Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
4525566
label
Ford Press Releases - Poverty, 1965-1971
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4525566
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Ford Press Releases - Poverty, 1965-1971
citationUrl
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Press Releases Subject Files
subjects
Legislation
Nutrition
Poverty programs
Welfare
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4525566
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1971-06-30
month
6
year
1971
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1965-09-01
month
9
year
1965
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
54ad80321eb24b21
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D8, folder "Ford Press Releases - Poverty,
1965-1971" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box D8 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR THE SENATE:
THE JOINT SENATE-HOUSE
FOR THE HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Everett M. Dirksen, Leader
REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Gerald R. Ford,
Thomas H. Kuchel, Whip
Leader
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chr.
Leslie C. Arends, Whip
of the Policy Committee
Melvin R. Laird,
Leyerett Saltonstall, Chr.
Press Release
Chr. of the Conference
of the Conference
Y8JohnJ. Rhodes, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Thruston B. Morton,
Chr. Republican
Issued following a
H. Allen Smith,
Senatorial Committee
Leadership Meeting
Ranking Member
Rules Committee
Bob Wilson,
PRESIDING
OFFICER:
September
30,
1965
Chr. Republican
Congressional Committee
The Republican
Charles E. Goodell,
National Chairman
Chr. Committee on
Ray C. Bliss
Planning and Research
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DIRKSEN
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Republicans have long been engaged in a determined and effective campaign to
broaden economic opportunity for all Americans and to reduce the numbers of those
in the lowest-income brackets.
During the first four years of the Eisenhower Administration the number of
families below the $3,000 income level (in dollars of constant purchasing power at
1962 prices) was reduced at a rate of 400,000 a year. In four years since 1960,
the number has been dropping at a rate of 250,000 a year.
When President Eisenhower assumed office, 28 per cent of the families of the
United States had incomes below $3,000. Four years later the percentage was down
5 points to 23 per cent. In four years of the Democratic Administrations which
succeeded Eisenhower, the figure has been reduced by 3 percentage points.
Despite the pressagentry of the current war on poverty, progress toward the
goal of eliminating this evil has been slower during the past four years than it
was during the first term of the last Republican Administration.
The success of the Administration's anti-poverty efforts must be judged in
these terms. The crucial question is whether these efforts with their vast in-
crease in federal spending and their sizeable bureaucracy accelerate the rate of
reduction of the numbers of those in the lowest-income brackets. Thi S question
has become obscured in a paper blizzard of press releases from the White House and
the Office of Economic Opportunity which provide some measurement of the effort of
the Administration but yield little information about the results
The public is told how many communities there are in which federal anti-poverty
programs have been started, how many job corps camps have been established, how
many Vista workers have been recruited, but it is not told how many poor people
have increased their income, and by what amounts, because of participation in the
anti-poverty program. It is not even told the names of the disadvantaged youths
who were given summer employment by the Post Office Department.
It is too early to pass final judgment on the effectiveness of the anti-poverty
program. The evidence available at present makes it appear that the program has
not yet proved itself.
(Ford statement - page 2)
FORD
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-CApitol 4-3121 Ex 3700
LIBRARY
КЕБОВГІСУИ
STATEMENT BY REP. FORD
September 30, 1965
There are several glaring weaknesses in the anti-poverty program.
The Administration of the program is chaotic. It is headed by a part-time
director and a top staff of temporary personnel who simultaneously decided to
desert as the first skirwishes of the war on poverty were hardly under way. The
Office of Economic Opportunity is top heavy with high salaried executives. In
this agency, one out of every 18 employees receives a salary in excess of $19,000.
In the Defense Department, by contrast, one of 1,000 employees is paid more than
$19,000.
The program as administered treats elected State and local officials with cav-
alier disdain. Though Republican protest in the Congress salvaged some semblance
of influence in the operation of the program for State governors, neither State
nor local officials have an effective voice in the program today. This weakening
of the federal system, on top of other centralizing programs of the current admin-
istration, is a dangerous trend.
Disregard of State and local governments and their elected officials has made
the term "war" an apt title for the poverty program. In too many places it has
become a war waged by local officials and competing private groups with each other
for control of federal funds and for partisan and personal advantage, The poor are
treated as the spoils in this conflict. They do not participate in decisions on
what is to be done for them or to them.
Enough evidence has come to light to raise serious doubts about the Job Corps
program. Instances of criminal and immoral behavior suggest inadequate selection
processes for trainees and a breakdown of discipline. There is a serious question,
too, as to whether the training consists too much of work that keeps youth off the
streets but does not nurture skills needed in the job market.
The poverty program needs basic reform and a tightening of administrative
practices. Whatever benefits that can be realized from this program can be
attained less wastefully by clearer definition of objectives, by more careful
structuring of programs, by cooperation with State and local governments, and by
elimination of considerations of partisan political advantage.
---0000000--
FOR THE SENATE:
THE JOINT SENATE-HOUSE
FOR THE HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Everett M. Dirksen, Leader
REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Gerald R. Ford,
Thomas H. Kuchel, Whip
Leader
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chr.
Leslie C. Arends, Whip
of the Policy Committee
Melvin R. Laird,
Leverett Saltonstall, Chr.
Press Release
Chr. of the Conference
of the Conference
YaJohnJ. Rhodes, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Thruston B. Morton,
Chr. Republican
Issued following a
H. Allen Smith,
Senatorial Committee
Leadership Meeting
Ranking Member
Rules Committee
Bob Wilson,
PRESIDING
OFFICER:
September
30,
1965
Chr. Republican
Congressional Committee
The Republican
Charles E. Goodell,
National Chairman
Chr. Committee on
Ray C. Bliss
Planning and Research
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DIRKSEN
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Republicans have long been engaged in a determined and effective campaign to
broaden economic opportunity for all Americans and to reduce the numbers of those
in the lowest-income brackets.
During the first four years of the Eisenhower Administration the number of
families below the $3,000 income level (in dollars of constant purchasing power at
1962 prices) was reduced at a rate of 400,000 a year. In four years since 1960,
the number has been dropping at a rate. of 250,000 a year.
When President Eisenhower assumed office, 28 per cent of the families of the
United States had incomes below $3, Four years later the percentage was down
and
5 points to 23 per cent. In four years of the Democratic Administrations which
succeeded Eisenhower, the figure has been reduced by 3 percentage points.
Despite the pressagentry of the current war on poverty, progress toward the
V9ST
goal of eliminating this evil has been slower during the past four years than it
was during the first term of the last Republican Administration.
The success of the Administration's anti-poverty efforts must be judged in
[srommt
these terms. The crucial question is whether these efforts with their vast in-
crease in federal spending and their sizeable bureaucracy accelerate the rate of
reduction of the numbers of those in the lowest-income brackets. Thi S question
has become obscured in a paper blizzard of press releases from the White House and
the Office of Economic Opportunity which provide some measurement of the effort of
the Administration but yield little information about the results
The public is told how many communities there are in which federal anti-poverty
programs have been started, how many job corps camps have been established, how
many Vista workers have been recruited, but it is not told how many poor people
have increased their income, and by what amounts, because of participation in the
anti-poverty program. It is not even told the names of the disadvantaged youths
who were given summer employment by the Post Office Department.
It is too early to pass final judgment on the effectiveness of the anti-poverty
program. The evidence available at present makes it appear that the program has
not yet proved itself.
(Ford statement page 2)
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-CApitol 4-3121 Ex 3700
STATEMENT BY REP. FORD
September 30, 1965
There are several glaring weaknesses in the anti-poverty program.
The Administration of the program is chaotic. It is headed by a part-time
director and a top staff of temporary personnel who simultaneously decided to
desert as the first skirwishes of the war on poverty were hardly under way. The
Office of Economic Opportunity is top heavy with high salaried executives. In
this agency, one out of every 18 employees receives a salary in excess of $19,000.
In the Defense Department, by contrast, one of 1,000 employees is paid more than
$19,000.
The program as administered treats elected State and local officials with cav-
alier disdain. Though Republican protest in the Congress salvaged some semblance
of influence in the operation of the program for State governors, neither State
nor local officials have an effective voice in the program today. This weakening
of the federal system, on top of other centralizing programs of the current admin-
istration, is a dangerous trend.
Disregard of State and local governments and their elected officials has made
the term "war" an apt title for the poverty program. In too many places it has
N
become a war waged by local officials and competing private groups with each other
for control of federal funds and for partisan and personal advantage. The poor are
treated as the spoils in this conflict. They do not participate in decisions on
what is to be done for them or to them.
Enough evidence has come to light to raise serious doubts about the Job Corps
program. Instances of criminal and immoral behavior suggest inadequate selection
processes for trainees and a breakdown of discipline. There is a serious question,
too, as to whether the training consists too much of work that keeps youth off the
streets but does not nurture skills needed in the job market.
The poverty program needs basic reform and a tightening of administrative
practices. Whatever benefits that can be realized from this program can be
attained less wastefully by clearer definition of objectives, by more careful
structuring of programs, by cooperation with State and local governments, and by
elimination of considerations of partisan political advantage.
---000000--
FOR THE SENATE:
FOR THE HOUSE
Everett M. Dirksen, Leader
THE JOINT SENATE-HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Thomas H. Kuchel, Whip
REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Gerald R. Ford, Leader
Leslie C. Arends, Whip
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Melvin R. Laird,
Chr. of the Conference
Leverett Saltonstall, Chr.
of the Conference
Press Release
John J. Rhodes, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Thruston B. Morton,
H. Allen Smith,
Chr. Republican
Ranking Member
Senatorial Committee
Rules Committee
Bob Wilson,
PRESIDING OFFICER:
Chr. Republican
Issued following a
Congressional Committee
The Republican
Leadership Meeting
Charles E. Goodell,
National Chairman
Chr. Committee on
Ray C. Bliss
March 3, 1966
Planning and Research
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DIRKSEN
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Johnson-Humphrey Administration by July first will have spent
$2.3 billion on the antipoverty campaign and is asking for $1.7 bil-
lion more. For these vast sums the American people and the poor have
gotten a very shabby product. This program is expensive in terms of
money and experienced manpower. It has produced many press releases
and high professional salaries but little assistance for those who most
need it.
The campaign has been marked by political favoritism and too often
has become the tool of political machines. What possible excuse is
there for putting children of local politicians and high income
families into the Neighborhood Youth Corps designed to keep poor
children from dropping out of school?
The program has been marked by political infighting between local
Democratic politicians for control of Community Action Program funds.
They want the money to build political machines, not to reclaim and
dignify human lives.
Mass creation of extravagant Job Corp centers, a lack of disci-
pline and purpose have resulted in disillusionment, rioting and vi-
cious gang rule. The Job Corp budget last year averaged $7800 for
each enrollee for one year, almost twice the cost of sending a boy to
college. This, it would seem, could have provided at least minimal
screening which would have helped turn these camps into the residen-
tial skill centers" long advocated by Republicans.
Scandalous misuse of funds, involving fraud, has led to Justice
Department and Congressional inquiries in a number of areas.
These things need not be. They would not be a part of a properly
administered program. Those with the lowest incomes in this country
cannot benefit from chicanery, fraud, and political misuse of funds,
The antipoverty campaign was launched with a flurry of publicity
by the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. It promised much, and raised
the hopes of many, but so far has produced little. The needy must
have hope and must be involved in developing their own future. They
need help in helping themselves - now.
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-CApitol 4-3121 Ex 3700
STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE FORD:
March 3, 1966
To win a war on poverty low income families must have better edu-
cation, a chance at getting decent jobs and help in helping themselves.
To accomplish these goals Republicans recommend:
1. Low income families must become more directly and deeply in-
volved if the campaign is to succeed. Their capable representatives
should be elected to serve along with representatives of local offi-
cials and social welfare agencies on boards with clearly defined
authority. Only through such sound local administration and less
intervention from Washington can this program shed the political money
grubbing found in so many cities.
2. Operation Head Start, first suggested by Republicans in 1961,
has been moderately successful despite administrative bungling but
that program now threatens to grind to a halt. It should be encour-
aged to reach its maximum potential.
3. Productive jobs in private enterprise are the real keys to
success. To provide dignified and permanent employment private in-
dustry and labor unions must be given realistic incentives - such as
the Republican proposal for a Human Investment Act - to widen their
participation.
4. Authority and responsibility of the states must be strength-
ened and they must be brought in as partners to prevent the anti-
poverty campaign from becoming more deeply mired in bureaucracy.
5. To eliminate de facto racial segregation in many urban renewal
projects adequate housing must be provided for all dispossessed
families.
