest public assis-
health.
By Robert L. Woodson
bureaucrats, and social workers
economic mainstream. Aggres-
tance payments in small busi-
Note: Robert Woodson is
In communities across
- what I call the "Poverty Pen-
sive efforts must be made to in-
nesses or job-training
president of the National Center
America during the Depres-
tagon." There are hundreds of
troduce new approaches that
programs. There are several
for Neighborhood Enterprise.
sion, churches, neighborhood
aid programs that administer
build on both the free
ways in which welfare could be
This essay is adapted from the
associations, and families stood
over $100 billion each year. In
enterprise system and the
restructured to stimulate
Heritage
Foundation
between the private lives of in-
New York City, the Community
strengths and resources already
general economic improvement
monograph "A Conservative
dividuals and large-scale
Service Society (a 100-year-old
existing in our communities.
in poor communities. One
Agenda for Black Americans,"
government programs. This
social-work agency) examined
Many analysts cite poverty as
would be to convert assistance
published as part of the think
gave communities cohesiveness
how funding intended to meet
a condition inextricably linked
payments into vouchers to be
tank's recent Black History
of spirit and purpose during a
the needs of that city's 1.4-mil-
to racism. The Argument is
used by employers as wages.
Month observations.
time of setback and retrench-
lion poop people' (or one-fifth
integration
This action would make low-in-
ment. Rent parties, rummage
of its population) was actually
nurtured by preferential
come-residents in distressed
sales, quilting bees, church so-
spent. The results: of the $14.5
government programs, will ul-
areas more competitive in the
cials, homecomings, lodge
billion spent to help the poor in
timately bring blacks and other
employment market as well as
meetings, and neighborhood
1983, 74 cents of every dollar
minorities into the economic
promote greater self-sufficien-
gatherings around a communal
went to the service industry;
mainstream. But this strategy
cy. A simple voucher plan also
potbellied stove served as
only 26 cents was spent on rent,
has been tried and hasn't
would be more attractive to
methods of information ex-
food, clothes, and other such
worked.
employers than complicated tax
change and resource sharing for
needs. In many cases, social
An alternative approach
credit programs. In addition,
neighborhoods throbbing with
welfare programs actually ex-
rests on a cardinal principle:
policies which prevent the un-
the will and desire to survive.
acerbate the very problems they
Those suffering from the
skilled from getting entry-level
Such grass-roots, self-help
were designed to solve and
problems must be involved in
work experience, such as the
approaches were, however,
destroy families in the name of
designing the executing solu-
minimum wage and labor union
abandoned by the liberal social
helping.
tions to them. They have
licensing restrictions, should be
policy-makers of the New Deal
Americans, especially black
firsthand knowledge, and they
eliminated.
era and beyond. Since the
Americans have become
have the greatest interes the
- Explore Ways to provide
1960s, there has been a 25-fold
frustrated and infuriated with
outcome. A successful com-
private health insurance to
increase in the amount federal,
well-intended programs that do
munity-based development
families who leave aid to
state, and local dollars spent to
not lead to the desired results.
strategy therefore must be
families with dependent
meet the needs of the poor. Yet
They are not prepared to con-
based on several steps:
children (AFDC). This would
one-third of black America is
tinue to have money thrown at
- Give assistance to com-
eliminate one of the most sig-
still in danger of becoming a
the problems.
munity efforts that are genuine-
nificant barriers to welfare
permanent underclass.
Old-line government
ly the product of neighborhood
recipients taking jobs - the loss
Moreover, the number of
remedies and patchwork
initiatives and that have shown
of medical benefits in the form
children living in poverty has ex-
programs have not significantly
themselves capable of mobiliz-
of vouchers to newly employed
panded while the quality of
helped the unemployed under-
ing local resources and sustain-
low-income persons:
their education has declined.
class, who by their sizable num-
ing an organization to deal with
With these and other innova-
The funding that was desig-
bers seem to mock the ideals of
local issues.
tive self-help steps, America's
nated to help poor people has
a free enterprise system. But it
- Explore welfare assis-
most depressed neighborhoods
gone, for the most part, to sup-
is this very system that could
tance approaches that enable
can be nurtured back to good
Perspective
The Atlania Tournal
THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION
SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1990
Civil rights leaders ignore true needs of black poor
By Robert L. Woodson
Consequently. low-income
thing that is all-black is "segregat-
Special to the Journal-Constitution
blacks have become the victims of
ed" and therefore harmful?
1 bait-and-switch game in which
It is no wonder that many chil-
The time has come to exam-
their endemic conditions of poor
dren of low-income black families
ine. honestly and objectively. the
health. low educational achieve-
make the self-destructive choices
adverse side effects of the civil
ment, crime and violence are
confirmed by daily headlines
rights movement that may be con-
ased in appeals for aid that. once
when they are constantly told.
tributing to the plight of the black
it arrives. seldom benefits them.
even by their own people. that
underclass.
According to a 1986 study by
On Oct. 29. 1965. William
anything all-black is. by defini-
the White House Office of Policy,
tion. all-bad.
Raspberry. then a reporter for
10 cents out of every dollar spent
More than a half-century ago.
the Washington Post. quoted
by the federal government in
Washington-based civil rights
the distinguished black scholar-
means-tested aid programs goes
activist W.E.B. DuBois voiced this
leaders as acknowledging that
to service providers - counsel-
same concern when he publicly
"poor Negroes" were not benefit-
ors, social workers and adminis-
broke with the NAACP in 1935
ing from the movement's gains.
trators - and only 30 cents to the
and that continued emphasis on
over the issue of integration. He
poor.
asserted that we must never con-
race-specific solutions would do
Minority set-aside programs
little to relieve their economic
vey the notion that our goal as a
are another case in point. We ad-
suffering.
people is disassociation from our-
vertise them as something done to
Choosing to ignore this wis-
selves. His message prompts us to
help "the black community." But
dom. the movement's leaders pro-
ask a basic introspective ques-
the blacks who benefit are those
tion: If we don't want to be with
ceeded to employ three major
already working in professional
strategies to advance the condi-
us, then why should other
or highly unionized fields - not
tion of blacks: racial integration
people?
the lowest tier of the workforce.
and affirmative action: expanded
When attempts have been
government spending on anti-
Even worse, the solutions em-
made to solicit the wishes of low-
poverty programs: and black po-
braced by civil rights leaders
income blacks. all too often their
litical empowerment.
sometimes compound the exist-
opinions have been arrogantly set
Now. some 25 years later. with
ing injury.
aside.
the passage and enforcement of
The single-minded pursuit of
Harvard law Professor Der-
civil rights laws. the expenditure
integration. for example. has
rick A. Bell Jr.. in his 1976 study of
of more than a trillion dollars on
done psychological harm to low-
the Boston school busing contro-
anti-poverty programs. and the
income blacks. For many who
versy. notes that Judge W. Arthur
installation of blacks at the helm
fought in the movement in the
Garrity sought the views of the
of eight of the nation's 12 largest
60s. the goal was never integra-
grass-roots black community be-
cities. the plight of the one-third
tion. but total desegregation.
fore rendering his busing deci-
of blacks mired in poverty contin-
The failure to engage in
sion. Groups of parents and com-
ues to worsen.
thoughtful debate on this issue
munity leaders met for months
Instead of examining why
has produced a unique form of
and reached a consensus that
these instruments of salvation
schizophrenia. When low-income
they preferred improvement in
have failed. a growing chorus of
blacks are grouped together in
the quality of their neighborhood
middle-income blacks and black
schools or neighborhoods, they
schools over the dislocations
academics now want to attribute
are referred to as being "segre-
caused by busing. Civil rights law-
this economic decline to a white
'gated." Thus they must be bused
yers. both white and black. rec-
conspiracy.
far from their homes or have oth-
ommended that Judge Garrity ig-
I was not a bystander in the
er integration-oriented remedies
nore these opinions and order
civil rights movement. Like many
applied. But when middle-in-
black children bused to South
of my peers. I led demonstrations
come blacks belong to all-black
Boston.
in the '60s and went to jail in our
churches. all-black sqrorities or
Integration ideals have also
quest to end America's own en-
fraternities. or other all-black so-
clashed with black interests in
trenched system of apartheid.
cial, civic or professional organi-
the area of child adoption. During
For those of us who were profes-
zations, they are never regarded
the Reagan years. the Depart-
sionally trained and prepared to
as "segregated." These organiza-
ment of Health and Human Ser-
walk through the doors of oppor-
tions are accepted for what they
vices vigorously enforced contra-
funity, the benefits were obvious.
are.
dictory policies. The depart-
But seldom. if ever. were low-
What does it do to the collec-
ment's Office of Children. Youth
income blacks involved in the de-
tive psyche and self-esteem of
and Families provided grants to
eision-making process - a flaw
low-income blacks who go to all-
states to recruit black adoptive
that continues to plague the civil
black schools and live in an all-
families. At the same time. its Of-
rights movement to this day.
black setting to be told that any-
fice of Civil Rights Compliance is-
sued directives to those same
ed family networks that have tra-
state offices threatening them
ditionally worked to combat vari-
with sanctions if any reference to
ous social and economic
race was made in the recruitment
problems. If public funds are
and placement of children. Thus
spent on projects aimed at im-
a young black mother was legally
proving conditions within low-in-
prohibited from requesting a
come communities. these inter-
same-race adoption for her child.
nal support mechanisms should
On housing issues, too, the in-
be involved in the process.
terests of civil rights advocates of-
Second. a greater percentage
ten run counter to the interests of
of funds allocated for social pro-
the poor. The U.S. Department of
grams should go directly to ser-
Housing and Urban Development
vice providers who live within the
has implemented a concept
affected communities. The appli-
known as "integration mainte-
cation of such a "ZIP Code test"
nance." Under this banner, pro-
would ensure that the lion's share
grams have been developed to
of poverty funds is put directly
regulate the percentage of blacks
into the hands of the poor them-
in public housing developments
selves, enabling them to become
and private developments built
the primary delivery system of
with federally insured mortgages.
services to their communities.
While enforcing these policies in
Third, enterprise-zone legis-
the sacrosanct name of "racial
lation should be expanded to in-
balance," officials often forget
clude tax incentives that would
that such quotas all too often
encourage the flow of capital into
work against those low-income
low-income communities to cre-
blacks who need affordable
ate small, resident-run busi-
housing.
nesses.
Rodney Smolla. a professor of
A new black agenda would
law at the University of Arkansas.
also seek to determine why 50
has suggested that a more insid-
percent of the families living in
ious effect of integration mainte-
low-income neighborhoods are
nance programs - and the result-
stable. not on drugs and not com-
ing diffusion of the black popula-
mitting crimes. We need to know
tion - has been the dilution of
the factors that have allowed such
black political power and. the
families to thrive in the face of
weakening of the economic, reli-
the historic progression of slav-
gious and cultural institutions
ery, segregation. discrimination,
that constitute the strengths of
a severe national depression, and
the black community.
subsequent recessions.
