Bush’s other urban warfare

During
a recent “Tuesday Topics” talk at the Central Library, Rochester
Police Chief Robert Duffy laid out the causes of urban homicide. “Look into
our homes,” he said, referring to family relationships or the lack of
them. “It all starts there.”

            Yet the day before Duffy spoke, a
hefty document packed with data and lofty abstractions delivered the opposite
message — that it all begins, and maybe ends, in Washington.

            The document was George W. Bush’s
$2.4 trillion federal budget proposal for FY 2005.

            If passed, this budget is bound to
hit communities like Rochester hard, even as they reel from state and local
budget cuts and fiscal missteps. In its approach to key areas like housing,
schools, the environment, and security, the budget would surely do no good for
unemployment, poverty and crime.

The Bush
budget made headlines for some things it contains — or lacks. For example, it’s been
widely reported that Bush wants to keep the overall growth in spending to less
than one percent. This is well below the rate of inflation, so you might see
the budget as a wide array of program cuts.

            Then there are deficits: Bush
figures the shortfall for FY 2004 will be $521 billion, the largest ever in
nominal dollars and the latest in a possibly endless series. (Deficits aren’t
fatal if incurred for a good reason. But this one, says the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, will come largely from tax-cut-driven revenue losses.
And the latter could snowball in coming years.)

            Some budget lines would fare much
better than others. Certain education and health programs, for example, would
get more than the average hike. Other programs would be zeroed out or get lumped
in with other lines.

            Two program areas are in a special
class, however, not only for the rate of increase but for the actual amount of
money involved. Homeland Security will get around 10 percent more. The Pentagon
will get $402 billion total, around 7 percent more than last year’s
“enacted level.” (If this request goes through, the Pentagon will
have received a cumulative hike of 35 percent since FY 2001, the White House
boasts.) This does not include
spending for the military occupation and reconstruction of Iraq and
Afghanistan, fiscal quagmires that will cost tens of billions in the next
“off-budget” request alone.

            Communities and interest groups
across the country are slowly coming to terms with what the proposal will mean
on their turf. For the nation’s cities, things don’t look too rosy.

            The US Conference of Mayors was
among the first to react to the Bush budget. Representing the nation’s 1,183
cities with populations of 30,000 or more, the group issued a detailed staff
analysis as well as a general statement. USCM director Tom Cochran said the
group is “disappointed… and very concerned” about some items in the
budget. He highlighted an 80 percent cut to COPS (Community Oriented Policing)
and the elimination of the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program.

            Cochran mildly praised the White
House for proposing increases to some home-ownership programs. But he deplored
a planned $300 million cut in Community Development Block Grants and the
complete axing of $25 million for brownfields redevelopment — two program
areas that are vital for older cities.

            Also, Cochran worried about proposed
Amtrak cuts — down 26 percent, to $900 million. Such a cut, he said, would
only help urban America’s “crumbling and congested transportation
infrastructure” deteriorate further.

            The White House did offer a deal on
this last item, though, according to the Conference of Mayors. If Congress
agrees to adopt certain “reforms” — basically, if lawmakers fall
for carving up Amtrak’s corporate functions and rail corridors — the
administration will support a $500 million boost in funding for intercity
passenger rail.

We polled some
Rochester leaders on the Bush budget. Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson and Action
for a Better Community director James Norman both responded through aides that
they couldn’t comment yet.

            Urban League president/CEO Bill
Clark said he’s aware of how “slight increases” mask the reality of
budget cuts. “More funding is needed” for employment programs and
other things that impact youth, he says. “You can tell young people to get
off the street, but you have to give them an alternative.”

            Julie Everitt is director of
development at Housing Opportunities Inc., which operates around 400 low-income
rental units, most of them in the city. She voices concern about a proposed cut
to “Section 8” housing assistance. (Indeed, this rent-assistance
program for the nations’ poorest families faces a $1 billion cut next year,
says the Children’s Defense Fund.)

            Says Everitt: “When people have
entry-level jobs, it’s harder and harder to purchase housing. They need more
Section 8 money rather than less.” She adds that more than half of HOP’s
clients have seen their incomes decreasing in recent years.

            Housing Council executive director
Anne Peterson echoes some of Everitt’s comments. “I notice that Community
Development Block Grant funding went down,” she says. “I think we
need more, not less, to work with.”

            She worries about the effects on all
of this region’s “entitlement communities” — strapped
municipalities, large and small. “The city [of Rochester] certainly needs
more… I think it’s going to be a very lean year all around,” she says.
“Looking at the HUD budget, there’s enormous emphasis on home ownership; I
wish there were more on rental issues.”

            Monroe County School Boards
Association director Jody Siegle says she’s “freshly back from
Washington” after attending a briefing on federal assistance to schools
and school-lunch programs. For one thing, she’s disappointed that sufficient
funds aren’t coming from Washington to implement the No Child Left Behind Act.

            The Act, says Siegle, imposes
“huge reporting requirements” with big staff costs. Moreover, she
says, the federal government sometimes authorizes funds but fails to deliver. This year, she says, the actual cash in the
pipeline is $6.2 billion short of the $18 billion promised. “Schools have
to deal with 100 percent of the mandates, but the money has not followed the
[provisions of the] bill,” she says. “That all falls on local taxpayers.”

            Only “1.8 cents of every
federal dollar goes to education,” says Siegle. In practically every other
country, she says, education is a function of the national government. She says
the American system of local-and-state control has special strengths — it
“gives everyone the opportunity to pursue their path,” for example.

            We’re in a “time of
change” right now, says Siegle. There’s more federal “intrusion”
than before, she says, but the federal commitment to support the schools hasn’t
caught up.

As a budget
battle looms in Washington, New York State and many of its subdivisions face yet
another horrendous budget year. The Rochester City School District is peering
into the abyss again.

            But here, too, change is in the air.
Following recent court decisions, the Downstate-based Campaign for Fiscal
Equity and its allies are closer to realizing their dream of winning more
resources for urban schools. Shortly after the Bush budget came out, the CFE
said New York State would need around $7 billion more — or at least a partial
down payment on this amount in the near term — to meet its constitutional
obligations.

            Many are asking, where will such an
amount come from? At this point nobody seems to know. Least of all in the White
House.

This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2004.