6. Waste, abuse of power, political influence and big city bossism
can be eliminated by applying the Hatch Act at all levels and through
preaudits and tighter accounting. A thorough, honest investigation of
the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's handling of the antipoverty war
is long overdue. To conduct such an inquiry we are today introducing
legislation to create a joint Senate-House bipartisan investigating
committee.
FOR THE SENATE:
FOR THE HOUSE
Everett M. Dirksen, Leader
THE JOINT SENATE-HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Thomas H. Kuchel, Whip
REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Gerald R. Ford, Leader
Leslie C. Arends, Whip
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Melvin R. Laird,
Chr. of the Conference
Leverett Saltonstall, Chr.
of the Conference
Press Release
John J. Rhodes, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Thruston B. Morton,
H. Allen Smith,
Chr. Republican
Ranking Member
Senatorial Committee
Rules Committee
Bob Wilson,
PRESIDING OFFICER:
Chr. Republican
Issued following a
Congressional Committee
The Republican
Leadership Meeting
Charles E. Goodell,
National Chairman
Chr. Committee on
Ray C. Bliss
March 3, 1966
Planning and Research
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DIRKSEN
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Johnson-Humphrey Administration by July first will have spent
$2.3 billion on the antipoverty campaign and is asking for $1.7 bil-
lion more. For these vast sums the American people and the poor have
gotten a very shabby product. This program is expensive in terms of
money and experienced manpower. It has produced many press releases
and high professional salaries but little assistance for those who most
need it.
The campaign has been marked by political favoritism and too often
has become the tool of political machines. What possible excuse is
there for putting children of local politicians and high income
families into the Neighborhood Youth Corps designed to keep poor
children from dropping out of school?
The program has been marked by political infighting between local
Democratic politicians for control of Community Action Program funds.
They want the money to build political machines, not to reclaim and
dignify human lives.
Mass creation of extravagant Job Corp centers, a lack of disci-
pline and purpose have resulted in disillusionment, rioting and vi-
cious gang rule. The Job Corp budget last year averaged $7800 for
each enrollee for one year, almost twice the cost of sending a boy to
college. This, it would seem, could have provided at least minimal
screening which would have helped turn these camps into the residen-
tial skill centers" long advocated by Republicans.
Scandalous misuse of funds, involving fraud, has led to Justice
Department and Congressional inquiries in a number of areas.
These things need not be. They would not be a part of a properly
administered program. Those with the lowest incomes in this country
cannot benefit from chicanery, fraud, and political misuse of funds,
The antipoverty campaign was launched with a flurry of publicity
by the Johnson-Humphrey Administration. It promised much, and raised
the hopes of many, but SO far has produced little. The needy must
have hope and must be involved in developing their own future. They
need help in helping themselves - now.
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-CApitol 4-3121 Ex 3700
STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE FORD:
March 3, 1966
To win a war on poverty low income families must have better edu-
cation, a chance at getting decent jobs and help in helping themselves.
To accomplish these goals Republicans recommend:
1. Low income families must become more directly and deeply in-
volved if the campaign is to succeed. Their capable representatives
should be elected to serve along with representatives of local offi-
cials and social welfare agencies on boards with clearly defined
authority. Only through such sound local administration and less
intervention from Washington can this program shed the political money
grubbing found in so many cities.
2. Operation Head Start, first suggested by Republicans in 1961,
has been moderately successful despite administrative bungling but
that program now threatens to grind to a halt. It should be encour-
aged to reach its maximum potential.
3. Productive jobs in private enterprise are the real keys to
success. To provide dignified and permanent employment private in-
dustry and labor unions must be given realistic incentives - such as
the Republican proposal for a Human Investment Act - to widen their
participation.
4. Authority and responsibility of the states must be strength-
ened and they must be brought in as partners to prevent the anti-
poverty campaign from becoming more deeply mired in bureaucracy.
5. To eliminate de facto racial segregation in many urban renewal
projects adequate housing must be provided for all dispossessed
families.
6. Waste, abuse of power, political influence and big city bossism
can be eliminated by applying the Hatch Act at all levels and through
preaudits and tighter accounting. A thorough, honest investigation of
the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's handling of the antipoverty war
is long overdue. To conduct such an inquiry we are today introducing
legislation to create a joint Senate-House bipartisan investigating
committee.
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
STATEMENT BY HOUSE MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH.
FOR SATURDAY P. M. RELEASE
MARCH 26, 1966
One of the selling points for the $1.5 billion anti-poverty program
launched last year by the Johnson Administration was that it would take
people off the welfare rolls and reduce welfare spending.
Yet federal welfare officials have asked a House Appropriations
subcommittee for an extra $381 million to pay welfare bills through
June 30 of this year, and this requested $381 million would be added to
the $3.2 billion Congress voted last year for fiscal 1965-66 welfare
payments to the states.
Testimony released Friday showed that subcommittee members were
astonished by the Johnson Administration request.
Now the House Ways and Means Committee is demanding to know why
welfare spending is mousting during a period of low unemployment--low
unemployment partially caused by the manpower needs of a wartime economy.
I also am amazed by the request for more welfare funds, and I hope
the hearings planned for this summer by the Ways and Means Committee
will produce some answers for the American taxpayer.
This request for more welfare money casts grave doubt on the
Administration argument that the anti-poverty war will put welfare
families back on their feet. It also reflects on the manner in which the
anti-poverty war is being waged. I am talking now not only of political
favoritism by the Democrats and obvious misuse of taxpayer money but of the
overall strategy being employed in the war on poverty--a strategy that
produces frustrating feuding at the local level and blunts or paralyzes
an attack on the problem.
# # #
FOR THE SENATE:
FOR THE HOUSE
Everett M. Dirksen, Leader
THE JOINT SENATE-HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
Thomas H. Kuchel, Whip
REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Gerald R. Ford, Leader
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chr.
Leslie C. Arends, Whip
of the Policy Committee
Melvin R. Laird,
Leverett Saltonstall, Chr.
of the Conference
Press Release
Chr. of the Conference
John J. Rhodes, Chr.
of the Policy Committee
Thruston B. Morton,
Chr. Republican
H. Allen Smith,
Senatorial Committee
Ranking Member
Rules Committee
Bob Wilson,
PRESIDING OFFICER:
Chr. Republican
Issued following a
Congressional Committee
The Republican
National Chairman
Leadership Meeting
Charles E. Goodell,
Chr. Committee on
Ray C. Bliss
June 2, 1966
Planning and Research
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DIRKSEN:
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Republican Membership of the House Education and Labor Com-
mittee have done the Congress and the Nation a signal service in the
detailed and vigorous minority report they have issued on the so-
called "War on Poverty" program of the Johnson-Humphrey Administration.
In a speech in the Senate on August 19, 1965, I identified the
erratic, costly and misdirected course this program was then threat-
ening to take. The Repbulican minority have now confirmed in every
detail the most ominous of my predictions where the genuine welfare
of the poor and the dreadful costs to the American taxpayer were con-
cerned. This Minority Report will be printed and available within a
day or so and I not only commend it to your attention but strongly
urge your careful reading of it. I urge, moreover, that you in turn
urge your readers and listeners to write their respective members of
the Congress for copies of it. I have seen nothing in a good number
of years that will SO alert and alarm our people as to the reckless
course the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has now clearly laid out
before us.
Constructively and positively, I therefore urge:
1. That the President institute immediately a thorough review
and reappraisal of this disastrous Poverty program under
the Congressional Resolutions to this end that have already
been filed by me and by Representative Ford and that at
the same time he examine objectively and honestly the
increasingly harsh impact of the high cost of living upon
the American people.
2. The adoption by the Congress and the Administration of
the strong clear recommendations of the Opportunity Crusade
contained in this superb Minority Report.
When the Representatives of the American people in Congress are
asked to appropriate another one and three quarters billions of dollars
for a poverty program that has already wastefully consumed two and one-
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-CApitol 4-3121 - Ex 3700
Staff Consultant John B. Fisher
- 2 -
third billions of dollars, the people are fully justified in demanding
an explanation of this disastrous program and of how it is now proposed
to spend still more of their hard-earned and rapidly vanishing income
in this wasteful, reckless way.
Therefore, our Question-of-the-Week:
Mr. President, Why is the
War on Poverty being lost?
STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE FORD:
At the very outset, let me join with Senator Dirksen in urging
your readers and your listeners to ask their respective Members of
Congress for copies of this historic Minority Report on the Poverty
program as soon as the Democrat-controlled Committee makes it avail-
able. Our people not only have the right to know the harsh facts of
that program but, as they now struggle at every income level to make
both ends meet, they must be told how frightfully, how disastrously
their dollars are being spent in this incredibly mismanaged, almost
totally unproductive program of the Johnson-Humphrey Administration.
A very prominent Democrat has used the phrase "the arrogance of
power" with respect to his own Administration's foreign policy. That phrase
"arrogance of power" far more aptly describes this Poverty program:
in the day-to-day administration of that program in countless com-
munities across the country, in the high-handed, steam-rollering of
poverty legislation in the House Education and Labor Committee and
in the repeated defiance hurled at many of the governors of our states
and mayors of our cities by Poverty office bureaucrats.
We Republicans in opposition contend that, in this as on almost
every domestic front, the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has
regularly substituted promises for performance. When such a policy
is applied to the poor it becomes not only harsh, not only cruel,
but intolerable and unforgivable.
Let it be clear, however, that this is by no means a partisan
political point of view. Repeated statements on the subject by
prominent and dedicated Democrats in the Congress have included such
Poverty program charges and phrases as "disastrous," "Programs now
mired in the swamp of mediocrity," "a riot and a runaway of ineffec-
tive programs," "The rural areas
have
been lost in the shuffle,"
"an awful mess," "grandiose sociological studies and anti-social
protest movements." These are the words of Democratic spokesmen for
their constituents and to their reactions can be added the detailed
article in the May issue of U.S. News and World Report on "The Mess
in the Poverty War", a significant poll taken in one of our most
populous states, and endless other evidence from public officials
and private leaders of all political faiths.
(more)
- 4 -
As Senator Dirksen has indicated, we will not be critical only.
The Republican Minority on the Committee has proposed an "Opportunity
Crusade" -- eleven sound and specific recommendations for a total
overhaul of the Poverty program. They deserve not only a hearing
by the Congress and the country -- they deserve to be heeded,
immediately, by the Johnson-Humphrey Administration.
Therefore, our Question-of-the-Week:
Mr. President, Why is the
War on Poverty being lost?
REpublican NATiONAL COMMiTTEE
1625 EYE STREET, NORTHWEST, WASHINGTON, D. C. 20006
NATIONAL 8-6800
NEWS
FOR RELEASE
Friday AM
July 8, 1966
THE ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY-- A REALISTIC CRUSADE
Republicans today called for a poverty program which would be genuine
war, a realistic crusade, and not a sham battle in which we wrestle more with
shadows than substance," and made sixteen specific proposals to reform the
anti-poverty effort.
The Alleviation of Poverty was adopted by the Republican Coordinating
Committee on June 27, and released today by Republican National Chairman Ray
C. Bliss.
The paper was prepared by the Task Force on the Functions of Federal, State,
and Local Governments, headed by former Congressman Robert Taft, Jr. of Ohio.
The reforms, the paper said, are based on "the Republican approach to
assist the poor and disadvantaged in their climb up the economic and social
ladder; not to drag them up forcibly by a green rope of dollar bills."
Pointing out that 'what is now known as Project Head Start was originally
proposed by Republicans as long ago as 1961," the Republican paper termed the
program the most successful of the poverty efforts. The Republicans urged, how-
ever, that Head Start "be administered in the Office of Education through the
States, not by the Office of Economic Opportunity". The Republican Group also
strongly recommended "that the children of poverty stricken parents be placed
at the very top of the list of priorities in the poverty war."
The oft-criticized Job Corps would be revamped under the GOP proposals
FORD
"with an accent on intelligent evaluation of applicants, necessary discipline
in camps, use of private enterprise to create realistic working conditions,
LUVUS
- 2 -
and elimination of prodigal spending for staff and facilities." The group
urged the establishment of Job Corps camps to be run by the Defense Department
to train young men who now fail draft requirements to meet the standards for the
armed forces. The Republicans called for an end to the "jet-set Job Corps" by
"keeping youths in their home States for Job Corps training whenever possible."
The Republican report also called for "fuller involvement of the poor them-
selves in the solution of their problems, by giving them representation on the
community action boards in each area," and demanded greater utilization of "the
wealth of State experience and leadership capabilities" in anti-poverty programs.
In particular, the Republicans demanded restoration of the Governors' veto for
VISTA and Community Action programs, and recommended the creation of a bonus
plan for those States willing to match Federal poverty funds on a 50-50 basis
above the present level of funding.