It is time to separate the inter-
Another guiding principle of
ests of low-income blacks from
the new black agenda would re-
those of middle- and upper-in-
flect the wisdom imparted by Dr.
come blacks and concentrate all
Martin Luther King Jr. when he
our energies and resources on ad-
advised us to reach down into our
dressing the needs of the former.
souls and sign our own Emancipa-
First, we must build upon the
tion Proclamation. We cannot and
demonstrated capacities of exist-
must not avoid facing the bottom-
ing structures within the black
line truth: No one will or should
community - the churches. fra-
do more for us than we are willing
ternal organizations and extend-
to do for ourselves.
THINK
Civil Rights and Economic Power
Developing minority entrepreneurs and a skilled workforce
should be high priorities for U.S. business.
by Robert L. Woodson
The recent incident of racial violence
As a nation. we cannot afford to repeat
against blacks in the Howard Beach sec-
the social upheaval of two decades ago.
tion of Queens. N.Y., and the stoning of
Not at a time when we are concerned
civil rights marchers in Forsyth County.
about foreign competition and attempting
Ga., have placed the civil rights issue.
to reassert U.S. leadership in world mar-
once again. prominently in the news. At
kets.
recent protest demonstrations in New York
For these reasons, U.S. businesses must
and Georgia, civil rights leaders warned
become more involved in major policy
the nation that these upsurges of racism
debates on issues such as welfare reform.
will bring about a repeat of the 1960s
The future course of race relations in this
agenda-marching in the streets.
country will hinge on a concerted private
Can the myriad of social and economic
and public sector commitment to break
problems faced by many blacks be attrib-
the cycle of dependency, despair and pov-
uted to racism? Would eradicating racism
erty by promoting self-sufficiency and
in the United States improve conditions
productivity. It is important for U.S. busi-
for all blacks. especially the poor? What
ness and IBM. in particular as a leader,
constructive role can business play in
to understand the issues.
addressing racial tensions in society? Can
While, in the past. masses of blacks
the true character of a U.S. corporation
were strong supporters of civil rights
be determined by its willingness or
Robert L. Woodson is president of the
marches and demonstrations, many now
unwillingness to support economic devel-
National Center for Neighborhood
question the wisdom of such tactics to
opment programs? Should business get
Enterprise and a member of the Presi-
address the challenges of the 1980s.
involved?
dent's Board of Advisors on Private Sec-
In the 1960s the civil rights movement
These are difficult and disturbing ques-
tor Initiatives. He is also chairman of the
was directed against institutional racism
tions for a society to grapple with-let
Council for a Black Economic Agenda
as manifested in laws, policies and com-
alone American business whose principal
and an adjunct fellow at the American
munity-wide attitudes that resulted in
job is to provide the engine for the coun-
Enterprise Institute.
blacks being denied public accommoda-
try's economic prosperity. It is clear.
Woodson has directed national and local
tion, voting rights and political represen-
however. that if U.S. business is to remain
community development programs among
tation in government. Along with a host
competitive in domestic and world mar-
a broad cross section of people, from
of other obvious gains today, blacks have
kets, it is imperative that the problems
blacks in Chicago to farm workers in Cal-
free access to public places and seven of
and prospects of its future workforce be
ifornia. In addition. Woodson is a fre-
the 12 major cities in the country have
fully understood.
quent lecturer at colleges and universi-
black mayors. Ironically, while black
A recent report by the National Alli-
ties. Among his honors are the Outstand-
America has enjoyed increased political
ance of Business offers a glimpse of the
ing Public Service Award of The Georgia
power far greater than any minority
domestic workforce in the year 2000:
Coalition of Black Women, Inc., and the
group-since 1970, the number of black
"Over the next 10 to 15 years. the
Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge 1985
Congressmen has more than doubled to
workforce is expected to undergo major
George Washington Honor Medal.
more than 20, and the number of black
changes in composition. Most striking will
mayors is approaching 300-this power
be the growth of less well-educated seg-
has not translated into economic power
ments of the population that have typi-
will be more significant than ever."
and influence.
cally been the least prepared for work.
These changes will occur at a time when
What distinguishes recent acts of racial
The number of minority youths will
the federal government is reducing over-
violence from those of the 1960s is that
increase while the total number of youths
all expenditures. In response to this shift,
today the actions are committed by a small
of working age will decline. The number
the private sector will need to assume a
group of Ku Klux Klan members and
of high school dropouts will rise as will
greater responsibility in preparing tomor-
youthful zealots who have no commu-
the number of teen mothers. At the same
row's workforce.
nity-wide support. In Georgia, white For-
time, entry level jobs will increasingly
One can foresee dramatic economic
syth County residents were the ones who
require basic. analytical. and interper-
upheavals with the mismatching of busi-
extended the invitation to the marchers.
sonal skills.
ness and industry workforce needs with
The county police protected the march-
"From five to 15 million manufacturing
an unprepared. unskilled and untrained
ers, in contrast with the past when police
jobs will be restructured and an equal
minority labor pool. If, in frustration. these
unleashed dogs and turned fire hoses on
number of service jobs will become obso-
youngsters turn to-crime and drugs. while
civil rights demonstrators. In Howard
lete. While it is expected that new jobs
also becoming teenage parents. they will
Beach, white community residents coop-
will replace those that are lost, the dis-
further drain the national treasury and,
erated with the police in identifying the
ruption from these changes will be great
even more critically. waste their own
young attackers. In the 1960s, the assail-
and the need for training and retraining
human potential.
ants probably would have been protected
Reprinted with permission. THINK Number 2/1987
International Business Machines Corporation
"The emphasis for the future must be on creating wealth
"
and considered heroes. It is. therefore.
core unemployed youth for renovation
invest in a business. Great Britain's
incorrect to imply that these isolated inci-
crews. They have since become involved
"enterprise allowance" program allo-
dents of racial animosity express a resur-
in developing an inner-city shopping mall.
cates eligible working people an allow-
gence of racism throughout the white
In addition. 270 people are employed in
ance of $60 per week in exchange for
community. In reality, national polls indi-
small businesses established by Coch-
working at least 35 hours per week to
cate a more tolerant attitude toward
ran's public housing resident corpora-
establish a business. After three years.
minorities.
tion.
thousands of new businesses have been
The challenge of the 1980s is to develop
There are hundreds of such fledgling
established with an extraordinary success
strategies that are appropriate for the times.
entrepreneurs in low-income neighbor-
rate of over 70 percent. Technically,
New voices in the black community are
hoods across the country. What is critical
transfer of welfare payments for starting
speaking out in a candid and straightfor-
to their success is information and train-
new businesses in the United States is
ward manner against the old rhetoric that
ing and other forms of hands-on help.
illegal. Instead of penalizing entrepre-
blamed racism for all social ills. Innova-
They are not looking for handouts. but
neurship and self-sufficiency, we should
tive solutions are being discussed and
for a helping hand.
look at ways to encourage it.
implemented to help end the debilitating
What is desperately needed by all who
IBM has been at the forefront of public/
poverty that stalks our communities.
seek to improve the plight of the nation's
private partnerships, by providing direct
According to MIT researcher David
poor is to join hands with black Ameri-
assistance to groups that help low-income
Birch, 80 percent of all new jobs are cre-
cans in spearheading a self-help renais-
people learn the skills they need to par-
ated by small and medium-sized busi-
sance-the next battle-front in the strug-
ticipate in the marketplace. More than
nesses. Many of these small businesses
gle for equal rights. Information flowing
seven years ago, 11 IBM employees were
provide products and services to large
to these groups is critical. How does a
detailed to the Washington Urban League
corporations. Compared with other
business price its products and services,
to establish a word processing training
minority groups. blacks are way behind
study markets, manage expansion? Since
center. To date, more than 700 low-income
in creating jobs.
many low-income people lack business
people have graduated from the program
experience. they need sound business
with a 100 percent job placement rate for
The key to improvement
information.
those who have completed the program.
The emphasis for the future must be on
Many low-income entrepreneurs face
After three years. 70 percent retained their
creating wealth through increased enter-
regulatory and administrative barriers that
jobs. When calculating the personnel con-
prise formation in low-income commu-
keep them from entering the market. Sev-
tribution in dollar amounts, IBM's con-
nities. Economic development is the key
eral female welfare recipients in Balti-
tribution is worth more than $250,000.
to improving the quality of life in those
more, for example. started a maintenance
When you consider the taxes paid by these
neighborhoods.
business that hired other welfare recipi-
workers and other cost factors, the return
Over the past two decades, for exam-
ents. When they informed the city's wel-
rate of this program is $5 for every $1
ple, public housing resident management
fare department of their venture, their
invested. The program is now staffed
corporations run by small, grassroots
business income was deducted dollar-for-
completely with Washington Urban
groups living in the housing they manage
dollar from their welfare benefits, but they
League employees.
have sprung up in Boston, Jersey City,
were not allowed to deduct their costs.
The poor have needs beyond food,
St. Louis, New Orleans and other areas.
Another example involves a woman on
shelter and clothing. They must over-
They have successfully transformed
welfare who received a gift of a typewriter
come their crisis of the spirit. They must
blighted and impoverished developments
that would allow her to earn extra money
be helped to reinvest in their futures by
into safe communities with new jobs and
while preparing for a new career. Her wel-
believing development is possible.
community-run social services.
fare benefits were immediately stopped
Rebuilding the black community must
The Kenilworth-Parkside Resident
because welfare recipients may not have
occur from within based on the experi-
Management Corp. run by Kimi Gray in
assets over $1,000. Many welfare policies
ences of those suffering the debilitating
Washington. D.C., will save the District
do not distinguish between commercial
social and economic problems.
of Columbia government $4.5 million over
and personal assets. These are examples
Just as business uses its political and
a 10-year period. And the social and eco-
of the barriers to self-help imposed by
economic energies to increase investment
nomic impact is awesome. Within two
government that must be struck down
in new technologies and expand world
years, teenage pregnancy in the devel-
through welfare reform.
markets, it should employ the same zeal
opment was reduced by 50 percent, wel-
Several European countries have
to increase the employability of blacks
fare dependency declined by 50 percent,
developed innovative programs that allow
and other minorities who represent the
the crime rate fell 75 percent and rent
public assistance payments to be used to
work force of the future. Developing a
collections increased 130 percent.
invest in small businesses. In France, for
labor market that reflects America's cul-
In St. Louis, the Cochran Tenant Man-
example. any citizen who is entitled to
tural diversity and energy should be at
agement Corp. refurbished 400 vacant units
unemployment compensation can collect
the top of every corporate agenda. The
in its first year of operation. using hard-
six months of benefits in a lump sum to
stakes are too high to ignore.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
1/25
Maykate Grant:
fy;
DP
Pls. show to Lange, et
21.