Also urged was prior approval by existing community welfare councils before
requests for Federal poverty funds for a community could be considered by the
Office of Economic Opportunity.
A drastic revision of OEO was advocated by the Republican Coordinating
Committee. Its report urged that anti-poverty programs be taken away from OEO
and returned to the individual agencies "in which they logically belong," leaving
OEO with responsibility for Community Action programs alone. The Republicans
also urged that "employees of OEO-sponsored projects" be brought "under the
Hatch Act's prohibitions on political activities." The statement also demanded
"realistic ceilings on the salaries of poverty employees", calling attention
to one Job Corps installation in Texas where anti-poverty staff personnel
"received an average increase of 57 percent above their previous salaries
- 3 -
when theyjoined the Job Corps."
In other recommendations, the Republican document called for "a long over-
due nationwide employment survey pin-pointing the thousands of categories in
which qualified applicants cannot now be found" to enable "training programs
to direct their classes toward those skill categories in greatest demand."
The Republicans urged that "the present Social Security earnings limitation
for those 65 to 72 years of age be raised from its present level of $1,500 per
year."
Deploring "the near catastrophic degree of conflict, contradiction, and
overlapping activity among existing Federal programs and the agencies which
administer them," the Republicans ended by demanding "the establishment of a
Select Committee of Congress to establish public confidence in programs aimed at
alleviating poverty."
Adopted by
FOR RELEASE
The Republican Coordinating Committee
FRIDAY AM'S
June 27, 1966
JULY 8, 1966
Presented by
The Task Force on the Functions of
Federal, State and Local Governments
THE ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY
Prepared under the direction of:
Republican National Committee
1625 Eye Street, N. W.
Washington, D. C. 20006
BERAUP FORD LIBRARY
REPUBLICAN COORDINATING COMMITTEE
Presiding Officer: Chairman, Republican National Committee
Former President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Former Presidential Nominees
Barry Goldwater (1964)
Thomas E. Dewey (1944-1948)
Richard M. Nixon (1960)
Alf M. Landon (1936)
Senate Leadership
Everett M. Dirksen
Leverett Saltonstall, Chairman
Minority Leader
Republican Conference
Thomas H. Kuchel
Thruston B. Morton, Chairman
Minority Whip
National Republican Senatorial
Committee
Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chairman,
Republican Policy Committee
House Leadership
Gerald R. Ford
H. Allen Smith, Ranking Member
Minority Leader
of Rules Committee
Leslie C. Arends
Bob Wilson, Chairman
Minority Whip
National Republican Congressional
Committee
Melvin R. Laird, Chairman
Republican Conference
Charles E. Goodell, Chairman
Planning and Research
John J. Rhodes, Chairman
Committee
Republican Policy Committee
Representatives of Republican Governors Association
John A. Love, Governor
Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor
of the State of Colorado
of the State of New York
Robert E. Smylie, Governor
William W. Scranton, Governor
of the State of Idaho
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
George W. Romney, Governor
of the State of Michigan
Republican National Committee
Ray C. Bliss, Chairman
Donald R. Ross, Vice Chairman
Mrs. C. Wayland Brooks, Assistant
Mrs. J. Willard Marriott, Vice
Chairman
Chairman
Mrs. Collis P. Moore, Vice Chairman
J. Drake Edens, Jr., Vice Chairman
Republican State Legislators Association
F. F. (Monte) Montgomery, President
Robert L. L. McCormick, Staff Coordinator
Members of the Republican Coordinating Committee's Task Force on
the Functions of Federal, State and Local Governments
Robert Taft, Jr., Chairman
Member of Congress from Ohio, 1963-65
Karl Mundt, Vice Chairman
United States Senator from South Dakota
Mrs. Consuelo Northrop Bailey
Secretary of the Republican National Committee
Henry Bellmon
Governor of the State of Oklahoma
George C. S. Benson
President, Claremont Men's College
Neal Blaisdell
Mayor of the City of Honolulu
Joseph L. Budd
Republican National Committeeman for Wyoming
Howard H. Callaway
Member of Congress from Georgia
Frank Carlson
United States Senator from Kansas
Roger Cloud
Auditor of the State of Ohio
William Cowger
Mayor of the City of Louisville, 1962-65
Walter DeVries
Executive Assistant to the Governor of the State of Michigan
Daniel J. Evans
Governor of the State of Washington
Denison Kitchel
Attorney, Phoenix, Arizona
Warren P. Knowles
Governor of the State of Wisconsin
Mrs. Jewel S. LaFontant
Attorney, Chicago, Illinois
Edwin G. Michaelian
County Executive, Westchester County, New York
Winthrop Rockefeller
Republican National Committeeman for Arkansas
Craig Truax
Chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania
Charles E. Wittenmeyer
Republican National Committeeman for Iowa
Robert J. Huckshorn
Secretary to the Task Force
LIBRARI
THE ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY
The alleviation of poverty is one of the most complex and perplexing
problems facing America today. Yet, the very discussion of the problem
produces benefits to America for that discussion inevitably involves many
of the most fundamental questions of our society. As we learn more about
poverty, we learn more about the utility and desirability of the many
solutions advanced to reduce and ultimately eliminate poverty. This effort
has been estimated to involve a greater sum of money, counting private as
well as public responses to the need, than any other single campaign, in or
out of government at any level.
In very real ways, the economic development of the United States is an
on-going history of a war against poverty. The American free enterprise system
has produced no results as important as the scope of ways to enrich and raise
the standard of living of the vast majority of citizens.
Nonetheless, as Republicans we are not content when all citizens do not
have the opportunity or the motivation to share in the advantages of American
society. The existence and problems of poverty are not at issue. The economi-
cally and socially disadvantaged in our Nation should be a matter of genuine
humanitarian concern to all.
We believe -- and we have demonstrated our belief -- in the desirability
and necessity of combating poverty. But we are dedicated to a genuine war, a
realistic crusade, and not a sham battle in which we wrestle more with shadows
than substance.
The Republican Party maintains that the programs designed by the present
Administration in its "War on Poverty" are based on faulty premises, and there-
fore have never had a chance for real success. The bill was poorly and hastily
drafted; Republicans warned of the difficulties and tried to correct the problems
from the beginning: The Johnson-Humphrey-Shriver poverty program has been full
-2-
of promises and press releases; it is in the area of results that the scarcity
is found. The Administration program abounds with scandals and abuses which
1/
have been well documented in the prèss and elsewhere.
Long before the Democratic Administration presented its program on
poverty, Republicans in and out of Congress had proposed a variety of
programs to assist those on the lower rung of the economic ladder. It has
always been the Republican approach to assist the poor and disadvantaged in
their climb up the economic and social ladder; not to drag them up forcibly
by a green rope of dollar bills. With this goal in mind we have stressed
educational programs, employment training, tax incentives, and equal opportunities
as the major means of helping the disadvantaged to rise above their state of
poverty.
In contrast, the tendency of the Democratic Administration has been to
deceive the poor and their children -- by promising results which the
present program cannot possibly deliver. In the words of the minority in the
1964 Annual Economic Report of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress:
"A war on poverty will not be won by slogans; nor
by shop-worn programs and proposals dressed up in
new packaging; nor by the defeatist relief concept
of the 1930's; nor by the cynical use of poverty
for partisan political ends; nor by overstating the
problem and thereby inexcusably lowering America's
prestige in the eyes of the world."
We maintain that poverty, like any ill, must be attacked at its roots,
but no solution will work if poorly conceived and administered. Poverty in
any context is tragic, but it takes its most disruptive and cruel form in the
seething, over-populated ghettos of our major urban centers. Too often,
programs that were inadequate to begin with have been administered and operated
1/ See Minority views to the House Education and Labor Committee report on
the Economic Opportunity Act Amendments of 1966. (House Report 1568,
June 1, 1966.)
LIBRARY
-3-
through political machines which feed themselves on poverty while remaining
unresponsive to the needs of the poor. There is no more damning evidence
of the failure of a program than when those whom it was meant to help demonstrate
in the streets to show their opposition to it. Instead of bringing hope and
opportunity to the economically disadvantaged, the Johnson-Humphrey-Shriver
program has brought frustration and disillusionment. This is the understand-
able derivation of much of the cynicism that pervades the whole outlook of
the urban dweller.
The problems of the poor cannot be solved by "politics as usual." It
is not enough simply to label an inadequate program as a "War on Poverty."
No nation can outshine the record of the American society in helping the
poor. However, Republicans feel that more must be done to meet the unique
problems of the Sixties.
An effective poverty program must benefit the poor, not the politicians.
To accomplish this goal, the total resources in each community must be
mobilized to fight poverty. Welfare councils made up of public spirited
citizens as well as the religious and business leadership have an increasingly
important role to play in this area. The private sector has already con-
tributed a great deal to the cause of combating poverty; but there is much
more to be done. Heavy reliance on government programs not only will destroy
the experimentation and innovation needed to solve the problems of the poor,
but more importantly it will completely destroy the individual's responsibility
toward the betterment of his community. In order to keep private community
organizations strong, we recommend that wherever a community welfare
council is already in existence in an area its approval be required before
the Office of Economic Opportunity will consider a request for Federal funds
from that area.
-4-
To ensure that the war against poverty becomes a helping hand and not
simply a charitable dispensation of Federal largesse, we urge action on the
following proposals:
Project Head Start
We strongly recommend that the children of poverty stricken parents be
placed at the very top of the list of priorities in the poverty war. What is
now known as Project Head Start was originally proposed by Republicans as
long ago as 1961. It has proven to be the most successful of the new poverty
programs. However, Republicans have, from the beginning, urged that Head Start
be administered in the Office of Education through the States, not by the Office
of Economic Opportunity. We believe the program should be taken out from under
the Economic Opportunity Act and funded to the full extent of its needs through
the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Proper emphasis should be
placed on State and local administration.
The Job Corps
We urge that the Job Corps be completely revamped with an accent on
intelligent evaluation of applicants, necessary discipline in camps, use of
private enterprise to create realistic working conditions, and elimination of
prodigal spending for staff and facilities.
We also recommend the advisability of setting up Job Corps camps to be
administered by the Defense Department. These would equip young men who can
not now meet Selective Service standards to meet the requirements for the armed
services. Admission to these camps would be strictly voluntary. The armed
services operates the largest training activity in the Nation, and, for those
who qualify for admission, it is often the beginning of a useful and productive
life. We feel that military expertise will also be invaluable in training young
men in cooperation with the Poverty Program.
LIBRARY
-5-
In order to ensure greater local cooperation and involvement, we
recommend keeping youths in their home States for Job Corps training whenever
possible. The present "jet-set Job Corps" which transfers enrollees all
across the country is not only expensive, but impractical and unnecessary.
Involvement of the Poor
We recommend fuller involvement of the poor themselves in the solution of
their problems, by giving them representation on the community action boards
in each area. These representatives should be selected by the poor themselves
and serve at policy-making levels. It is imperative that they take an active
part in any poverty program if a true community action program is to be
successfully developed.
Because of fratricidal power struggles that have developed over the
establishment of community action programs, or the equally regrettable
alternative of a vacuum of imaginative local leadership, the Federal Government
has stepped in to make critical local decisions. But, direct Federal inter-
ference destroys the greatest potential of the poverty program. With the
right kind of representative community action boards, dictation from
Washington should become unnecessary as well as undesirable.
The Role of the States
The States should participate to a fuller extent in Federal anti-
poverty programs. The States for years' have been in the business of fighting
poverty to a far greater extent than the Federal Government. Existing welfare
and education programs historically have been administered and funded by the
States as well as local governments. To utilize the wealth of State experience
and leadership capabilities in this field, as well as to eliminate overlapping
activities, we strongly urge that the States be admitted to full participation
in Federal anti-poverty programs.
-6-
In this connection, we also urge the restoration of the Governor's veto
power contained in the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Under this provision,
no VISTA or Community Action Program could be undertaken in a State if its
Governor disapproved the program within 30 days of its submission to him.
However, the Governor's veto is, at best, a negative solution to the
problem. The States should therefore be encouraged to become partners in the
war on poverty. To do this, we recommend a bonus plan be enacted for those
States willing to match Federal poverty funds on a 50-50 basis above the
present level of funding. Under this plan, present allocations by State would
continue, but additional funds would be distributed as functional grants to
2/
those States willing to participate as partners in the poverty war.
We recommend that Congress consider reducing the present high ratio of
Federal to State and local funds for the Community Action Program. The present
formula under which the Federal Government supplies 90 percent of the funds
is responsible for the funding of low priority projects and has disturbed
existing channels of intergovernmental communications.
Reorganizing the Poverty Program
We recommend that the Office of Economic Opportunity be responsible for
Community Action Programs alone and that the other programs under the Economic
Opportunity Act be returned to the individual government departments and
agencies in which they logically belong. The expertise available in the
departments can run these programs far more effectively than the Office of
Economic Opportunity in Washington whose reputation has become synonomous
with chaos and political favoritism.
2/ The recommendations of the Republican Coordinating Committee concerning
functional grants have been published in Financing the Future of Federalism:
The Case for Revenue Sharing, prepared by this Task Force (March, 1966)
LIBRARY
7-
The training programs should be administered by the Department of Labor,
the education programs by the Office of Education, and so forth. This would
ensure greater efficiency and coordination between all government programs
in the same field. It would also cut down on overlapping and unnecessary
personnel.
We also urge an amendment to the poverty law to bring the employees of
OEO-sponsored projects, the principal part of whose salaries derives from
Federal funds, under the Hatch Act's prohibitions on political activities.
Reducing Inefficiency and Patronage
We recommend setting realistic ceilings on the salaries of poverty employees.
The need for this ceiling has become abundantly clear. The 208 staff personnel
at Camp Cary in San Marcos, Texas, for instance, who now draw salaries over
$9,000, received an average increase of 57 percent above their previous salaries
when they joined the Job Corps. In twenty-two cases, salaries were more than
doubled. Other examples of ridiculously high salaries are abundant.
Not only is this a waste of taxpayers' money, but more importantly, it is
raising havoc with other local, State, Federal and private programs by
"raiding" and "pirating" county, State, city and Federal Government employees
as well as qualified employees in private community organizations. As an
example, the expanded vocational education program passed by the 88th Congress
has been inadequately staffed. Vocational education teachers have
been attracted to the poverty program by the larger salaries. Similarly,
local teachers are attracted to the Head Start program and welfare workers
often receive twice their previous salaries in the local community action
programs.
-8-
We believe that salaries of poverty workers should not exceed the
salaries paid persons holding comparable positions in the area.
There have been numerous examples in the press of excessively high
administrative and training costs in the various poverty programs.
It costs approximately $10,000 a year to maintain a youth in the Job
Corps. District of Columbia Head Start kindergartens cost at least $1,200
per year per child.
The Office of Education is budgeted for $3.5 billion in Fiscal Year 1967,
compared to the Office of Economic Opportunity's $1.7 billion. Yet, the
Office of Education will need only 2,861 permanent employees compared with
7,233 permanent employees for the Office of Economic Opportunity (the
Office of Economic Opportunity figure does not include over 20,000 persons
employed in local Community Action Programs).
Strengthening Employment Opportunities
We recommend that the U. S. Labor Department make a long over-due nation-
wide employment survey pin-pointing the thousands of categories in which
qualified applicants cannot now be found. This will enable private and public
training programs to direct their classes toward those skill categories in
greatest demand.
We again advocate tax incentives to help people, not just to build machines.
Under the Republican sponsored Human Investment Act, employers will receive
3/
a tax credit for money spent to train and employ people with low skills.
We again call for early enactment of this bill.
3/ The recommendations of the Republican Coordinating Committee have been
published in The Human Investment, prepared by the Task Force on Job
Opportunities (March, 1966)
-9-
Helping the Aged
We recommend that the aged, who are truly the "forgotten poor," be
permitted and encouraged to work whenever they are willing and able to do so.
We particularly urge that the present Social Security earnings limitation
for those 65 to 72 years of age be raised from its present level of $1,500
per year. This will permit our senior citizens to supplement their small
pensions while ensuring that their efforts to do so will not jeopardize their
Social Security benefits.
Restoring Public Confidence in the Poverty Program
We deplore the near catastrophic degree of conflict, contradiction, and over-
lapping activity among existing Federal programs and the agencies which adminis-
ter them. All too frequently, these have served to neutralize or immobilize local
and private efforts.
Programs such as those concerned with urban renewal and public housing were
originally enacted to help low income families. Instead, they have often
caused more problems for the poor than they have solved. There is a clear need to
redefine original objectives of such programs, and to guard against the
possibility of duplication and overlapping activity.
We strongly believe that all anti-poverty programs, whether public or
private, be carried out in such a way that they are adaptable to change as
our society improves its understanding of the entire problem of poverty.
The results of public opinion surveys have demonstrated the public's
uncertainty and growing suspicion of the conduct of the poverty program.
Democratic-dominated committees in both Houses of Congress have declined
to conduct a thorough and continuing investigation of the structure and
operation of the Economic Opportunity Act.
-10-
We therefore recommend the establishment of a Select Committee of
Congress to establish public confidence in programs aimed at alleviating
poverty. The Republican Party is confident that an honest war on poverty
can be waged and won without the waste and scandal which currently infest
the Democratic Administration's program.
We have here proposed a number of basic reforms to enable all levels
of government and private organizations as well to better contribute to the
eradication of poverty in America. But all these reforms will be unavail-
ing if stable economic growth is not soon achieved without the runaway
inflation now besetting our economy. Few groups are harder hit by inflation
than are the poor. All the programs of all our governments and all our
concerned private groups will be fruitless until and unless the present
Administration's inflationary economic policies are halted. This, above all
others, is the most basic of reforms to benefit the American poor.
4/ For a fuller statement of the views of the Republican Coordinating
Committee on this problem, see The Rising Costs of Living, prepared
by the Task Force on Federal Fiscal and Monetary Policies.
BERRU FORD
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE UPON RECEIPT
Wednesday, July 13, 1966
STATEMENT BY HOUSE MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICHIGAN.
The Office of Economic Opportunity has charged that its "answers" to
statements in House Republican Poverty Memos "are shrugged off and ignored."
The truth is that OEO has not controverted one major fact in any of the
House GOP Poverty Memos. Not only that, but almost all of the Memos have gone
unanswered. The statement made by OEO regarding Republican Party criticisms of
the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's War on Poverty is therefore downright
ridiculous.
The House GOP Poverty Memos are documented through careful, independent
investigations.
In all, 31 House GOP Poverty Memos have been issued to date. In only
one instance -- the scandalously costly leasing of the Kanawha Hotel in Charleston,
West Virginia, from a prominent Democrat for a Women's Job Corps Center--did OEO
officials dispute GOP Poverty Memo facts. They disputed the facts only to find
all the major facts proved out exactly as stated by House Republicans.
OEO would have the American people believe House Republicans have simply been
sniping at the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's anti-poverty program. The truth
is that House Republicans have sought to improve the program but have been shut
out completely by the administration and by Democratic members of the House
Education and Labor Committee.
These and other charges are made by OEO in a press release of July 8 entitled
"Comment by OEO Spokesman On Republican National (Coordinating) Committee Report."
We question the use of public funds for a partisan attack on the Republican
Party by a government agency.
There is no proper place in Washington for an executive agency that would
stoop so low as to charge that "the Republican Party will conveniently forget them
(the poor) when election day is over." I think OEO Director R. Sargent Shriver
owes the Republican National Coordinating Committee an apology for allowing his
"spokesman" to make such a despicable and totally unfounded statement.
Instead of giving careful consideration to GOP recommendations for improvements
in the anti-poverty program, the OEO has made a direct attack on the Republican
Party.
(MORE)
-2-
OEO STATEMENT
OEO officials have blithely sought to dismiss all GOP-produced evidence of
anti-poverty program weaknesses and abuses and have concentrated on turning out
expensive, slick-paper brochures with which to impress members of Congress.
OEO recently declined an opportunity given them by Education and Labor
Committee Democrats to answer Republican views on the 1966 Economic Opportunity
Act Amendments. The majority held up the report on the bill to give OEO time to
comment, but OEO officials passed up the chance.
OEO claims to be achieving coordination in the anti-poverty program. Yet
the Administration is seeking to divide responsibility for the Work Experience
Program (Title V) between three agencies--HEW, OEO, and the Labor Department.
And procedures for distribution of Head Start funds are so confused that some
school superintendents are asking if the program is worth all the trouble.
OEO says the poor already are strongly represented in War on Poverty planning.
Are they properly represented in Chicago? In Cleveland? In Atlanta? In
Los Angeles? In Bedford-Stuyvesant? They are not.
OEO says Republicans are not paying attention to the facts when they speak
of prodigal spending for Job Corps staff and salaries. Where do they think the
information for these GOP charges came from if not from official records? Are
they denying the validity of material from official OEO and Job Corps documents?
It is kind of OEO to capsulize so neatly and accurately in its recent news
release the Republican approach to poverty: "Whatever is good in the poverty
program, we thought of first. The rest, we can do better." This summing up that
OEO has done for us happens to be true.
Operation Head Start, for instance, is based on a pre-school and early-school
proposal advanced by Reps. Albert H. Quie, R-Minn., and Charles E. Goodell, R-N.Y.,
in 1961. And it was four years ago that Quie, Goodell and Rep. Alphonzo Bell,
R-Calif., proposed experimental job corps camps.
As for doing the job better, we have offered the people our Opportunity
Crusade as a complete substitute for the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's
faltering, mismanaged War on Poverty.
Mr. Shriver has cited the anti-poverty program in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
my home town, as one of the three outstanding programs in the nation. It is a
tribute to the local leaders in Grand Rapids that they have been able to produce
good results despite the chaotic administration of the War on Poverty at the
national level.
# # #
RE: POVERTY WAR -OEO
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE UPON RECEIPT
Wednesday, July 13, 1966
STATEMENT BY HOUSE MINORITY LEADER GERALD R. FORD, R-MICHIGAN.
The Office of Economic Opportunity has charged that its "answers" to
statements in House Republican Poverty Memos "are shrugged off and ignored."
The truth is that OEO has not controverted one major fact in any of the
House GOP Poverty Memos. Not only that, but almost all of the Memos have gone
unanswered. The statement made by OEO regarding Republican Party criticisms of
the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's War on Poverty is therefore downright
ridiculous.
The House GOP Poverty Memos are documented through careful, independent
investigations.
In all, 31 House GOP Poverty Memos have been issued to date. In only
one instance -- the scandalously costly leasing of the Kanawha Hotel in Charleston,
West Virginia, from a prominent Democrat for a Women's Job Corps Center--did OEO
officials dispute GOP Poverty Memo facts. They disputed the facts only to find
all the major facts proved out exactly as stated by House Republicans.
OEO would have the American people believe House Republicans have simply been
sniping at the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's anti-poverty program. The truth
is that House Republicans have sought to improve the program but have been shut
out completely by the administration and by Democratic members of the House
Education and Labor Committee.
These and other charges are made by OEO in a press release of July 8 entitled
"Comment by OEO Spokesman On Republican National (Coordinating) Committee Report."
We question the use of public funds for a partisan attack on the Republican
Party by a government agency.
There is no proper place in Washington for an executive agency that would
stoop so low as to charge that "the Republican Party will conveniently forget them
(the poor) when election day is over." I think OEO Director R. Sargent Shriver
owes the Republican National Coordinating Committee an apology for allowing his
"spokesman" to make such a despicable and totally unfounded statement.
Instead of giving careful consideration to GOP recommendations for improvements
in the anti-poverty program, the OEO has made a direct attack on the Republican
Party.
(MORE)
-2-
OEO STATEMENT
OEO officials have blithely sought to dismiss all GOP-produced evidence of
anti-poverty program weaknesses and abuses and have concentrated on turning out
expensive, slick-paper brochures with which to impress members of Congress.
OEO recently declined an opportunity given them by Education and Labor
Committee Democrats to answer Republican views on the 1966 Economic Opportunity
Act Amendments. The majority held up the report on the bill to give OEO time to
comment, but OEO officials passed up the chance.
OEO claims to be achieving coordination in the anti-poverty program. Yet
the Administration is seeking to divide responsibility for the Work Experience
Program (Title V) between three agencies--HEW, OEO, and the Labor Department.
And procedures for distribution of Head Start funds are so confused that some
school superintendents are asking if the program is worth all the trouble.
OEO says the poor already are strongly represented in War on Poverty planning.
Are they properly represented in Chicago? In Cleveland? In Atlanta? In
Los Angeles? In Bedford-Stuyvesant? They are not.
OEO says Republicans are not paying attention to the facts when they speak
of prodigal spending for Job Corps staff and salaries. Where do they think the
information for these GOP charges came from if not from official records? Are
they denying the validity of material from official OEO and Job Corps documents?
It is kind of OEO to capsulize so neatly and accurately in its recent news
release the Republican approach to poverty: "Whatever is good in the poverty
program, we thought of first. The rest, we can do better." This summing up that
OEO has done for us happens to be true.