OPENING AND CLOSING STATEMENTS
Presented by
ROBERT L. WOODSON, PRESIDENT
NATIONAL CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD ENTERPRISE
on the
CIVIL RIGHTS RESTORATION ACT OF 1990
at the
WHITE HOUSE MEETING WITH PRESIDENT BUSH AND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS
May 14, 1990
OPENING STATEMENT
As the debate develops around the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1990, it is important to
examine honestly and objectively the potential adverse side effects of the proposed
affirmative action strategies that may contribute to the plight of the black underclass.
Before examining the specific provisions of the Act, which is the purpose of this meeting,
certain of its underlying assumptions must be reviewed in terms of the intended and
actual beneficiaries and the past effects and future implications of the type of civil rights
solutions advocated by proponents of the legislation.
The civil rights movement was conceived to secure for all individuals the power to control
their own destinies and insure the fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed rights of
"freedom and justice for all." Through the formulation and enforcement of laws to change
the system of segregation that denied many blacks the right to vote and access to public
places and allowed other forms of racial discrimination, the visionaries of that day hoped
to cure racial inequities and provide keys to the future that would open doors to groups
long excluded from employment and other opportunities. The cornerstones of the
movement were moral consistency, equality and justice.
However, it became clear in a very short time that civil rights gains were benefitting
primarily middle and upper class blacks and not those in the lower economic stratum.
On Oct. 29, 1965, William Raspberry, then a reporter for The Washington Post quoted
Washington-based civil rights leaders as acknowledging that "poor Negroes" were not
benefitting from the movement's gains and that continued emphasis on race-specific
solutions would do little to relieve their economic suffering. Choosing to ignore this
wisdom, the movement's leaders proceeded to employ three major strategies to advance
the condition of blacks: racial integration and affirmative action based on statistical
indicators; expanded government spending on anti-poverty programs; and black political
empowerment.
2
Now, some 25 years later, with the passage and enforcement of civil rights laws, the
expenditure of more than a trillion dollars on anti-poverty programs, and the installation
of blacks at the helm of the nation's 12 largest cities, the plight of one third of blacks
mired in poverty continues to worsen. Instead of examining why these instruments of
salvation have failed, a growing chorus now wants to attribute the economic decline of
the underclass solely to white racism.
In reality, many of the gaps that existed between the achievements of blacks and whites
two decades ago are narrowing. Recent reports indicate that the income of two-earner
black households has reached 85% of parity and the gap is closing at a rate of 5% a
year.
Conversely, the gap between low-income and middle-income blacks widens steadily. The
truth of the matter is -- middle-income blacks are the primary beneficiaries of the civil
rights legacy. During the 20-year period from 1967 to 1987, the number of black
households earning $50,000 or more increased 360% (from 212,000 in 1967 to 767,000
in 1987). While, in this same period, black families with incomes of less than $10,000
increased from 26.8% to 30.2%.
Other post-civil rights era results suggest strongly that the approaches employed have
resulted in an adverse impact particularly on low-income blacks as shown below. The net
effects of those flawed strategies include destabilization of black families, alienation of
young black males from the economic mainstream, and the abandonment and desolation
of low-income, inner-city communities.
3
POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA IMPACT ON BLACKS
1960's
1980's
Destabilization of Black Family Structure
O
Married black women (aged 15-44)
with spouse present in household
51%
29.1%
O
Black children living with
black married couple
67%
38.6%
o
Black children living with never-
married person
2.1%
29.3%
o
Black children born to unmarried
mothers
25%
61.2%
Alienation of Black Males
Employed young black males
60%
44%
Unemployed black males 24
years old
19.8%
28.2%
o
Unemployed black males 35-
36 years old
17.1%
20.3%
The interests of low-income blacks continue to be sacrificed on the altar of affirmative
action. Merely reversing the Supreme Court's anti-civil rights decisions of 1989 and re-
embracing the concept of quotas would do nothing to redress the deeper problems of
the truly disadvantaged. Civil rights remedies that call for statistical, rather than economic
parity, are morally inconsistent, counter to the free enterprise system, and widening racial
and economic gaps.
What is needed instead is an economic agenda for empowerment of the underclass that
will redress the problems of the economic mobility and human capital development of the
nation's poor and revitalization of low-income communities. In doing so, we will be
completing the unfinished business of the civil rights agenda envisioned by Dr. Martin
4
Luther King, who dreamed of a day when black Americans would no longer be judged
by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character and achievements.
It is my belief that the goal of establishing proportional representation in the workforce
through any means necessary is misguided. Without examining the underlying reasons
for underrepresentation, as well as the real life consequences of legal and technical
remedies proposed by the Civil Rights Restoration Act, the emphasis on numerical
outcomes as evidenced by statistical disparities and disproportionalities is questionable,
at best.
I hope that through this meeting and other deliberations conducted by the President on
the proposed legislation, the conclusion will be reached that an alternative proposal,
which advances strategies for empowerment of the underclass, is the most credible
solution. This approach, rather than court-mandated numerical outcomes, would better
serve the interests of all Americans and preserve our families, our moral and spiritual
character, our communities, our unity and self-reliance as a people -- which, along with
economic mobility and equal opportunity, were the intended legacy of the civil rights
movement.
5
CLOSING STATEMENT
Today's meeting convened by President Bush creates an opportunity to broaden the civil
rights debate to include other views and interests not previously represented. It provides
an impetus for insightful re-examination of old civil rights laws and the analysis of their
true effects and beneficiaries. Before we subscribe blindly to new civil rights proposals
that may not only perpetuate, but deepen class divisions that resulted from the old laws,
we must honestly and objectively consider the implications of race-specific solutions and
acknowledge fully the shortfalls and consequences of existing civil rights laws.
In the last 25 years, millions of low-income blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans who
were unable to pass through the narrow gates of opportunity wrought by the designers
of present civil rights laws have languished in deteriorating inner-city ghettos, barrios,
isolated rural communities and remote reservations. They have been left in an abyss of
poverty, while their middle and upper class brothers and sisters have realized impressive
gains in income, employment and education.
This is not a "sour grapes" or "crabs in a barrel" commentary, decrying the progress of
middle class blacks, but an admonition that the needs of low-income blacks can not
continue to be ignored and their interests sacrificed to that of middle-income blacks.
The Civil Rights Act of 1990 represents outdated thinking. It is narrowly crafted legislation
that attempts to correct legal problems created by recent court decisions that are viewed
as damaging to middle-income blacks. Undergirding this legislation is the assumption
that every significant difference in statistical outcomes among racial and ethnic groups is
attributable to racial discrimination, and is curable by quotas.
The quest of civil rights was defined initially as empowerment of individuals through the
creation of equal opportunity. However, in recent years, we have strayed from this
course, and the focus of civil rights policies has shifted from securing equal opportunity
1
to securing equal outcomes among racial groups through racial quotas, set-asides,
busing and welfare. Though advocated as temporary measures necessary to undo
lingering effects of past discrimination, these devices have grown increasingly entrenched.
The original intent of affirmative action -- to remove legal barriers and recruit groups
historically excluded from employment and other opportunities -- has been transformed
to focus on numerical group results. Formula-based remedies have been contrived to
achieve legally prescribed, racial landscaping through whatever means necessary,
including manipulation of performance standards and the compromise of quality. What
has resulted is a zero-sum game in which quotas are used to redistribute opportunities,
but in reality, the net effect is every person's gain means another's loss.
Quotas are superficial solutions to the far more serious problems faced by America's truly
disadvantaged. They are a cruel hoax on low-income blacks who have become victims
of a bait-and-switch game in which their endemic conditions of poor health, low
educational achievement, crime and violence are used in appeals for aid that, once it
arrives, seldom benefits them.
According to a 1986 study by the White House Office of Policy, 70 cents out of every
dollar spent by the federal government in means-tested aid programs goes to service
providers -- counselors, social workers, administrators -- and only 30 cents to the poor.
Minority set-aside programs are another case in point. They are promoted as something
done to benefit the "black community." But the blacks who benefit are most likely not
residents of those communities and are employed in professional or highly unionized
fields -- not the lowest tier of the workforce.
The proposed civil rights legislation must be scrutinized to ensure that it does not
compound the existing injury. In redressing the civil rights agenda, the original intent of
2
affirmative action should be revisited and new implementation approaches formulated
which are focused on economic empowerment of low-income blacks and elimination of
barriers to the progress of the truly disadvantaged: e.g., stifling regulation of
entrepreneurial opportunities; lack of access to the capital market; poor public education;
deteriorated and insufficient housing; crime; and the welfare system.
As we approach the next century, now is an opportune time for progressive, new
strategies aimed at empowering the underclass. Consistent with our nation's tradition of
leadership, the Bush administration has an ideal opportunity to demonstrate responsible
stewardship to new and aspiring democracies of the world by introducing an innovative
economic agenda that addresses the needs of the underclass from a new perspective --
one that strengthens the capacity of low-income individuals and involves them in
formulating solutions to their problems; one that provides an alternative to the present
welfare system and ceases to nourish a poverty industry that primarily serves its own self-
interest rather than the interest of the underclass; one that encourages revitalization of
low-income neighborhoods through enterprise formation and reinforcing indigenous
development capacity; and one that eliminates barriers -- governmental and private -- to
economic mobility of the underclass and provides market-oriented strategies and
incentives for development of low-income communities.
In conclusion, my specific recommendations to President Bush are:
o
Convene a meeting with the President, top Administration officials and
leaders of low-income communities to learn firsthand the problems
confronting low-income people in their struggle to become economically
self-sufficient.
o
Establish a Commission on Low-Income Empowerment and Economic
Mobility that will, within a specified period, identify barriers that impede
economic progress of low-income people and recommend legislation
designed to eliminate those obstacles and empower the underclass.
O
Propose an amendment to strengthen damage provisions of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 to provide for vigorous enforcement of existing civil rights laws,
3
strict penalties for discriminators, and full relief for victims of discrimination.
O
Streamline and reform social services delivery system. [Efforts should
include increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, expanding the Dependent
Care Tax Credit, and establishing ceiling rents in public housing so that
intact working families can be reunited.]
O
Exempt low-income people from laws and regulations that prohibit and
discourage employment and enterprise formation.
O
Use current tax system and other incentives to encourage investment in
affordable housing and enterprises owned and operated by low-income
people.
4
2/05/91
A BILL
To enable the development by communities of empowerment
opportunities systems in order to facilitate economic opportunity
for their low-income residents through the restructuring of
programs providing services and benefits, to meet the identified
priorities of the community and the needs of the individuals and
families to be served.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this Act
may be cited as the "Empowerment Opportunities Act of 1991".
Purpose; Federal Administrator
Sec. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this Act to declare the
need and provide the necessary authority for the development of
new approaches to increase economic opportunity and opportunities
for self-sufficiency, implemented through restructured delivery
systems at the community level, so that in the case of each
system --
(1) services and benefits for low-income individuals
and families funded under categorical or other single or
limited purpose Federal programs, can be integrated and
restructured at the community level to facilitate the
economic empowerment of those individuals and families;
(2) the system is neighborhood or community based,
with a specified target group or groups of beneficiaries;
2
(3) the individuals and families to be served can
participate in the design of the comprehensive system for
the delivery of services and benefits; and
(4) the delivery system affords individuals and
families in the target group of beneficiaries the maximum
choice and control over the range, source, and objectives of
the services and benefits to be provided.
(b) In order to provide a single focal point for the
administration at the Federal level of government of the
authorities provided under this Act, the President shall
designate an official of the Executive Branch; or two or more
such officials to act in concert as a panel. The designated
official or officials (hereafter referred to as the "Federal
administrator") shall exercise the authorities conferred below,
in consultation with all other heads of Federal departments and
agencies having programs that an applicant agency seeks to
include in its restructured system, and shall make a
recommendation to each such department or agency head with
respect to approving the inclusion of a program for which such
department or agency head has legal responsibility, or the waiver
of any Federal statutory or regulatory requirements applicable to
that program.
Technical Assistance
Sec. 3. An agency eligible to submit an application under
section 4 may request, through the Federal administrator,
technical assistance to aid in the development of the information
3
necessary for the design and implementation of a restructured
system for the integrated provision of services and benefits to
low-income individuals or families within one or more communities
in the State. Assistance under this section may be provided only
upon application therefor which describes, in such detail as the
Federal administrator finds appropriate, the nature of the system
which the applicant proposes to implement and the target group or
groups. The application must also provide reasonable assurances
that in the development of the application under section 4 the
applicant agency will afford adequate opportunity for
participation by the low-income individuals and families, and by
any agency carrying out a human services program, within the
community and that the application will be developed only after
considering fully the needs for services and benefits expressed
by individuals and families, and the community priorities and
available resources in the area served by the applicant.
(b) The Federal administrator may request that the head of
the Federal department or agency with the preponderance of
Federal funds or Federal programs likely to be included in the
applicant's system furnish technical assistance to the applicant.
The department or agency head may, out of any appropriations
available to him (or to his department or agency), provide such
assistance to the extent that he finds it will enhance the
application and, ultimately, the successful conduct of the
applicant's demonstration.
4
Empowerment Opportunities Systems
Sec. 4. (a) In order to be eligible to submit an
application under subsection (b), an agency --
(1) must --
(A) be currently receiving or eligible to receive
Federal grant funds or other Federal financial assistance
under one or more of the Federally funded programs proposed
in the application to be included in the restructured
system, and
(B) provide documentation of the concurrence of each
other non-Federal official or entity to which the Federal
funds involved would otherwise be provided (either directly
or through intervening levels of grantees or other
recipients) and demonstrate that it will have the
cooperation of each such non-Federal official or entity in
the applicant's implementation of the system, and
(2) must provide assurance, found adequate by the Federal
administrator, that --
(A) it has the ability to develop an empowerment
opportunities system and to implement the system, directly
or through contractual or other arrangements, within the
area,
(B) it can and will be accountable for all Federal
funds received for use in implementing the system,
5
(C) the application has the concurrence of all the
non-Federal officials and other entities referred to in
paragraph (1) (B), and
(D) the individuals and families within the
empowerment opportunities area have participated in the
development of the system described in the application.
(b) In order for an agency to implement a system under this
Act, it must submit an application to the Federal administrator,
which contains the following information:
(1) the geographic area to be served and the
rationale, in light of the objectives of the empowerment
opportunities system to be conducted in that area, for so
defining the service area,
(2) the particular groups, by age, services needs,
economic circumstances, or other defining factors, to whom
services and benefits under the system will be targeted,
(3) the specific goals and objectives to be achieved,
including a plan for the comprehensive evaluation of the
participant impacts, community effects, and program costs,
(4) those elements of the program design that will
assist the individuals and families after receiving full
information about available services and benefits and the
providers, to participate actively in developing both long
and short range plans for services and benefits, and in
deciding other matters such as (A) the scope of services
necessary and desired to meet the full range of the
6
individual's or family's needs, (B) the choice of provider,
and (C) any other choices affecting the service design for
that individual or family;
(5) the Federally funded programs to be included
within the system and the services and benefits that will be
available, including criteria for determining eligibility
for services and benefits under the system, the services
available, the amounts and form (such as cash, in-kind
contributions, or financial instruments) of non-service
benefits, and any other descriptive information the Federal
administrator may .find. necessary to decide on the system's
potential for success;
(6) any Federal statutory or regulatory requirement
applicable to a Federally funded program, for which waiver
is sought in order to permit the applicant's system to be
implemented; and
(7) such other information as the Federal
administrator may require to determine whether the
application should be approved or otherwise to carry out the
provisions of this Act.
(c) (1) In the case of Federal funds which, pursuant to the
relevant authorizing statute, are required to be paid to a non-
Federal official or entity other than the applicant, the
concurrence of the official or entity, as required under
subsection (a) (2) (c), shall constitute its consent to pay
directly to the applicant that portion of its funds that would
7
otherwise be provided to such official or entity for the target
group or groups within the geographic area to be served by the
system.
(2) If the statute authorizing any such grant funds
requires a non-Federal share, the application must describe, and
provide assurance of the availability of, the requisite non-
Federal funds with respect to all included Federal grants.
(d) The Federal administrator may request, in order to
determine whether an application should be approved, that the
applicant provide a statement by the Attorney General of the
State involved that there. is authority under State law for the
applicant agency to take all actions described in its application
and implement the empowerment opportunities system.
Approval of Application
Sec. 5. (a) (1) Upon receipt of an application to implement
an empowerment opportunities system, the Federal administrator
shall provide a copy to the head of any other Federal department
or agency with responsibility for the administration of any
Federally funded program to be included in the applicant's
system. Actions taken by the Federal administrator to approve
the inclusion of specific programs, or to waive program
requirements, shall only be taken with respect to programs for
which he has responsibility under Federal law; he shall make
recommendations to each other department or agency head with
respect to programs of the department or agency that are proposed
for inclusion in the applicant's system and each such department
8
or agency head shall thereafter advise the Federal administrator
whether the program has been approved for inclusion.
(2) Except as provided in subsection (a) (3), the Federal
administrator with respect to a Federally funded program for
which he has responsibility, or the head of any other Federal
department or agency with respect to a program included in an
application for which he has responsibility, may waive any
statutory or regulatory requirement applicable to that program
(and substitute a lesser requirement, where appropriate) if he
finds it necessary for the program's inclusion in and successful
contribution to the applicant ' economic empowerment system.
(b) (1) The Federal administrator may approve an application
under this Act only if he finds that the design of the system,
and the proposed plan for its ongoing operation, show substantial
promise for the economic empowerment of the target groups to be
served and the achievement of the purposes of this Act.
(2) The Federal administrator may not approve an
application under this Act unless he finds that under the
restructured system individuals and families in the target groups
who were previously assisted under one or more of the included
programs will be able to reasonably meet the needs for which such
included programs were originally designed.
(c) In approving the application to implement an
empowerment opportunities system, the Federal administrator shall
specify the understandings that have been reached with the
applicant on each of the following:
9
(1) the term of the demonstration, which may be
extended with the consent of all parties,
(2) the Federally funded programs that will be
included in the system, except that there shall not be
included in any such system, or otherwise affected by the
provisions of this Act, Federal benefits paid directly to
the individual by the Federal Government, Federal benefits
financed from trust funds, or any medical assistance which a
State is required under title XIX of the Social Security Act
to furnish to described classes of individuals,
(3) the program requirements that have been waived,
and the alternative requirements or conditions, if any, that
have been substituted pursuant to subsection (a) (2), except
that the Federal administrator (or other department or
agency head) --
(A) may not waive any statutory or regulatory
requirement under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, or the
Age Discrimination Act of 1975,
(B) may waive a program requirement only if he
finds that its waiver will not unnecessarily or
unreasonably adversely affect individuals or families,
and
(C) shall not impose any confidentiality or
similar requirement which would impede the exchange,
10
within the system, of information needed for the design
and delivery of integrated services and benefits,
(4) the total Federal cost of the program over its
full term (or mechanism for determining the total Federal
cost), the amount that will come from each Federal program
approved for inclusion in the system subject to the
availability of Federal appropriations, and the source of
the required non-Federal share, except that the authority
provided by this Act shall not be exercised in a manner that
causes obligations or outlays for any program for any fiscal
year greater than those that would have occurred absent the
authority provided by this Act, and
(5) the steps that must be taken during the term of
the demonstration to develop the necessary data for its
comprehensive evaluation, including measurable performance
criteria to be applied over the term that the system is in
operation.
Exclusivity of Empowerment Opportunities
Program as Source of Services and Benefits
Sec. 6. Any individual or family within a designated target
group of a community's empowerment opportunities system shall not
be eligible for services or benefits under any included Federal
program except under the terms and conditions of the approved
application for that system.
11
Evaluation and Modification
Sec. 7. (a) Over the term of each empowerment
opportunities system under this Act, the non-Federal
administering agency shall take all actions necessary to evaluate
the system's impact on the target groups specified in the
application, community effects, and program costs, and shall
cooperate with the Federal administrator in Federal evaluation or
other review. In any event, the non-Federal administering agency
shall submit to the Federal administrator, not later than 90 days
after the close of each 12-month period during which the
demonstration is conducted, a report summarizing the principal
activities and achievements of the system during that period, and
comparing its achievements to the measurable performance criteria
agreed upon in the application.
(b) If the Federal administrator determines, after
consultation with each other Federal department or agency head
having Federal funds included in the applicant's system, that
there is a substantial failure to meet the performance criteria,
and that the criteria remain sound in light of any experience
gained to that point in the conduct of the demonstration, he may
terminate the demonstration, allowing a reasonable period or
periods of time for all affected Federal, State, and local
agencies to resume, in an orderly and effective fashion, the
administration of the various included programs in accordance
with the applicable authorizing laws and regulations thereunder.