Operation Head Start, for instance, is based on a pre-school and early-school
proposal advanced by Reps. Albert H. Quie, R-Minn., and Charles E. Goodell, R-N.Y.,
in 1961. And it was four years ago that Quie, Goodell and Rep. Alphonzo Bell,
R-Calif., proposed experimental job corps camps.
As for doing the job better, we have offered the people our Opportunity
Crusade as a complete substitute for the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's
faltering, mismanaged War on Poverty.
Mr. Shriver has cited the anti-poverty program in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
my home town, as one of the three outstanding programs in the nation. It is a
tribute to the local leaders in Grand Rapids that they have been able to produce
good results despite the chaotic administration of the War on Poverty at the
national level.
# # #
House Republican Policy Committee
Immediate Release
John J. Phodes, Chairman
July 19, 1966
140 Cannon House Office Bldg.
Phone: 225-6168
Poverty
Republican Policy Committee Statement on Economic Opportunity Act Amendments
of 1966, H.R. 15111
The House Republican Policy Committee is opposed to H.R. 15111, the Economic
Opportunity Act Amendments of 1966. The Administration's so-called War on
Poverty is scandal-ridden and in serious trouble. Even so, this bill would
authorize the expenditure of $1.75 billion for fiscal year 1967 without attempting
to correct many abuses and gross mistakes that plague the present program. The
anti-poverty program must be reformed and reoriented if public confidence is to
be regained.
Unfortunately, the Education and Labor Committee has not fulfilled its respon-
sibility. The Democratic majority on the Education and Labor Committee repeatedly
promised a full-fledged study of the war on poverty and was given $200,000 for
this purpose. However, field hearings did not materialize and an ever-changing
investigative staff has been confused by changes in direction cancelled trips
and recalls from investigations. The reports which were issued have been sketchy
and contained statistics and percentages rather than the material needed to draft
corrective legislation. Some reports were intentionally withheld from the
Republicans and, to date, no final report has been made public.
The hearings that were finally held developed into an eight-day parade of
administration spokesmen and apoligists for the poverty program. The Republican
members of the Education and Labor Committee recommended 67 witnesses who were
knowledgeable in all aspects of the anti-poverty program. However, these recom-
mendations were ignored and the hearings abruptly terminated. When Chairman
Powell of the Education and Labor Committee was questioned concerning the arbi-
trary action and asked why this had been done, his only reply was Because I am
the Chairman.
For these reasons, this bill should be returned to the Education and Labor
Committee for the adequate hearings and detailed consideration that it deserves
and must receive.
For many years, Republicans in and out of Congress have proposed a variety of
programs to assist those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. We have
consistently advocated appropriate educational programs, employment training, tax
incentives, equal opportunity as the major means of helping the disadvantaged.
These are all incorporated in the Republican Opportunity Crusade Act of 1966.
These affirmative and constructive proposals are contrasted with the extravagant,
wholly-uncoordinated and makeshift Democratic programs.
In view of the Democrat approach to this serious problem, it is little wonder
that the record of the administration of the anti-poverty program is filled with
stories of mismanagement, abuse, and scandal. For example:
(a) After one year, the Womens Job Corps Center, Hotel Huntington, St. Peters-
burg, Fla., graduated only 42 enrollees at a cost of $1,646,601, which
averages $39,205 per graduate.
(over)
2.
(b) In Boston, Mass., Youth Corps officials were unable to locate 200 youths
listed as employees and for whom W-2 income tax forms had been issued.
(c) In Memphis, Tenn., youths with a weekly salary of $31.25 were forced to
kickback $25 each from their salaries for the biring of an unauthorized
supervisor.
(d) In Bellevue, Nebr., a neighborhood Youth Corps Project was cancelled after
investigators reported 90 percent of the youths enrolled were not from
low-income families.
(e) Job Corps costs per enrollee have been estimated to be between $9,120 and
$13,000 per year and salary increases for large numbers of Job Corps
officials have ranged well over 50 percent. Moreover, known felons have
been selected for Job Corps camps and disgruntled Job Corpsmen have
terrorized whole communities.
(f) In the selection of Youth Corps enrollees, admitted political favoritism
has been employed by local Democratic leaders. And prominent Democrats
have been rewarded with unwarrantedly profitable contracts.
(g) Unjustifiably high salaries have been paid to OEO and Community Action
officials. Of the 2,350 permanent employees budgeted for the Washington
and regional offices of OEO, 1,006 will get $10,619 or more, 521 will be
paid over $14,600, at least 54 will get over $19,600, 24 get over $25,000,
and 6 will get between $26,000 and $30,000. In Washington, D. C. and
Newark, N.J., the Executive Directors of UPO receive $25,000, and in
Boston, Mass., the Executive Director of the Action for Boston Community
Development received $27,500.
(h) In city after city, the poor have not been properly represented in the
Community Action programs.
Providing meaningful assistance to the poverty stricken in this country is one
of the most important domestic problems facing America today. There must be a
genuine war against poverty - one that is waged for the benefit of the poor - not
the politicians. Unfortunately, the present bill does not do this. In order that
this may be accomplished, H.R. 15111 must be amended as follows:
1. The known and documented abuses of the Job Corps must be eliminated.
2. In all Community Action programs, the poor should be involved.
3. The States should be given a larger role and greater responsibility.
4. Program and funding priorities should be established which would emphasize
the needs of the very young and the training opportunities afforded by
private enterprise.
5. All OEO programs and functions should be transferred to other agencies or
departments, with the exception of Community Action and VISTA.
6. A select committee should be appointed that would conduct a thorough and bi-
partisan investigation of the structure and operation of the Economic
Opportunity Act.
7. Employees of all OEO-sponsored projects should be placed under the Hatch
Act's prohibitions on political activities.
The Job Corps must be completely revamped with an accent on intelligent
evaluation of applicants, necessary discipline in the camps, use of private
enterprise to create realistic working and training conditions and the immediate
elimination of extravagant spending for staff, facilities, and travel. The
(more)
3.
young men who cannot meet Selective Service standards but want to volunteer for
the military should be prepared for service in the armed services.
The poverty program must include active and broad-based participation by the
States. The States and local communities are, and have been, in the business of
fighting poverty far longer and to a far greater extent than the Federal Govern-
ment. Welfare and education programs historically have been funded and adminis-
tered by State and local governments. Cooperation and assistance at the community
level must not be set aside. On the contrary, it must be encouraged if the waste
and duplication of the present program are to be eliminated.
Project Headstart was originally proposed by Republicans as early as 1961.
It is the most successful of the new poverty programs. Unfortunately, since it
derives its support from both OEO and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
confusion, overlapping administration and inadequate funding have occurred.
Without question, this program can, and should be even more successful. It is
an educational program and, as such, it should be funded through the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act and administered by the Office of Education.
Except for the Community Action program and VISTA, all programs presently
under the Economic Opportunity Act should be taken from OEO and placed in the
department or agency where they logically belong. Due to the waste, inefficiency,
and political favoritism that have become so much a part of the Office of Economic
Opportunity, public confidence can be restored only through this type of reorgan-
ization. Moreover, this transfer of functions would result in greater
efficiency between all government programs in the same field and would cut down
on the present overlapping and duplication of administration.
Employees of OEO-sponsored projects should be placed under the Hatch Act
prohibition on political activities. Since the inception of OEO, Republicans
have documented the fact that the War on Poverty has been operated in great part
for partisan political purposes. To curb these abuses, we urge that Hatch Act
provisions applied to Title I be extended to all sections of the Act. In 1965,
the poverty hearings were opened with the charge by Chairman Powell that the
poverty program contained 'giant fiestas of political patronage." Unfortunately,
the House Democrats turned down Republican amendments to provide Hatch Act
coverage. This year the Democratic Committee members have admitted the truth of
our charges by adopting a Hatch Act amendment which would cover all war on
poverty activities. We applaud this long-delayed action. We trust that, if
enacted, this provision will be vigorously enforced.
We believe that an honest war on poverty can be waged and won without the
scandal and mismanagement that have surrounded the Administration's program.
The basic reforms that we have urged can be adopted by substituting the
Republican Opportunity Crusade Act for the faltering and misfiring War on Poverty.
This substitute will help rather than hinder those who are fighting this
important battle.
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE UPON RECEIPT
FRIDAY, NOV. 18, 1966
STATEMENT BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICHIGAN.
In the war against poverty the President and the Congress intended that
federal funds be used to eradicate poverty, not to incite unrest against
responsible local authorities.
Local anti-poverty organizations which receive federal funds through the
Office of Economic Opportunity should use those funds to fight poverty. No
federal money should be used to print pamphlets distributed during protests
and demonstrations.
Employees of such organizations, acting in an official capacity, should
not be engaged in activities entirely unrelated to the War on Poverty. Such
employees, acting in an official capacity, should not take part in activities
aimed at undercutting the authority of responsible governmental officials.
Neither should they, in their official capacity, take part in organizing
or supervising picket lines at any school.
If a local anti-poverty organization supported to any extent with federal
funds persists in such activity, then the Washington officials of OEO should
launch an immediate investigation to determine whether federal assistance should
be terminated.
####
13 September 1967
IIIIIII
U. S. HOUSE
REPUBLICAN POLICY
COMMITTEE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
REP. JOHN J. RHODES, (R.-ARIZ.) CHAIRMAN
140 CANNON HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
TELEPHONE 225-6168
10
HOUSE REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON THE APPALACHIA REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
ACT AMENDMENT OF 1967 AND AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC WORKS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACT
OF 1965 - S.602
In this period of fiscal crisis and mounting war costs, we do not believe that
special domestic programs such as the Appalachian Regional Development Act should be
expanded and enlarged. S.602 would expand this program by adding 24 new counties that
are outside the established Appalachian Region. It would authorize funds for new
purposes and in excess of the amounts requested and appropriated in prior years. In
addition, S.602 would amend and expand the Public Works and Economic Development Act
even though the Administration did not ask for these amendments, made no provision for
the additional authorized funds in the Budget and presented no testimony regarding
this proposal to the House Committee.
When the Congress enacted the Appalachia Regional Development Act, it did so
on the basis that it was providing special assistance to help solve specific economic
problems within an identifiable region. S.602 would expand the region by adding 24
counties - one in New York, one in Tennessee, two in Alabama and 20 in Mississippi.
This is totally inconsistent with the original concept. The new counties in no way
fit the description of "a mountain land boldly upthrust" and they are chiefly charac-
terized by their lack of "ridges and twisted spurs and valleys." If the Appalachian
Region were to be enlarged to include counties such as these, it would mean that
legislation designed to meet a unique problem in a specific economically deprived arer
has been changed into general assistance legislation. Moreover, other counties in
the Appalachian range that do fit this description are not included.
Under the present Appalachia Regional Development Act, appropriation requests
have been submitted as a part of the budget of the executive department responsible
for implementing a particular program. Such requests have been considered along with
(over)
all other appropriation requests by that department. The funds that appear to be
necessary to operate a particular program then have been appropriated to the requestin
department.
S.602 would change this procedure completely. It would authorize the appro-
priation of the Appalachian Development funds directly to the President. Thus the
President, rather than the various executive departments, would be responsible for
the proper administration, allocation and expenditure of such funds. Under this
system, there is a grave possibility that those who administer the programs could be
effectively insulated from Congressional scrutiny and oversight. In view of the
pyramiding of officials through whom the funds will pass and the dilution of respon-
sibility, this change cannot be justified.
As reported by the Committee, S.602 would authorize the appropriation of a
total of $220 million for fiscal years 1968 and 1969 for Appalachian programs, other
than the $1.015 billion for six years for highways. Of this $220 million, the Presi-
dent has requested the appropriation of $64.2 million for fiscal year 1968, which is
in line with the average annual expenditure of about $55 million during the first 27
months of the program. Thus, if all of the funds requested by the President for 1968
are appropriated, there would remain $155.8 million authorized to be appropriated for
fiscal year 1969. This is almost three times the average annual expenditure to date
and two and one-half times the President's 1968 budget request.
Unless the Johnson-Humphrey Administration plans to launch a dramatically
expanded spending program just prior to the election, there is no need for this sharp
increase in authorization. We believe the amounts authorized by S.602 for general
Appalachian programs should be reduced to provide for a level of commitments that
the budget requests of the President now indicate will be undertaken.
Despite the fact that the basic purpose of S.602 is to authorize the appro-
priation of funds for the continuation of the Appalachian Development program, Title II
of this bill would amend and expand the Public Works and Economic Development Act.