12
Reports; Extension of Authority
for Successful Systems
Sec. 8. (a) The non-Federal administering agency
implementing an empowerment opportunities system shall submit
such reports, at such time or times, and cooperate in such audits
of Federal funds, as the Federal administrator may require, and
shall submit a final report, including a full evaluation of the
system's successes and shortcomings and the impacts on the self-
sufficiency of the target groups, after the expiration of the
term of the system. However, if the agency believes that the
system has demonstrated its worth and has proven a superior way
to assist and empower individuals and families, that agency may
submit its final evaluation and reports prior to the expiration
of the system term and request, and the Federal administrator may
approve (with the concurrence any other Federal department or
agency head having responsibility for a Federal program included
in the demonstration, with respect to such program) for such
period or periods as he finds appropriate, the extension of the
empowerment opportunities system and the necessary waivers.
(b) A copy of the final report shall also be promptly sent
to the Governor of the State involved.
Definitions
Sec. 9. As used in this Act --
(1) the term "State" means the 50 States, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands,
(2) the term "local agency", in the case of the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, includes any
13
agency of the State, and such term also includes the governing
organization of an Indian tribe.
(3) "Governor" of a State means the chief elected official
of the State.
Effective Date
Sec. 10. Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of this Act shall
become effective October 1, 1991; the remaining sections are
effective upon enactment.
2/05/91
A BILL
To enable the development by communities of empowerment
opportunities systems in order to facilitate economic opportunity
for their low-income residents through the restructuring of
programs providing services and benefits, to meet the identified
priorities of the community and the needs of the individuals and
families to be served.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this Act
may be cited as the "Empowerment Opportunities Act of 1991".
Purpose; Federal Administrator
Sec. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this Act to declare the
need and provide the necessary authority for the development of
new approaches to increase economic opportunity and opportunities
for self-sufficiency, implemented through restructured delivery
systems at the community level, so that in the case of each
system --
(1) services and benefits for low-income individuals
and families funded under categorical or other single or
limited purpose Federal programs, can be integrated and
restructured at the community level to facilitate the
economic empowerment of those individuals and families;
(2) the system is neighborhood or community based,
with a specified target group or groups of beneficiaries;
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Date: 1-30-91
TO:
Members of the Domestic Policy
Reform Breakfast Group
FROM:
RICHARD W. PORTER
Special Assistant to the President
and Executive Secretary to the
Domestic Policy Council
The attached article is for
your information -- thought
you might be interested.
Washington Post
1-30-91
William Raspberry
'What It Takes' to Deliver Social Services
Maybe America, newly mean-
specialists don't talk to housing spe-
professionals are hampered by the
exclusively on improving the delivery
spirited, has stopped caring about
cialists; welfare bureaucracies are on-
absence of support services that may
of government services and hardly at
poor people, including small children
ly marginally involved with schools;
be the technical responsibility of a
all on the importance of strengthen-
and their troubled families. But I
child welfare agencies often treat
separate agency.
ing communities in order to prevent
don't think so.
families as adversaries, not as the
One quote summarizes the dilem-
or ameliorate problems before they
What has happened, I believe, is that
setting in which children are most
ma: "To expect a single community
come to agency attention.
large numbers of Americans no longer
likely to flourish.
worker to master the whole array of
The great unintended consequence
believe that the programs they are
That's why I am so excited by a
available resources that relate to po-
of the way we address the social
asked to pay for make any real differ-
new monograph from a Washington-
tential youth needs may seem over-
problems of the poor-by parachuting
ence-except to make things worse
based Education and Human Services
whelming. However, to expect a
in the experts, in Robert Woodson's
For them demands for. still greater
Consortium-"What Takes: Struc-
youth-in-crisis
or
his/her
often-
phrase-is its deleterious effect on
outlays are taken as an invitation to
turing Interagency Partnerships to
stressed parents to negotiatë, unas-
local leadership. The home-grown
pour yet more of their hard-earned tax
Connect Children and Families With
sisted, the maze of agencies, pro-
problem solvers-the men and wom-
dollars down ever bigger rat holes.
Comprehensive Services."
grams and eligibility rules in order to
en who live in the community and who
The evidence is on their side. Leav-
The 55-page monograph, written
get the help they need is truly to ask
care about its residents, not as collec-
ing aside such obviously successful
for a consortium that includes leaders
the impossible."
tion of problems but as people-can
programs as Head Start and magnet
in welfare, social policy, education,
schools, most of the programs de-
politics and business, begins by show-
The monograph (written by Atelia I.
be the glue that holds communities
Melaville of the William T. Grant
together. Undercutting their authori-
signed to help the poor aren't work-
ing how fragmented are the services
ing very well. Outlays for prenatal
for poor families, with little coopera-
Foundation Commission and Martin J.
ty by eliminating their problem-
care seem to have made no discern-
Blank of the Institute for Educational
tion among agencies and virtually no
solving role can reduce neighborhoods
ible difference in infant mortality
collaboration. Then it looks at some
Leadership, and available at 1001 Con-
to assemblages of clients rather than
rates among the poor. Ballooning
existing collaborative models and of-
necticut Ave., NW, Suite 310, Wash-
competent, self-healing communities.
school expenditures have not notice-
fers recommendations-and an op-
ington, D.C. 20036-5541) calls for full
Indeed the service-delivery improve-
ably improved public education for
portunity for feedback-on how to
collaboration at both the service deliv-
ments envisioned by the authors of
the poor. Public housing budgets may
improve the delivery and effective-
ery level and the system level "to knit a
the monograph could exacerbate the
increase, but so does tenant abuse of
ness of services.
truly seamless web of services."
weakening of this natural leadership.
public housing-and homelessness.
It's hard to argue with the descrip-
The present practice, say the au-
Perhaps we'll get smart enough to
Welfare seems as likely to perpetuate
tion of what happens now. Services
thors, is for agencies "to concentrate
include these natural leaders—
poverty as to alleviate it.
are mostly crisis-oriented-designed
on a single solution to a specific prob-
whether as staff, consultants or unpaid
What are we doing wrong?
not to prevent problems but to deal
lem-focusing on their own narrow
volunteers-in the collaborative effort
One part of the answer is that we
with problems that have already oc-
objectives-rather than working to-
recommended by "What It Takes."
have forgotten to treat poor people as
curred. Agencies not only fail to col-
gether toward a common goal that
Excellent services and adequate
full-fledged human beings, preferring
laborate; they seldom even cooperate,
addresses the range of situations on-
funding are important in fashioning
to chop them up into their component
except in terms of pro forma refer-
tributing to a family's problem or
remedies. But healthy communities
problems, with an agency (usually
rals. Often they are outright rivals,
standing in the way of its resolution."
capable of rearing healthy children in
underfunded and ineffectual) to deal
competing for scarce public funds.
If I have any criticism of this excellent
healthy families can prevent a lot of
with each component. Mental health
Even some of the most expert service
pap
it is that it focuses almost
the problems in the first place.
Grant/Cawley
February 21, 1991
12 noon A:CIVIL-RT
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: OPPORTUNITY PACKAGE
FEBRUARY 27, 1991
PLACE? TIME?
((Acknowledgements)) ((local intro))
Looking around the room today, I see so many familiar faces,
so many people making a difference in the lives of others. Every
man and woman here this morning believes in the power of the
individual, and is bolstered by the notion that America is the
land of opportunity. For 200 years, America has been the home of
democracy and free enterprise, the birthplace of the American
Dream. Opportunity in America is the envy of the world.
From its start, the story of America has been the story of
opportunity. Throughout American history, men and women have
pioneered the frontiers of liberty for all humanity. Our
Founding Fathers created the foremost Bill of Rights in the
world. Abraham Lincoln broke forever the chains of human
slavery. The suffrage movement made the promise of democracy a
reality for women. The founders of our public schools unleashed
the potential of an educated citizenry by introducing free
education for all. The leaders of the civil rights movement
unshackled the oppressed and disenfranchised by guaranteeing
equal rights for all Americans. It's the story of people from
Thomas Paine to Frederick Douglass to Mother Seton, from Clara
Barton to the Wright Brothers to Jesse Owens.
2
But it doesn't end there, with these heroes from our history
books. There are just as many "new American heroes" today, many
of them in this room. What they share with their predecessors is
pride, integrity, faith in the dignity of man, and courage to
beat the odds. It's called leadership by example -- and it's
what makes America the great citadel of freedom in the world. //
These modern visionaries are the ones making history --
propelling us into the Next American Century -- by empowering
people. Take a look at George Waters and Aaron Bocage, who are
giving high-school drop-outs a fighting chance by giving them
nuts-and-bolts experience in small business. Or Detroit's
Reverend Lee Earl, pastor of the 12th Street Baptist Church, who
turned around a neighborhood devastated by crack, using
unemployed citizens for manpower to rebuild and resell houses.
or Jaime Escalante of East L.A.'s Garfield High School, who
challenges kids to prove their worth through the excitement of
learning and the pride of achievement. (public housing?)
Theirs is a movement 200 years old -- as old as the
Declaration of Independence -- a dynamic defined by what
Jefferson called "the American mind." This movement is sweeping
our country today, with a strength of force which will propel us
into the 21st Century.
It is a movement driven by the power of the American Dream.
But America has not yet fulfilled its destiny as a land of
opportunity for all its people. We will not forget those who
have not yet shared in the American Dream. And we know who they
3
are: The hopeless and the homeless. The friendless and the
fearful. The destitute and the desperate. The unemployed and
the unemployable. The ones who can't read a simple sentence --
much less write one. All of them lack one basic thing: Hope.
For what is hope in the American Dream -- if it isn't
wanting to be part of something larger than yourself? If it
isn't creating a better life for your children than for yourself?
If it isn't controlling your own future?
For most people, these aspirations mean enjoying the good
life -- having a place you can call your own, raising a family,
holding a stake in the community, feeling like you have some
security.
We have not forgotten these Americans who have given up
hope, who have surrendered to despair, those who live life in a
trap -- we can offer them an opportunity to gain control of their
lives. We can offer them hope.
Some have said "hope is a waking dream." That awakening
begins with education. No matter what your situation in life,
having a skill gets you a job. Independence. Money in your
pocket. The more skills you have, the farther you go. And the
more choices you have before you, the more opportunities lay
ahead for you.
The Administration's Education bill puts choice in the hands
of students and parents -- so they can pick the best school for
themselves. Moderate and upper income Americans already have
"choice" -- they can transfer to better schools. But poor kids
4
can't afford it. We've seen choice and competition improve
education -- from Minneapolis to East Harlem -- and it's time all
Americans become consumers with a choice in schools.