Proposals to amend this completely different and distinct Act should be considered on
their own merits. There is time to do this for all of the E.D.A. authorizations run
through fiscal 1968. Moreover, the Administration did not ask for the immediate
authorization of new programs for E.D.A. and neither the House nor the Senate Committe
on Public Works heard testimony from the Administration or from the regional commissio
regarding these amendments.
On August 3, 1967, the President forwarded a message to Congress wherein he
urged the immediate enactment of a 10 percent surtax. In this message, it was stated
that unless expenditures are tightly controlled and the tax increase is imposed, the
deficit for fiscal 1968 could be more than $28 billion. The Secretary of Treasury
has warned that a budget deficit of this magnitude would force so much borrowing by
the U. S. Treasury as to disrupt credit markets and send interest rates "sky high.
We welcome this concern over the present fiscal situation and this new found support
for our efforts to cut governmental expenditures. We believe that the pledge of the
Director of the Budget to cut $2 billion in civilian spending is a step in the right
direction. We hope that it will be implemented.
Unfortunately, the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has given no indication
that it is really prepared to carry through on this pledge. Its theories on cutting
government expenditures have been much preached but little practiced. If this country
is to avoid a sharp tax increase, substantial spending reductions must be made.
Certainly, in this period of fiscal crisis, the Appalachian program should not be
expanded.
13 September 1967
U. S. HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE
REP. JOHN J. RHODES, (R.-ARIZ.) CHAIRMAN
140 CANNON HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
TELEPHONE 225-6168
10
HOUSE REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON THE APPALACHIA REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
ACT AMENDMENT OF 1967 AND AMENDMENTS TO THE PUBLIC WORKS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACT
OF 1965 S.602
In this period of fiscal crisis and mounting war costs, we do not believe that
special domestic programs such as the Appalachian Regional Development Act should be
expanded and enlarged. S.602 would expand this program by adding 24 new counties that
are outside the established Appalachian Region. It would authorize funds for new
purposes and in excess of the amounts requested and appropriated in prior years. In
addition, S.602 would amend and expand the Public Works and Economic Development Act
even though the Administration did not ask for these amendments, made no provision for
the additional authorized funds in the Budget and presented no testimony regarding
this proposal to the House Committee.
When the Congress enacted the Appalachia Regional Development Act, it did so
on the basis that it was providing special assistance to help solve specific economic
problems within an identifiable region. S.602 would expand the region by adding 24
counties - one in New York, one in Tennessee, two in Alabama and 20 in Mississippi.
This is totally inconsistent with the original concept. The new counties in no way
fit the description of "a mountain land boldly unthrust" and they are chiefly charac-
terized by their lack of "ridges and twisted spurs and valleys. If the Appalachian
Region were to be enlarged to include counties such as these, it would mean that
legislation designed to meet a unique problem in a specific economically deprived are:
has been changed into general assistance legislation. Moreover, other counties in
the Appalachian range that do fit this description are not included.
Under the present Appalachia Regional Development Act, appropriation requests
have been submitted as a part of the budget of the executive department responsible
LIBRAR.
for implementing a particular program. Such requests have been considered along with
(over)
all other appropriation requests by that department. The funds that appear to be
necessary to operate a particular program then have been appropriated to the requestin
department.
S.602 would change this procedure completely. It would authorize the appro-
priation of the Appalachian Development funds directly to the President. Thus the
President, rather than the various executive departments, would be responsible for
the proper administration, allocation and expenditure of such funds. Under this
system, there is a grave possibility that those who administer the programs could be
effectively insulated from Congressional scrutiny and oversight. In view of the
pyramiding of officials through whom the funds will pass and the dilution of respon-
sibility, this change cannot be justified.
As reported by the Committee, S.602 would authorize the appropriation of a
total of $220 million for fiscal years 1968 and 1969 for Appalachian programs, other
than the $1.015 billion for six years for highways. Of this $220 million, the Presi-
dent has requested the appropriation of $64.2 million for fiscal year 1968, which is
in line with the average annual expenditure of about $55 million during the first 27
months of the program. Thus, if all of the funds requested by the President for 1968
are appropriated, there would remain $155.8 million authorized to be appropriated for
fiscal year 1969. This is almost three times the average annual expenditure to date
and two and one-half times the President's 1968 budget request.
Unless the Johnson-Humphrey Administration plans to launch a dramatically
expanded spending program just prior to the election, there is no need for this sharp
increase in authorization. We believe the amounts authorized by S.602 for general
Appalachian programs should be reduced to provide for a level of commitments that
the budget requests of the President now indicate will be undertaken.
Despite the fact that the basic purpose of S.602 is to authorize the appro-
priation of funds for the continuation of the Appalachian Development program, Title II
of this bill would amend and expand the Public Works and Economic Development Act.
Proposals to amend this completely different and distinct Act should be considered on
their own merits. There is time to do this for all of the E.D.A. authorizations run
through fiscal 1968. Moreover, the Administration did not ask for the immediate
authorization of new programs for E.D.A. and neither the House nor the Senate Committe
on Public Works heard testimony from the Administration or from the regional commissio
regarding these amendments.
On August 3, 1967, the President forwarded a message to Congress wherein he
urged the immediate enactment of a 10 percent surtax. In this message, it was stated
that unless expenditures are tightly controlled and the tax increase is imposed, the
deficit for fiscal 1968 could be more than $28 billion. The Secretary of Treasury
has warned that a budget deficit of this magnitude would force so much borrowing by
the U. S. Treasury as to disrupt credit markets and send interest rates "sky high.
We welcome this concern over the present fiscal situation and this new found support
for our efforts to cut governmental expenditures. We believe that the pledge of the
Director of the Budget to cut $2 billion in civilian spending is a step in the right
direction. We hope that it will be implemented.
Unfortunately, the Johnson-Humphrey Administration has given no indication
that it is really prepared to carry through on this pledge. Its theories on cutting
government expenditures have been much preached but little practiced. If this country
is to avoid a sharp tax increase, substantial spending reductions must be made.
Certainly, in this period of fiscal crisis, the Appalachian program should not be
expanded.
FOR THE SENATE:
FOR THE HOUSE
Everett M. Dirksen
THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
of Illinois
Gerald R. Ford
OF THE CONGRESS
Thomas H. Kuchel
of Michigan
of California
Leslie C. Arends
of Illinois
Bourke B. Hickenlooper
of Iowa
Press Release
Melvin R. Laird
of Wisconsin
Margaret Chase Smith
of Maine
John J. Rhodes
of Arizona
George Murphy
of California
H. Allen Smith
Milton R. Young
of California
of North Dakota
Bob Wilson
of California
Hugh Scott
of Pennsylvania
Issued Following a
Charles E. Goodell
Leadership Meeting
of New York
PRESIDING:
Richard H. Poff
November 3, 1967
of Virginia
The National Chairman
Ray C. Bliss
William C. Cramer
of Florida
Mr. Dirksen.
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contrary to the belief of some - particularly the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration - the endless spending of the American people's money is not
the only answer to our many critical problems.
Only when common-sense - old-fashioned horse sense - is combined with
prudent planning and calm, clear direction of Federal and State and local
programs can we expect maximum results at minimum cost
This has never been more painfully and expensively llustrated than in
the waging of this alleged poverty war by the Administration's Office of
Economic Opportunity, where politics takes priority over the poor.
Money alone - no matter how many tons of it - won't do the job. Only
as this program is thoroughly overhauled legislatively and re-directed from
top to bottom can we look for satisfactory results from it.
Neither the Senate nor the House have thus far done much more than tinker
with the poverty problem. Only as those recommendations to be made by Repub-
licans on the House Floor next week are adopted can we hope for a return to
sanity and efficiency in this multi-million dollar effort.
The Democratic leadership in Congress remains reluctant to help us take
these necessary steps in all our people's interest - especially that of the
poor, who will benefit most.
Nevertheless, we shall do our best to help win the poverty war - in the
Nation's best interest. We hope very much - that every like-minded American,
in and out of Congress, will stand up and be counted with us. Let us hear
from you loud and clear.
GENALD
LIBRARY
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-(202) 225-3700
Consultant to the Leadership-John B. Fisher
- 2 -
STATEMENT BY CONGRESSMAN FORD.
November 3, 1967
The Johnson-Humphrey Administration's poverty war was proclaimed with
noble objectives - objectives which all good Americans have always shared.
But it has been tragically weak, wasteful and ineffective in achieving those
objectives.
Some of its programs - such as Head Start - have been worthwhile and de-
serve continuance. Too many others - such as the Job Corps - have, from the
beginning, been woefully misdirected and very badly administered.
The Republicans in Congress are trying - as they have been for months -
to correct the evils the so-called poverty war has spawned. We are working
hard to prevent, in the months ahead, the reckless waste of millions of the
taxpayers' dollars that has characterized this "war" from the start.
Next week, with new legislation to be offered on the Floor of the House,
we Republicans will make yet another attempt to salvage the good in the poverty
program and wholly eliminate the bad. Far better job training - more job
opportunities - greatly improved educational programs - the full participation
of private enterprise - greater state responsibility and direction. These are
fundamental. These we will insist upon.
Present indications are that we will not have the support of the Democratic
leadership in this constructive endeavor. They seem determined to maintain
this program as it is regardless of its weaknesses, regardless of its record
of poor and top-heavy, national administration, regardless of its incredible
waste of the American people's money and its failure to help the poor in any
substantial way.
We Republicans, therefore, appeal to every American citizen to enlist
in the fight to solve this problem by reshaping and redirecting this massive
endeavor. Wire, write or telephone your Representatives in Congress to take
these firm, practical, prudent steps now to make of this poverty war some-
thing more than a terrible expensive exercise in marching up one hill and
down another - endlessly - at the expense of and not for the benefit of the
poor.
FOR THE SENATE:
FOR THE HOUSE
Everett M. Dirksen
THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
OF REPRESENTATIVES:
of Illinois
Gerald R. Ford
Thomas H. Kuchel
OF THE CONGRESS
of Michigan
of California
Leslie C. Arends
Bourke B. Hickenlooper
of Illinois
of Iowa
Melvin R. Laird
Margaret Chase Smith
Press Release
of Wisconsin
of Maine
John J. Rhodes
George Murphy
of Arizona
of California
H. Allen Smith
Milton R. Young
of California
of North Dakota
Issued following a
Bob Wilson
Hugh Scott
Leadership Meeting
of California
of Pennsylvania
Charles E. Goodell
November 3, 1967
of New York
PRESIDING:
Richard H. Poff
of Virginia
The National Chairman
Ray C. Bliss
William C. Cramer
of Florida
Statement by Senator Dirksen
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contrary to the belief of some -- particularly in the Johnson-Humphrey
Administration -- the endless spending of the American people's money is not
the only answer to our many critical problems.
Only when common-sense -- old-fashioned horse sense -- is combined
with prudent planning and calm, clear direction of Federal and State and
local programs can we expect maximum results at minimum cost.
This has never been more painfully and expensively illustrated than in
the waging of this alleged poverty war by the Administration's Office of
Economic Opportunity, where politics takes priority over the poor.
Money alone -- no matter how many tons of it -- won't do the job. Only
as this program is thoroughly overhauled legislatively and re-directed from
top to bottom can we look for satisfactory results from it.
Neither the Senate nor the House have thus far done much more than
tinker with the poverty problem. Only as those recommendations to be made
by Republicans on the House Floor next week are adopted can we hope for a
return to sanity and efficiency in this multi-million dollar effort.
The Democratic leadership in Congress remains reluctant to help us
take these necessary steps in all our people's interest -- especially that
of the poor, who will benefit most.
Nevertheless, we shall do our best to help win the poverty war -- in
the Nation's best interest. We hope--very much -- that every like-minded
American, in and out of Congress, will stand up and be counted with us. Let
us hear from you -- loud and clear.
Room S-124 U.S. Capitol-(202) 225-3700
Consultant to the Leadership-John B. Fisher
Statement by Congressman Ford
November 3, 1967
The Johnson-Humphrey Administration's poverty war was proclaimed
with noble objectives -- objectives which all good Americans have always
shared. But it has been tragically weak, wasteful and ineffective in
achieving those objectives.
Some of its programs -- such as Head Start -- have been worthwhile and
deserve continuance. Too many others -- such as the Job Corps -- have,
from the beginning, been woefully misdirected and very badly administered.
The Republicans in Congress are trying -- as they have been for months --
to correct the evils the so-called poverty war has spawned. We are
working hard to prevent, in the months ahead, the reckless waste of millions
of the taxpayers' dollars that has characterized this "war" from the start.
Next week, with new legislation to be offered on the Floor of the
House, we Republicans will make yet another attempt to salvage the good
in the poverty program and wholly eliminate the bad. Far better job
training-- more job opportunities -- greatly improved educational programs--
the full participation of private enterprise -- greater state responsibility
and direction. These are fundamental. These we will insist upon.
Present indications are that we will not have the support of the
Democratic leadership in this constructive endeavor. They seem determined
to maintain this program as it is -- regardless of its weaknesses, regardless
of its record of poor and top-heavy, national administration, regardless of
its incredible waste of the American people's money and its failure to help
the poor in any substantial way.
We Republicans, therefore, appeal to every American citizen to
enlist in the fight to solve this problem by re-shaping and re-directing
this massive endeavor. Wire, write or telephone your Representatives
in Congress to take these firm, practical, prudent steps -- now -- to
make of this poverty war something more than a terrible expensive exercise
in marching up one hill and down another -- endlessly -- at the expense
of and not for the benefit of the poor.
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
-- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
Nov. 16, 1967
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich.
The Democratic majority in the House yesterday sold out the poor to the big
city political bosses by turning control of local Community Action Programs over
to City Hall through the Green Amendment.
Rep. Augustus Hawkins, D-Calif., described the situation exactly when he
said that giving control of community action programs to the political bosses
will force the poor to "go hat in hand to City Hall."
I agree 100 per cent with Mr. Hawkins on this point. This is one reason
I and many other Republicans could not vote for the Democratic majority's
anti-poverty bill on final passage. Another reason is that the Democrats
rejected most Republican moves to make the program more successful and every
attempt to enlist private enterprise as a full-fledged partner in the War on
Poverty.
We have already had far too much politics in the anti-poverty program.
Now, as a result of the Northern Democrat-Southern Democrat coalition, we will
have much more and the poor will suffer. I repeat: The poor were sold out
to City Hall politicians.
#######
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
-- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
Nov. 16, 1967
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich.
The Democratic majority in the House yesterday sold out the poor to the big
city political bosses by turning control of local Community Action Programs over
to City Hall through the Green Amendment.
Rep. Augustus Hawkins, D-Calif., described the situation exactly when he
said that giving control of community action programs to the political bosses
will force the poor to "go hat in hand to City Hall."
I agree 100 per cent with Mr. Hawkins on this point. This is one reason
I and many other Republicans could not vote for the Democratic majority's
anti-poverty bill on final passage. Another reason is that the Democrats
rejected most Republican moves to make the program more successful and every
attempt to enlist private enterprise as a full-fledged partner in the War on
Poverty.
We have already had far too much politics in the anti-poverty program.
Now, as a result of the Northern Democrat-Southern Democrat coalition, we will
have much more and the poor will suffer. I repeat: The poor were sold out
to City Hall politicians.
#######
LIBRARY
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
May 7, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the body of the
Congressional Record of Wednesday, May 7, 1969.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for the Congress to go on record in support of
a new national goal -- an end to both hunger and malnutrition in America.
Hunger is directly related to poverty. Malnutrition may be present even
when sufficient funds are available to maintain a proper diet.
The hunger and malnutrition problems therefore are twofold, and the
malnutrition problem is especially complex.
The answers are adequate funding, the most efficient possible channeling
of nutritious food to low-income Americans, and the educating of insufficiently
informed Americans regarding proper diet and its relationship to good health.
The program proposed by President Nixon in his Message to the Congress on
Hunger and Malnutrition seeks to resolve many of the complexities involved in
feeding the poor and feeding them properly.
No program coming before the Congress in this or any other year can be
more important than this Nixon Administration proposal for properly meeting the
food needs of low-income Americans.
The President has said the expanded program will go into effect sometime
after next Jan. 1. I would urge that it be implemented as soon as possible.
The task of providing the Administration with the necessary legislative authority,
the reprogramming of funds and the other administrative arrangements necessary
to carry the expanded program forward should be attended to in a spirit of the
greatest urgency.
I applaud the decision to double the food stamp program. I applaud the
decision to establish a Family Food Assistance Program before July 1970 in the
more than 440 counties now lacking it.
These decisions in themselves deserve the highest praise, but I would
point out also that President Nixon will go far beyond these actions to seek
additional improvements in government food programs -- by calling a White House
Conference on Food and Nutrition aimed at promoting good food habits, by
(more)
-2-
redirecting Office of Economic Opportunity funds to increase food, health and
sanitation services in our most depressed areas where improved food services
alone are not the answer, and by issuing various other White House directives
to government departments.
Mr. Speaker, the Nixon Administration has been praised as a pragmatic
administration which is bringing careful thought and keen analysis to the great
problems this country faces as we approach the decade of the seventies.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that with this Message on Hunger and Malnutrition
President Nixon has clearly demonstrated that his Administration has not only a
head but a heart.
# # #
Office
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--
May 7, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the body of the
Congressional Record of Wednesday, May 7, 1969.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for the Congress to go on record in support of
a new national goal -- an end to both hunger and malnutrition in America.
Hunger is directly related to poverty. Malnutrition may be present even
when sufficient funds are available to maintain a proper diet.
The hunger and malnutrition problems therefore are twofold, and the
malnutrition problem is especially complex.
The answers are adequate funding, the most efficient possible channeling
of nutritious food to low-income Americans, and the educating of insufficiently
informed Americans regarding proper diet and its relationship to good health.
The program proposed by President Nixon in his Message to the Congress on
Hunger and Malnutrition seeks to resolve many of the complexities involved in
feeding the poor and feeding them properly.
No program coming before the Congress in this or any other year can be
more important than this Nixon Administration proposal for properly meeting the
food needs of low-income Americans.
The President has said the expanded program will go into effect sometime
after next Jan. 1. I would urge that it be implemented as soon as possible.
The task of providing the Administration with the necessary legislative authority,
the reprogramming of funds and the other administrative arrangements necessary
to carry the expanded program forward should be attended to in a spirit of the
greatest urgency.
I applaud the decision to double the food stamp program. I applaud the
decision to establish a Family Food Assistance Program before July 1970 in the
more than 440 counties now lacking it.
These decisions in themselves deserve the highest praise, but I would
point out also that President Nixon will go far beyond these actions to seek
additional improvements in government food programs -- by calling a White House
Conference on Food and Nutrition aimed at promoting good food habits, by
(more)
-2-
redirecting Office of Economic Opportunity funds to increase food, health and
sanitation services in our most depressed areas where improved food services
alone are not the answer, and by issuing various other White House directives
to government departments.
Mr. Speaker, the Nixon Administration has been praised as a pragmatic
administration which is bringing careful thought and keen analysis to the great
problems this country faces as we approach the decade of the seventies.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that with this Message on Hunger and Malnutrition
President Nixon has clearly demonstrated that his Administration has not only a
head but a heart.
# # #
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON TUESDAY--
May 20, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., in connection with a statement on
nutrition placed in the Congressional Record May 20, 1969, by Rep. Rogers
C. B. Morton, R-Md., and others.
Mr. Speaker: In addressing the 1968 Republican National Convention as
permanent convention chairman on August 6, 1968, I made a number of prophecies
as to what the election of a Republican Administration would mean to America.
One of my shortest predictions contained just five words -- "And nobody
will go hungry."
Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are elated that President Nixon has moved
swiftly and surely to make good that prediction during his First Hundred Days in
office. In testimonial to that presidential action born of compassion and
determination to solve a shameful national problem, House Republicans today are
placing in the Congressional Record a statement regarding President Nixon's
national nutrition program.
I join with my colleagues in calling special attention to the President's
program of nutrition for a healthy America because I believe the problem of
hunger and malnutrition to be second to none in this land. I also take great
pride in the fact that a commitment to free this Nation from hunger and
malnutrition has been implanted in the heart of America by a Republican President.
No program coming before the Congress in this or any other year can be
more important than the Nixon Administration's proposals for properly meeting
the nutrition needs of low-income Americans.
I urge the Congress to go on record, as the Nixon Administration already
has done, in support of a new national goal -- an end to both hunger and
malnutrition in America. This is one of the most meaningful contributions the
Congress could make to raising the level of life in our country.
# # #
Office Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON TUESDAY--
May 20, 1969
Remarks by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., in connection with a statement on
nutrition placed in the Congressional Record May 20, 1969, by Rep. Rogers
C. B. Morton, R-Md., and others.
Mr. Speaker: In addressing the 1968 Republican National Convention as
permanent convention chairman on August 6, 1968, I made a number of prophecies
as to what the election of a Republican Administration would mean to America.
One of my shortest predictions contained just five words -- "And nobody
will go hungry."
Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are elated that President Nixon has moved
swiftly and surely to make good that prediction during his First Hundred Days in
office. In testimonial to that presidential action born of compassion and
determination to solve a shameful national problem, House Republicans today are
placing in the Congressional Record a statement regarding President Nixon's
national nutrition program.
I join with my colleagues in calling special attention to the President's
program of nutrition for a healthy America because I believe the problem of
hunger and malnutrition to be second to none in this land. I also take great
pride in the fact that a commitment to free this Nation from hunger and
malnutrition has been implanted in the heart of America by a Republican President.
No program coming before the Congress in this or any other year can be
more important than the Nixon Administration's proposals for properly meeting
the nutrition needs of low-income Americans.
I urge the Congress to go on record, as the Nixon Administration already
has done, in support of a new national goal -- an end to both hunger and
malnutrition in America. This is one of the most meaningful contributions the
Congress could make to raising the level of life in our country.
###
Atatement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., regarding President Nixon's Message
on Welfare Reform, to be placed in the Congressional Record of August 11, 1969
For Release at 12 Noon, August 11, 1969
Mr. Speaker, I strongly agree with President Nixon that the present welfare
system is a complete failure and should be abolished. I further agree with him
that it is far better to develop an entirely new system of family assistance than
to try to patch up and improve the existing system.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's Message on Family Assistance, sent to the
Congress today, is an historic document in more than the usual sense. It is an
historic declaration because it breaks new ground in the history of American
government and our attempts to perfect the American system.
There are several features in the President's new family assistance plan
which I believe especially commend it to the American people and to the Congress.
One of these features is the enlargement of opportunities which the
President's Family Assistance Plan offers to those now on welfare but able to work
and to the working poor who need an assist to enter the economic mainstream of this
country.
Another is the emphasis that the President's plan places on keeping families
together. The family is the basic building block of our society. The President's
Family Assistance Plan furnishes the foundation for economically deprived American
families to stay together and thus serves to undergird our society as a whole.
Finally, although the Family Assistance Plan initially would cost more than
the present welfare system, the President's new assistance program means greater
equity for the taxpayer.
We are telling the taxpayer that those who are able to work must work or
take training if they are to receive Government assistance, except in the case of
mothers with children under six.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's program is a bridge to full opportunity for
the able-bodied welfare recipient and for the working poor and a stride toward
equity for the taxpayer.
Looked at in the aggregate, the Family Assistance Program is designed to
break the vicious cycle of welfarism and at the same time provide those who cannot
work with a basic economic floor.
Mr. Speaker, I think all members of Congress recognize that the present
welfare system is a colossal failure. I urge that members of both bodies look at
the President's Family Assistance Plan as the handle which will enable America to
lift itself out of the rut of welfarism and to move ahead to a brighter day.
###
Q Office Copy
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., regarding President Nixon's Message
on Welfare Reform, to be placed in the Congressional Record of August 11, 1969
For Release at 12 Noon, August 11, 1969
Mr. Speaker, I strongly agree with President Nixon that the present welfare
system is a complete failure and should be abolished. I further agree with him
that it is far better to develop an entirely new system of family assistance than
to try to patch up and improve the existing system.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's Message on Family Assistance, sent to the
Congress today, is an historic document in more than the usual sense. It is an
historic declaration because it breaks new ground in the history of American
government and our attempts to perfect the American system.
There are several features in the President's new family assistance plan
which I believe especially commend it to the American people and to the Congress.
One of these features is the enlargement of opportunities which the
President's Family Assistance Plan offers to those now on welfare but able to work
and to the working poor who need an assist to enter the economic mainstream of this
country.
Another is the emphasis that the President's plan places on keeping families
together. The family is the basic building block of our society. The President's
Family Assistance Plan furnishes the foundation for economically deprived American
families to stay together and thus serves to undergird our society as a whole.
Finally, although the Family Assistance Plan initially would cost more than
the present welfare system, the President's new assistance program means greater
equity for the taxpayer.
We are telling the taxpayer that those who are able to work must work or
take training if they are to receive Government assistance, except in the case of
mothers with children under six.
Mr. Speaker, President Nixon's program is a bridge to full opportunity for
the able-bodied welfare recipient and for the working poor and a stride toward
equity for the taxpayer.