We're also proposing education reforms to build flexibility
and accountability into our school system. We're encouraging
teachers, parents and administrators to work together to meet the
needs of all students. Every kid in America should arrive at
school ready to learn, and graduate ready to work. //
Research shows that a projected 15 million new jobs will be
awaiting America's graduates over the next 20 years. To fill
those jobs, American business will look increasingly to growing
populations -- blacks and hispanics -- and to people just
entering the economic mainstream -- workers with disabilities and
mothers who have chosen to work outside the home. Those 15
million jobs will need more and more skilled employees.
Education is the only answer. //
And so people are trying to expand their options -- by
working toward a degree, or getting certified at a night school,
or even putting in extra hours to increase their skills. But
time and again they hit a roadblock. Their own fear. They're
afraid to stay late at the office and walk home alone after dark
-- or leave the house with no one around. It's a fact: crime
hits low-income Americans disproportionately. They're the ones
stuck in the projects, unable to move to the better sections
across town -- unable to defend themselves from the drug dealers
and murderers right next door. And so they stay trapped in their
5
homes, fearful and alone, slowly losing the hope of a better
life.
We're waging a battle against crime in the name of those who
need protection the most: poor people in the cities. We're going
after gangs and drug kingpins. Imposing mandatory sentences for
using a firearm in a violent crime. Strengthening protections
against sex crimes and child abuse. Guaranteeing equal justice
regardless of race. Because people will only walk down the road
to opportunity if they know the street is a safe one. //
We can rebuild opportunity in our inner cities by making
sure that there is a job available for every one who wants one.
Our Enterprise Zone and Jobs Creation legislation will draw seed
capital for small business start-ups in our hardest-hit urban
areas. Working poor will have jobs nearby, and they'll be able
to take home more of their pay. The outrageous disincentives
facing those on welfare who want to work will be removed. And
we're making it easier for investors to build capital for
businesses by cutting expensing requirements and the capital
gains tax in enterprise zones. //
The American Dream also means owning your own home. To make
it easier for more dreams to come true, we're proposing that
Americans be allowed to use the money in their IRAs to buy their
first home. This will bring us closer to our goal of one million
new homeowners by 1992. And we're increasing funding for housing
vouchers for low-income renters, so that public housing isn't
their only option. We're offering incentives for public housing
6
residents to move out -- and move up -- into the economic
mainstream -- and into the American Dream. //
People want to hold a share in their community, to feel a
part of the neighborhood. Each community in America is
different, and its residents know what's best for themselves --
what the best options are for programs and services. So we're
restructuring programs to broaden choice at the local level.
Our strength as a nation lies in the strength of our communities
-- the sum of our neighborhoods and families, our hopes and
dreams for the future.
Of course, vestiges of the past remain. Hatred, bigotry,
and racial discrimination still exist in America. Where legal
remedies work, we are refining our civil rights laws. [1991 Civil
Rights bill insert to come].
But the sixties are over. And so is the civil rights
debate. That debate has been won -- won by those who decided
Brown VS. the Board of Education. // Won by those who enacted
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. // And the Voting Rights Act of
1965. // And the Fair Housing Act of 1968. // There are plenty
of civil rights laws on the books -- and plenty of lawyers in
courtrooms getting paid to argue over them.
I know a lot of lawyers. Some of my best friends are
lawyers. But put them in a courtroom, and lawyers don't teach
anyone how to read, or create jobs, or rebuild a neighborhood.
Lawyers don't give a lost soul the will to live one more day. //
And neither do civil rights statutes. / /
7
It's time to secure the opportunity promised by those who
fought and died for civil rights in this country. The only way
to give the destitute, the frightened, the unemployed any hope is
through opportunity. Our aim is to empower all Americans by
removing barriers -- making it easier for you to go to school, to
own your own home, to get a job, to start your own business, to
raise your family. To have some security in life. To live the
Dream.
This ideal of opportunity is our Administration's agenda for
America. Every man and woman in this room is a member of the
movement. It lives in the heart of every person who wants to be
free to live his own destiny. It lives in the freedom of man and
mind. It lives in the American Dream. The great poet Carl
Sandburg wrote that "nothing happens unless first a dream." The
time has come to make something happen -- our mandate is to make
the Dream a reality.
We face a new Century -- a new American Century -- and our
moment in history is here. The time is now -- to fulfill
America's destiny as a land of opportunity for all.
With God's help and yours, we will succeed. God bless each
and every one of you. Thank you very much.
# # #
Grant/Cawley
February 21, 1991
9 a.m. A:CIVIL-RT
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: OPPORTUNITY ACTION PLAN
FEBRUARY 27, 1991
PLACE? TIME?
((Thank you, Bill [Taylor], for that warm introduction.
(other acknowledgements) ... It's hard to believe a year has
passed since the day I issued a set of challenges to the members
of ASAE -- to chanel the tremendous energy of this organization,
tap your power and transform a nation through community service.
[More to come] ))
Looking around the room today, I see so many familiar faces,
so many people making a difference in the lives of others. Every
man and woman here this morning believes in the power of the
individual, and is bolstered by the notion that America is indeed
the land of opportunity. For 200 years, America has been the
free markets and
home of democracy and free enterprise, the birthplace of the
American Dream
There is no question: opportunity in America is
the envy of the world.
From its start, the story of America has been the story of
our
opportunity. Throughout America n history, men and women have
pioneered the frontiers of liberty for all humanity. Our
Founding Fathers created perhaps the most simple yet profound
document in modern history -- our Bill of Rights. Abraham
Lincoln broke forever the chains of human slavery. The suffrage
movement made the promise of democracy a reality for women. The
founders of our public schools unleashed the potential of an
educated citizenry by introducing universal free education. And
2
by their struggle for equal rights, the leaders of the civil
rights movement unshackled the oppressed and disenfranchised.
of
The story of opportunity in America is the story, Thomas Paine and
Frederick Douglass, Mother Seton, Clara Barton, the Wright
Brothers and Jesse Owens.
But it doesn't end there, with these heroes from our history
books. There are just as many "new American heroes" today, many
of them in this room. What they share with those who went before
is pride, and integrity, and faith in the dignity of man, and
courage to overcome the odds. It's called leadership by example
-- and it's what makes America the world's great citadel of
freedom. //
These modern visionaries are the ones making history --
propelling us into the Next American Century. [examples to
come].
Theirs is a movement 200 years old -- as old as the
Declaration of Independence -- a movement defined by what
Jefferson called "the American mind." It continues to sweep our
country today) with a vigor as strong as ever. It is a movement
driven by the strength and power of the American Dream.
For what is the American Dream -- if it isn't wanting to be
part of something larger than ourselves? If it isn't creating a
better life for our children than we might have had? If it isn't
the freedom to take command of our own future?
For most people, these aspirations mean enjoying the
blessings of good health, having a place to call one's own,
3
raising a family, holding a stake in the community, feeling
secure at home and on the job and in the neighborhood.
But for some, America has not yet fulfilled its destiny as a
land of opportunity. We know who they are: They are the hopeless
and the homeless. The friendless and the fearful. The destitute
and the desperate. The unemployed and the unemployable. The
ones who can't read a simple sentence -- much less write one.
They are the ones who don't believe they will ever share in the
American Dream.
I'm here to tell you that we will not forget these Americans
for whom hope lies dormant, for whom despair is a daily fact of
life. We will not forget those who have not yet shared in the
American Dream. We must offer them hope. We must guarantee them
opportunity.
Some have said "hope is a waking dream." That awakening
begins with learning. Understanding the power and potential of
individual effort. Developing a skill. And the independence
that brings. The ability to earn a living. With dignity and
opportunity for personal growth. More skills mean more choices.
More options for even greater opportunity.
The Administration's Education bill puts this kind of choice
in the hands of students and parents -- so they can choose the
best school to attend. We've seen choice and competition improve
education -- from Minneapolis to East Harlem. Our higher
education system is clearly the finest in the world -- and highly
4
competitive. It's time all Americans become consumers and demand
choice in education.
We're also proposing education reforms to build flexibility
and accountability into our school system. We're encouraging
teachers, parents and administrators to work together to meet the
needs of all students -- the success of community partnerships
like Cities in Schools shows that the battle to give young people
education, direction and hope can be won. We must cut the
dropout rate -- by ensuring that every kid in America arrives at
school ready to learn, and graduates ready to work. //
For quite some time now, the Administration has been calling
for nothing short of the restructuring of American education.
Let me lay out the five principles that should guide our efforts
to empower parents, expand choice and encourage excellence. The
principles are: high expectations; decentralized authority; and
schools that are responsive, market oriented and performance-
tested. These will guide our efforts to meet the national
education goals set in Charlottesville -- because we can't expect
to remain a first-class economy if we settle for second-class
schools.
Awaiting America's graduates over the next 20 years will be
15 million new jobs. To fill those jobs, American business will
look increasingly to growing populations -- blacks and hispanics
-- and to people just entering the economic mainstream -- workers
with disabilities and mothers who have chosen to work outside the
home. Those 15 million jobs -- more skilled, better paying jobs
5
-- will go to the ones who have what it takes -- a quality
education. //
Everyone knows the best education takes place in classrooms
that are drug-free, safe, learning environments. Children cannot
learn if there is violence in the classroom. Or crime in the
schoolyard. Or drug pushers along the way home. And older
students and workers find it hard to attend night school or put
in late hours at the office -- because often they're afraid to
walk home alone after dark, or leave the house with no one
around.
Intimidated by crime, low-income Americans are the ones
least likely to be able to take advantage of opportunities that
or
may be just around the corner, or across town. They're the ones
defending themselves and their families from the drug dealers and
muggers down the hall, or down the street. And so they're
trapped in their homes, fearful and alone, slowly losing the hope
of a better life.
They're the ones who need opportunity the most. It is in
their name that this battle for the streets of our cities must be
waged. The thugs, and the gangs, and the drug kingpins should be
the casualities of this war. The weapons are mandatory sentences
for using a firearm in a violent crime. Strengthened protection
against sex crimes and child abuse. Tough prosecutors. Courts
that mete out equal justice, swiftly and predictably, regardless
of race. And a prison system that is up to the job. Americans
6
can only walk down the road to opportunity if the streets are
safe. //
An education. A neighborhood that's safe and secure.
Opportunity is built on these foundations, but the door is opened
by one thing: A job. Every American who wants a job should proposals be
ownew
able to get one. For our hardest hit urban areas, that means
starting up small businesses in enterprise zones, and eliminating
the capital gains tax on seed capital. That means removing the
disincentives facing those on welfare who want to work. And it
?
means allowing people to take home more of their pay. Our
proposals mean economic growth and most importantly, jobs. //
The American Dream also means choosing where to live and, to
many working people, owning a home someday. We're offering
incentives for public housing residents to move out -- and move
up -- into the economic mainstream -- and into the American
Dream. // And we're proposing that Americans be allowed to use
the money in their IRAs to buy their first home. This will bring
us closer to our goal of one million new homeowners by 1992.
There's something reassuring about being part of a
neighborhood. There's a lot to be said for a community that
pulls together in times of crisis, that looks out for each other.
Each community in America is different, and its residents know
how best to take care of each other -- what the best options are
for programs and services for those who need a hand. So we're
restructuring programs to broaden choice at the local level. Our
strength as a nation lies in the strength of our communities --
7
the sum of our neighborhoods and families, our hopes and dreams
for the future.
of course, vestiges of the past remain. Hatred, bigotry,
and racial discrimination still exist in America. Where legal
remedies work, we are refining our civil rights laws. [1991 Civil
Rights bill insert to come].
But the sixties are over. And so is the civil rights
debate. That debate has been won -- won by those who decided
Brown vs. the Board of Education. // Won by those who enacted
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. // And the Voting Rights Act of
1965. // And the Fair Housing Act of 1968. // There are plenty
of civil rights laws on the books -- and plenty of lawyers in
courtrooms to argue over them.
I know a lot of lawyers. Some of my best friends are
lawyers. But no one ever learned how to read in a courtroom. Or
got a job there. Or rebuilt a neighborhood. Or gave a lost soul
the will to live one more day.
Opportunity doesn't begin in the courtroom. It begins in
the heart of every person who believes in freedom, and lives on
in the American Dream. This is our Administration's agenda for
opportunity. Every man and woman in this room is a member of the
movement. The great poet Carl Sandburg wrote that "nothing
happens unless first a dream." Our mandate is to make the Dream
a reality.
& } 2.
8
We face a new Century -- a new American Century -- and our
moment in history is here. The time is now -- to fulfill
America's destiny as a land of opportunity for all.
With God's help and yours, we will succeed. God bless the
United States of America. Thank you very much.
# # #
February 20, 1991
MEMORANDUM
TO:
MARY KATE GRANT
FROM:
CAROLYN CAWLEY
RE:
OPPORTUNITY SPEECH
Attached is Lange's Civil Rights Speech of last May.
O
I perused that speech file and found a Xerox of some
pages of a book by Dr. King. The chapter is entitled
"Against Tokenism". Some nuggets for you:
-- he refers to "a new sense of somebodiness"
to revolutionize blacks' self-conception
about their role in American society
-- he quotes Victor Hugo:
"There is nothing more powerful in all the
world than an idea whose time has come."
Mary
708 3161
Grant/Cawley
February 21, 1991
12 noon A:CIVIL-RT
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: OPPORTUNITY PACKAGE
FEBRUARY 27, 1991
PLACE? TIME?
((Acknowledgements)) ((local intro))
Looking around the room today, I see so many familiar faces,
so many people making a difference in the lives of others. Every
man and woman here this morning believes in the power of the
individual, and is bolstered by the notion that America is the
land of opportunity. For 200 years, America has been the home of
democracy and free enterprise, the birthplace of the American
Dream. Opportunity in America is the envy of the world.
From its start, the story of America has been the story of
opportunity. Throughout American history, men and women have
pioneered the frontiers of liberty for all humanity. Our
Founding Fathers created the foremost Bill of Rights in the
world. Abraham Lincoln broke forever the chains of human
slavery. The suffrage movement made the promise of democracy a
reality for women. The founders of our public schools unleashed
the potential of an educated citizenry by introducing free
education for all. The leaders of the civil rights movement
unshackled the oppressed and disenfranchised by guaranteeing
equal rights for all Americans. It's the story of people from
Thomas Paine to Frederick Douglass to Mother Seton, from Clara
Barton to the Wright Brothers to Jesse Owens.
2
But it doesn't end there, with these heroes from our history
books. There are just as many "new American heroes" today, many
of them in this room. What they share with their predecessors is
pride integrecty,
man
an abiding faith in the dignity and pride of all men, and the
courage to beat the odds. It's called leadership by example --
and it's what makes America the great citadel of freedom in the
world. //
These modern visionaries are the ones making history --
propelling us into the Next American Century -- by empowering
people. Take a look at George Waters and Aaron Bocage, who are
giving high-school drop-outs a fighting chance by giving them
nuts-and-bolts experience in small business. Or Detroit's
Reverend Lee Earl, pastor of the 12th Street Baptist Church, who
turned around a neighborhood devastated by crack, using
unemployed citizens for manpower to rebuild and resell houses.
Or Jaime Escalante of East L.A.'s Garfield High School, who
challenges kids to prove their worth through the excitement of
learning and the pride of achievement. (public housing?)
Declaration
Theirs is a movement 200 years old -- as old as the American
of Ind
Dream -- a dynamic defined by what Jefferson called "the American
mind." This movement is sweeping our country today, with a
strength of force which will propel us into the 21st Century.
It is a movement driven by the power of the American Dream.
But America has not yet fulfilled its destiny as a land of
opportunity for all its people. We will not forget those who
have not yet shared in the American Dream. And we know who they
3
are: The hopeless and the homeless. The friendless and the
fearful. The destitute and the desperate. The unemployed and
the unemployable. The ones who can't read a simple sentence --
basic
much less write one. All of them lack one Vthing: Hope.
For what is hope in the American Dream -- if it isn't
wanting to be part of something larger than yourself? If it
isn't creating a better life for your children than for yourself?
If it isn't controlling your own future?
For most people, these aspirations mean enjoying the good
life -- having a place you can call your own, raising a family,
holding a stake in the community, feeling like you have some
security.
We have not forgotten these Americans who have given up
hope, who have surrendered to despair, those who live life in a
trap -- we can offer them an opportunity to gain control of their
P some have said
lives. We can offer them hope, for hope is a waking Dream.
That awakining
It all begins with education. No matter what your situation
in life, having a skill gets you a job. Independence. Money in
your pocket. The more skills you have, the farther you go. And
the more choices you have before you, the more opportunities lay
ahead for you.
The Administration's Education bill puts choice in the hands
of students and parents -- so they can pick the best school for
themselves. Moderate and upper income Americans already have
"choice" -- they can transfer to better schools. But poor kids
can't afford it. We've seen choice and competition improve
4
education -- from Minneapolis to East Harlem -- and it's time all
Americans become consumers with a choice in schools.
We're also proposing education reforms to build flexibility
and accountability into our school system. We're encouraging
teachers, parents and administrators to work together to meet the
needs of all students. Every kid in America should arrive at
school ready to learn, and graduate ready to work. //
Research shows that a projected 15 million new jobs will be
awaiting America's graduates over the next 20 years. To fill
those jobs, American business will look increasingly to growing
populations -- blacks and hispanics -- and to people just
entering the economic mainstream -- workers with disabilities and
mothers who have chosen to work outside the home. Those 15
million jobs will need more and more skilled employees.
Education is the only answer. //
And so people are trying to expand their options -- by
working toward a degree, or getting certified at a night school,
ns
even putting in extra hours to increase their skills. But time
and again they hit a roadblock. Their own fear. They're afraid
to stay late at the office and walk home alone after dark -- or
leave the house with no one around. It's a fact: crime hits low-
income Americans disproportionately. They're the ones stuck in
the projects, unable to move to the better sections across town -
- unable to defend themselves from the drug dealers and murderers
right next door. And so they stay trapped in their homes,
fearful and alone, slowly losing the hope of a better life.
5
We're waging a battle against crime in the name of those who
need protection the most: poor people in the cities. We're going
after gangs and drug kingpins. Imposing mandatory sentences for
using a firearm in a violent crime. Strengthening protections
against sex crimes and child abuse. Guaranteeing equal justice
regardless of race. Because people will only walk down the road
to opportunity if they know the street is a safe one. m
We can rebuild opportunity in our inner cities by making
sure that there is a job available for every one who wants one.
Our Enterprise Zone and Jobs Creation legislation will draw seed
capital for small business start-ups in our hardest-hit urban
areas. Working poor will have jobs nearby, and they'll be able
pan
to take home more of their money. The outrageous disincentives
facing those on welfare who want to work will be removed. And
we're making it easier for investors to build capital for
businesses by cutting expensing requirements and the capital
gains tax in enterprise zones. //
The American Dream also means owning your own home. To make
it easier for more dreams to come true, we're proposing that
Americans be allowed to use the money in their IRAs to buy their
first home. This will bring us closer to our goal of one million
new homeowners by 1992. And we're increasing funding for housing
vouchers for low-income renters, so that public housing isn't
their only option. We're offering incentives for public housing
residents to move out -- and move up -- into the economic
mainstream -- and into the American Dream. //
6
People want to hold a share in their community, to feel a
part of the neighborhood. Each community in America is
different, and its residents know what's best for themselves --
what the best options are for programs and services. So we're
restructuring programs to broaden choice at the local level.
Our strength as a nation lies in the strength of our communities
-- the sum of our neighborhoods and families, our hopes and
dreams for the future.
Of course, vestiges of the past remain. Hatred, bigotry,
and racial discrimination still exist in America. Where legal
remedies work, we are refining our civil rights laws. [1991 Civil
Rights bill insert to come].
But the sixties are over. And so is the civil rights
debate. That debate has been won -- won by those who decided
Brown vs. the Board of Education. // Won by those who enacted
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. // And the Voting Rights Act of
1965. // And the Fair Housing Act of 1968. // There are plenty
of civil rights laws on the books -- and plenty of lawyers in
courtrooms getting paid to argue over them.
I know a lot of lawyers. Some of my best friends are
lawyers. But put them in a courtroom, and lawyers don't teach
anyone how to read, or create jobs, or rebuild a neighborhood.
Lawyers don't give a lost soul the will to live one more day. //
And neither do civil rights statutes. 11.
who fought +dred for
It time to scame The opportunities promoted by thoscivil its Yes this country
The only way to give the destitute, the frightened, the
unemployed any hope is through opportunity. Our aim is to
7
empower people by removing barriers -- to make it easier to get
an education, to own a home, to start a business, to raise a
family. To have some security in life. To live the Dream.
This ideal of opportunity is our Administration's agenda for
America. Every man and woman in this room is a member of the
movement. It lives in the heart of every person who wants to be
free to live his own destiny. It lives in the freedom of man and
mind. It lives in the American Dream. The great poet Carl
Sandburg wrote that "nothing happens unless first a dream. " Our
has come
mandate is to make the dream a reality -- and the time for action
is to now. make & happen in the to make something happen
opportunity
We face a new Century -- a new American Century --- and our
is here
is now-
moment in history has come. The time has come to fulfill
America's destiny as a land of opportunity for all.
With God's help and yours, we cannot help but succeed. God
bless each and every one of you. Thank you.