Looked at in the aggregate, the Family Assistance Program is designed to
break the vicious cycle of welfarism and at the same time provide those who cannot
work with a basic economic floor.
Mr. Speaker, I think all members of Congress recognize that the present
welfare system is a colossal failure. I urge that members of both bodies look at
the President's Family Assistance Plan as the handle which will enable America to
lift itself out of the rut of welfarism and to move ahead to a brighter day.
###
O Office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 2 P.M. EDT--
August 12, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of August 12, 1969, immediately following the President's Manpower Training
Message.
President Nixon's manpower training message is a vital part of the overall
formula he has produced to bring disadvantaged Americans into the economic main-
stream and to bring more funds and greater responsibilities to the states and local
communities.
With this message, President Nixon has declared it a national objective
that we extend to every American the opportunity to learn a job skill and to fulfill
all of his capabilities. This, I believe, is a national goal the Congress should
endorse and embrace.
There is no question that the most efficient and effective implementation
of our manpower training programs is necessary if we are to meet our commitment of
helping people get off welfare rolls and onto payrolls.
Every feature of the President's 7-point Comprehensive Manpower Training
Act is important, but I would call attention especially to the need for flexible
funding, the provision for decentralized administration "as Governors and Mayors
evidence interest, build managerial capacity and demonstrate effective performance,"
proposed establishment of a National Computerized Job Bank long advocated by the
House Republican Leadership, and proposed use of the comprehensive manpower training
system as an economic stabilizer.
The last of these points is one which deserves the closest possible
congressional attention.
While many economic stabilizers have been built into the American economic
system, we cannot have too many safeguards against potential economic problems.
President Nixon's proposal that appropriations for manpower services be
increased by 10 per cent if the jobless rate rises to 4.5 per cent or more for
three consecutive months is one that appears to have great merit. It would be a
welcome addition to an economic arsenal that for too long has contained little else
but pump-priming mechanisms.
# # #
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 2 P.M. EDT--
August 12, 1969
Statement by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., to be placed in the Congressional Record
of August 12, 1969, immediately following the President's Manpower Training
Message.
President Nixon's manpower training message is a vital part of the overall
formula he has produced to bring disadvantaged Americans into the economic main-
stream and to bring more funds and greater responsibilities to the states and local
communities.
With this message, President Nixon has declared it a national objective
that we extend to every American the opportunity to learn a job skill and to fulfill
all of his capabilities. This, I believe, is a national goal the Congress should
endorse and embrace.
There is no question that the most efficient and effective implementation
of our manpower training programs is necessary if we are to meet our commitment of
helping people get off welfare rolls and onto payrolls.
Every feature of the President's 7-point Comprehensive Manpower Training
Act is important, but I would call attention especially to the need for flexible
funding, the provision for decentralized administration "as Governors and Mayors
evidence interest, build managerial capacity and demonstrate effective performance,"
proposed establishment of a National Computerized Job Bank long advocated by the
House Republican Leadership, and proposed use of the comprehensive manpower training
system as an economic stabilizer.
The last of these points is one which deserves the closest possible
congressional attention.
While many economic stabilizers have been built into the American economic
system, we cannot have too many safeguards against potential economic problems.
President Nixon's proposal that appropriations for manpower services be
increased by 10 per cent if the jobless rate rises to 4.5 per cent or more for
three consecutive months is one that appears to have great merit. It would be a
welcome addition to an economic arsenal that for too long has contained little else
but pump-priming mechanisms.
# # #
sent to all Fifth District media
Office
Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
November 20, 1969
NOTE TO NEWS MEDIA: This radio script taped by Rep. Gerald R. Ford for use by
Fifth District stations the weekend of November 22-23 is being made available
to you for use as you see fit beginning Saturday, November 22.
First I would call your attention to the fact that President Nixon has
signed into law a $610 million bill to provide food stamps for poor Americans.
By signing this bill, the President broke a deadlock in Congress. Now the way
is open for the Congress to appropriate funds for the food stamp program for the
rest of this fiscal year through next June 30.
In another important development, Congress has sent the President a bill
which sets up a commission to find out exactly how the Defense Department and
the rest of the Federal Government spend $50 billion a year buying goods, services
and facilities. I believe this is a most healthy action by the Congress. It's
time we checked up on all of our government procurement practices, and that is
what the 12-man commission to be named under this new legislation is going to do.
The House has approved and sent to the Senate a bill which would add another
4.5 million non-farm workers to the unemployment compensation program. The bill
raises to about 62.5 million the number of workers who are covered by the joint
Federal-state program of unemployment "comp." This is a big step forward, under
legislation recommended by the President.
On Nov. 15 we witnessed a peaceful mass march here in Washington. There
also was some violent behavior by a relatively small segment of the Anti-Vietnam
War demonstrators gathered in Washington during the three-day Moratorium.
I certainly believe in the right of responsible dissent. That is one of
the great strengths of America -- the fact that individuals in our country are
permitted freedom of expression, guaranteed under the Constitution.
While the mass march itself was peaceful, there was some violence during
the three days of protests here, and there were some ugly manifestations of
radicalism. The Washington Board of Trade reported upwards of 75 plate glass store
windows broken in downtown Washington and the Georgetown section of the city.
Coupled with that we had an attempt by the radicals to charge the South Vietnamese
embassy, and some nastiness near the Justice Department building.
(more)
-2-
It is naive to ignore the ugly occurrences simply because the mass march
itself was peaceful.
It is also naive to believe that because an estimated 250,000 or more
people gathered in Washington to demonstrate against the war the President of the
United States should alter a carefully considered policy based on his desire for
a just peace in Vietnam.
Some will choose to ignore the Communist role in the Washington demonstra-
tions, but none of us can afford to ignore the tragic consequences that would
ensue from a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. It is precisely because
the consequences would be disastrous for the future of world peace that I am
supporting the President's policies on Vietnam.
At this point, Congress has completed action on a one-sentence bill
of tremendous importance to our Nation's young men. That one-sentence bill will
allow the President to institute a system under which men will be subject to the
draft only during the year they are 19 years old or their college deferment has
expired. Selection will be by the lottery method -- so-called random selection.
In a recent poll I conducted, people in Kent and Ionia Counties voted
heavily in favor of the lottery or random selection method of choosing draftees.
This is a means of reducing to only one year's time the period when a
young man is vulnerable to the draft. It also limits that one-year period of
vulnerability to the period before the young man has to make his important career
and marriage decisions. I favor going to an all-volunteer Army. But until it is
possible to do so, it is vital that the lottery system of draft selection be
instituted.
President Nixon has cancelled the November and December draft calls, and
he is making progress in bringing our combat troops home from Vietnam. I expect
there will be even more encouraging developments if the President gets the support
of the American people in his efforts to extricate us from the war.
# # #
Poxerty
IIIII
00000
U. S. HOUSE
REPUBLICAN POLICY
COMMITTEE
F
REPRESENTATIVES
REP. JOHN J. RHODES, (R.-ARIZ.) CHAIRMAN
1616 LONGWORTH HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
TELEPHONE 225-6168
10
91st Congress
April 7, 1970
Second Session
Statement Number 4
HOUSE REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON H. R. 16311,
THE FAMILY ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1970
The House Republican Policy Committee urges enactment of H. R. 16311, the
Family Assistance Act of 1970.
The present program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) has
proved wrong both in structure and philosophy; its continuance can only lead to
social and financial disaster. The AFDC program, cumbersomely sprawled across every
level of government, fosters the breakup of families, encourages people to leave
their employment in order to receive welfare, and, rather than developing individual
self-sufficiency, maintains welfare recipients in a custodial state.
The present AFDC program has grown dramatically in recent years. Between
1961 and 1969, the number of individuals receiving such aid has more than doubled;
costs have more than tripled. Today, 6.7 million individuals receive $4.2 billion
in federal aid. These figures are alarming enough, but unless fundamental reforms
are enacted, projections indicate that in the next five years costs will again
double, to $8.8 billion, and the number of recipients will rise to 12 million.
President Nixon has proposed fundamental reforms in our welfare system,
reforms which attack the root causes of social welfare problems, reforms which
provide the foundation of self-sufficiency. Instead of encouraging family
disintegration, the Family Assistance Act is designed to promote family stability.
Instead of "maintaining" people, the Family Assistance Act emphasizes developing
(over)
LIBRARY
-2-
their potential. The legislation is work-centered, recognizing that gainful
employment is the best individual and family therapy that can be provided.
The Family Assistance Act of 1970 also includes improvements in the
adult public assistance programs--those aiding the blind, the permanently and
totally disabled, and the aged. Increased and uniform payment standards combined
with more uniform eligibility standards will make the program more fair and more
adequately suited to the needs of the disadvantaged adults served by these
programs.
The Family Assistance Act of 1970 restructures and redirects federal
welfare. It is a break with the past, an end to a "scandal" which has failed the
taxpayer and insulted the poor. It provides the catalyst to more millions of
families from the treadmill of poverty to economic independence.
We support the passage of H. R. 16311, the Family Assistance Act of 1970.
01111
U. S. HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
REPUBLICAN POLICY
COMMITTEE
REP. JOHN J. RHODES, (R.-ARIZ.) CHAIRMAN
1616 LONGWORTH HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
TELEPHONE 225-6168
10
91st Congress
April 7, 1970
Second Session
Statement Number 4
HOUSE REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE STATEMENT ON H. R. 16311,
THE FAMILY ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1970
The House Republican Policy Committee urges enactment of H. R. 16311, the
Family Assistance Act of 1970.
The present program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) has
proved wrong both in structure and philosophy; its continuance can only lead to
social and financial disaster. The AFDC program, cumbersomely sprawled across every
level of government, fosters the breakup of families, encourages people to leave
their employment in order to receive welfare, and, rather than developing individual
self-sufficiency, maintains welfare recipients in a custodial state.
The present AFDC program has grown dramatically in recent years. Between
1961 and 1969, the number of individuals receiving such aid has more than doubled;
costs have more than tripled. Today, 6.7 million individuals receive $4.2 billion
in federal aid. These figures are alarming enough, but unless fundamental reforms
are enacted, projections indicate that in the next five years costs will again
double, to $8.8 billion, and the number of recipients will rise to 12 million.
President Nixon has proposed fundamental reforms in our welfare system,
reforms which attack the root causes of social welfare problems, reforms which
provide the foundation of self-sufficiency. Instead of encouraging family
disintegration, the Family Assistance Act is designed to promote family stability.
Instead of "maintaining" people, the Family Assistance Act emphasizes developing
(over)
-2-
their potential. The legislation is work-centered, recognizing that gainful
employment is the best individual and family therapy that can be provided.
The Family Assistance Act of 1970 also includes improvements in the
adult public assistance programs--those aiding the blind, the permanently and
totally disabled, and the aged. Increased and uniform payment standards combined
with more uniform eligibility standards will make the program more fair and more
adequately suited to the needs of the disadvantaged adults served by these
programs.
The Family Assistance Act of 1970 restructures and redirects federal
welfare. It is a break with the past, an end to a "scandal" which has failed the
taxpayer and insulted the poor. It provides the catalyst to more millions of
families from the treadmill of poverty to economic independence.
We support the passage of H. R. 16311, the Family Assistance Act of 1970.
Fuel Distribution
0 ffice Copy
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON WEDNESDAY--
June 23, 1971
The cornerstone of the Nixon Administration's program of reforms has been
laid with House passage of the President's welfare reform bill. It now remains
for the Senate to supply the mortar and to cement it in place.
This is one of the most comprehensive and important bills ever to move
through the Congress of the United States. It would completely revamp the obsolete
and chaotic welfare system handed down from the dark days of the Great Depression
of the Thirties.
It will help people. It will help those in need of public assistance and
it will help the states. It will help to keep families together and to move people
off welfare rolls and onto payrolls. It will mean tremendous savings for the
states in annual welfare costs.
What is most important is that it will provide an incentive for people
to work rather than to remain on welfare in perpetuity.
###
NEWS
CONGRESSMAN
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE AT 12 NOON WEDNESDAY--
June 23, 1971
The cornerstone of the Nixon Administration's program of reforms has been
laid with House passage of the President's welfare reform bill. It now remains
for the Senate to supply the mortar and to cement it in place.
This is one of the most comprehensive and important bills ever to move
through the Congress of the United States. It would completely revamp the obsolete
and chaotic welfare system handed down from the dark days of the Great Depression
of the Thirties.
It will help people. It will help those in need of public assistance and
it will help the states. It will help to keep families together and to move people
off welfare rolls and onto payrolls. It will mean tremendous savings for the
states in annual welfare costs.
What is most important is that it will provide an incentive for people
to work rather than to remain on welfare in perpetuity.
###