# # #
Grant/Cawley
February 21, 1991
8 a.m. A:CIVIL-RT
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: OPPORTUNITY PACKAGE
FEBRUARY 27, 1991
PLACE? TIME?
((Acknowledgements)) ((local intro))
Looking around the room today, I see so many familiar faces,
so many people making a difference in the lives of others. Every
man and woman here this morning believes in the power of the
individual, and is bolstered by the notion that America is the
land of opportunity. For 200 years, America has been the home of
democracy and free enterprise, the birthplace of the American
Dream. Opportunity in America is the envy of the world.
From its start, the story of America has been the story of
opportunity. Throughout American history, men and women have
pioneered the frontiers of liberty for all humanity. Our
Founding Fathers created the foremost Bill of Rights in the
world. Abraham Lincoln broke forever the chains of human
slavery. The suffrage movement made the promise of democracy a
reality for women. The founders of our public schools unleashed
the potential of an educated citizenry by introducing free
education for all. The leaders of the civil rights movement
unshackled the oppressed and disenfranchised by guaranteeing
equal rights for all Americans.
But the story doesn't end there, with these heroes from our
history books. There are just as many "new American heroes"
today, many of them in this room. What they share with their
2
predecessors is an abiding faith in the dignity and pride of all
men, and the courage to beat the odds. It's called leadership by
example, and it's what makes America great.
They are the ones making history -- propelling us into the
Next American Century -- by empowering people. Take a look at
George Waters and Aaron Bocage, who are giving high-school drop-
outs a fighting chance by giving them nuts-and-bolts experience
in small business. Or Detroit's Reverend Lee Earl, pastor of the
12th Street Baptist Church, who turned around a neighborhood
devastated by crack, using unemployed citizens for manpower to
rebuild and resell houses. (education example/public housing?)
[Or right here in Washington, John Raye and his group, the
"Majestic Eagles, known as the "incubator for new
entrepreneurs. " ]
Theirs is a movement 200 years old, as old as the American
Dream, a dynamic defined by what Jefferson called "the American
mind." This movement is sweeping our country today, with a
strength of force which will propel us into the 21st Century. It
is movement driven by the power of the American Dream.
But America has not yet fulfilled its destiny as a land of
opportunity for all its people. We will not forget those who
have not yet shared in the American Dream. We know who they are:
the hopeless and the homeless. The friendless and the fearful.
The destitute and the desperate. The unemployed and the
unemployable. The ones who can't read a simple sentence, much
less write one. What they all lack is one thing: Hope.
3
For what is hope in the American Dream -- if it isn't
wanting to be part of something larger than ourselves? If it
isn't creating a better life for our children than for ourselves?
If it isn't controlling your own future?
For most people, these aspirations mean enjoying the good
life -- having a place you can call your own, raising a family,
holding a stake in the community, enjoying the good life.
13 January 1991
MKg
MEMORANDUM FOR MARK LANGE
FROM:
JENNIFER GROSSMAN
SUBJECT:
CIVIL RIGHTS/EMPOWERMENT (ADDITION)
I.
ANECDOTES (MORE) HOUSING
A.
REV. LEE EARL
Taking back the neighborhood
"The 12th Street Baptist church is the oldest, largest and
most prominent church in the Pilgrim Village, a
residential
neighborhood in northwest Detroit. Over seven years ago, it
was not uncommon to hear gunfire from surrounding 'crack'
houses and street corners during worship services. Members
of the congregation often witnessed drug dealers openly
making sales as they entered or left church. And on Friday
evenings during choir practice, the cars were lined up in
front of the 'crack houses' offering curb service
Right in
front of the Church, murders frequently occurred. "
"Led by Reverend Lee Earl, the pastor of 12th Street Baptist
Church, the community united behind an innovative plan to
reclaim their community form the drug pushers and the
seemingly endless cycle of poverty and despair. They formed
REACH, Inc., a non-profit community development and
community service corporation and began a three-pronged
assault on the problem of drug abuse, related crimes and
poverty. "
"First, they bought up 'crack' houses in their neighborhood
and evicted the drug dealers and users
Second, they began
rehabilitating the houses using community residents with
construction skills as supervising engineers. Unemployed
workers were trained as construction crews. Finally, they
sold these houses to decent, drug-free families often
allowing them to use their rehab labor as the down
payment
"
"Rev. Early cites one house 'Today, there are crews inside
renovating (house) 1814 that are former drug dealers and
drug users. But they are not in the house selling drugs or
using drugs. They are in that house getting paid to fix it
up
This house used to wreak terror on our neighborhood.
Today it represents the control of the neighborhood; it
represents a place to work; and eventually it will represent
a place for a family to live and to begin a life of
ownership
The final step in REACH's housing program is the
sale of the property
We modify the interest rates and we
can adjust the number of years of the mortgage so that the
people who normally would not qualify can now have decent,
affordable housing.'
"Most recently, REACH took over a restaurant abandoned by
previous operators because of drug-related crime, renovated
it and is returning it to service as a centerpiece of a
previously decaying business corridor
(Lee)
:
'With
the
profits earned, we can reinvest in our youth and our
children; we can inspire others to get involved in business
ventures within the neighborhood; we can attract the
investment dollars that boost our tax base; and revive our
self-esteem, and enjoy a good soul food dinner in the
process.
"Rev. Lee concludes: ''Not HERE You Don't!' says that our
community has the strength, it has the wherewithal, it has
the resources to determine what will and will not happen
here. We want the continued opportunity to determine what
will. "
B.
DOROTHY GROSS PERRY
"Maybe the more than 200 Liberty City, Florida, youngsters
who have been a part of Dorothy Gross Perry's Singing Angels
can't rap their way into better lives--free of drugs and
despair; maybe it's just enough that they have something
positive to believe in."
"For more than 14 years, 48-year-old Dorothy Perry has
dedicated her life to the children of Miami's James E. Scott
public housing development."
"There are currently 35 young people participating in the
program, and another eight or so seniors from the
neighborhood Each day they meet after school in Perry's
home, where after homework, they take part in study groups,
play acting and rap sessions about things that youngsters
are confronted with--including drugs and crime
The kids
also have designated days where they learn other useful
skills such as sewing, cooking and test-taking. Perry holds
Bible study every day. She is firm in her belief that by
offering children positive and constructive alternatives,
you can help them grow into productive adults."
"It isn't always easy for Perry to work with the young
people in her public housing development. More than once,
she has been given eviction notices by the local housing
authority, including one for simply running a program out of
her home. As a result, one local newspaper ran the
headline, 'Drug Dealers In, Singing Angels Out.
"Throughout the existence of her program, Perry has operated
almost exclusively on money she raises from selling dinners
or other items that the kids can sell door to door. But
even with a minimal amount of support, Perry bombards the
kids in her program with discipline, love, respect and a
sense of self-worth."
C.
REUBEN GREENBERG
"In the eight years since he took over the port city's
police force, reported crime is down 40 percent. That
includes murder (down 57 percent), rapes (down 31 percent)
and burglary (down 53 percent). The city of 80,000 is also
enjoying its lowest number of armed robberies in 25 years.
And all of this was accomplished using existing resources
and manpower."
"When Chief Greenberg took over the force in 1982,
Charleston was plagued by open-air drug markets and the
violence that comes with them. The city's public housing
projects were particularly hard hit."
"Simply making the arrest would not and could not be a
major way of dealing with street-level drug dealing, he
says. 'Even if the person got the death penalty, we were no
better off than we were before. There was always someone to
take his place. The idea was to make these areas no longer
profitable places to sell drugs.
"Instead of using four or five officers in elaborate
undercover operations, Chief Greenberg put uniformed
officers on foot patrols. With a cop standing 40 feet away,
few people would even stop to talk to a drug dealer.
Staying in business meant moving to a new location, which is
just what the police wanted."
"Moving not only made it difficult for their customers to
find them, it often meant infringing on someone else's turf.
As one drug dealer told him, 'You can get killed trying to
move someplace else. "
"Chief Greenberg says that some 30 percent of the drug
dealers his officers have displaced have gone out of
business altogether."
"It's a matter of taking back the streets."
--Washington Times, November 6, 1990
CHIEF GREENBERG: "Our criminal justice system has been
described in many, many places as being really a non-
system, disjointed, convoluted and non-functioning. And the
reason for our system being described in this way is very
simple, that it just doesn't seem to work."
"In order to assist us we added some weapons to our
arsenal, instamatic camera And when these people would come
by a second time, we were pretty sure that they were there
for the purpose of trying to make a drug contact, we would
take their photograph."
"So in order to make [the officers'] days of standing
alongside the drug dealers more pleasant, we decided to
clean up the areas, by picking up paper, trash, debris
We
got prisoners out of the jail, and by luck some of them had
been imprisoned for street-level drug dealing, and also by
luck, some of them had been dealing in those same areas in
which they now were brought out in order to clean up. And
it was very interesting to see the relationships in the
neighborhood where people had seen people weeks or months
before loaded down with various gold chains and all kinds of
apparent wealth, now wearing an orange jumpsuit that said,
'County Jail' on the back of it, back in the same area, but
this time with a paintbrush, painting out graffiti and
picking up trash. "
--Federal Information Systems Corp., November 5,
1990
D.
SHELBY STEELE
Shelby Steele is an English professor at San Jose State
University in California.
"In theory, affirmative action certainly has all the moral
symmetry that fairness requires
And I would never sneer at
these good intentions
Yet
good intentions can blind us to
the effects they generate when implemented.' "
"
after 20 years of implementation I think that affirmative
action has shown itself to be more bad than good and that
blacks--whom I will focus on in this essay--now stand to
lose more from it than they gain. "
"The 1964 civil-rights bill was passed on the understanding
that equal opportunity would not mean racial preference.
But in the late 60s and early 70s, affirmative action
underwent a remarkable escalation of its mission from simple
anti-discrimination enforcement to social engineering by
means of quotas, goals, timetables, set-asides and other
forms of preferential treatment. "
"By making black the color of preference, these mandates
have reburdened society with the very marriage of color and
preference (in reverse) that we set out to eradicate.'
"Too often the result of this, on campuses for example, has
been a democracy of colors rather than of people, an
artificial diversity that gives the appearance of an
educational parity between black and white students that has
not yet been achieved in reality a full six years after
admission, only 26 to 28 percent of blacks graduate from
college."
"I think one of the most troubling effects of racial
preferences for blacks is a kind of demoralization. Under
affirmative action, the quality that earns preferential
treatment is an implied inferiority."
"What this means in practical terms is that when blacks
deliver themselves into integrated situations they encounter
a nasty little reflex in whites, a mindless, atavistic
reflex that responds to the color black with negative
stereotypes, such as intellectual ineptness."
The New York Times Magazine, May 13, 1990