Poetry
Choi, Kathleen T.
global economy---lag far behind those of our competitors. For example, federal funds for job training were more than cut in half during the past decade; hopes that the private sector would fill...
...Washington must help ease the staggering financial burden facing cities...
...Today, we need a national policy that encourages investment in cities to help them compete in the global economy...
...And it means providing all employers with incentives to invest in ongoing training and education for their work force at all levels...
...But only about one-quarter of all eligible children can participate because Washington doesn't provide funding...
...The U.S...
...hopes that the private sector would fill the gap were not realized...
...Federal tax policy should stimulate productive investment, not wasteful speculation...
...We can start by guaranteeing affordable health care for every pregnant woman and every child and by significantly expanding the preventative WIC nutrition program for women and kids...
...Many poor Americans cannot afford to go off welfare because they and their kids would lose medical benefits...
...Federal bank regulators must also enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires lenders to meet the credit needs of low-income and minority neighborhoods...
...We must view the physical and social well-being of our population as a long-term investment...
...254: Commonweal...
...9 Enact a national health-care program...
...Kids that participate in Head Start are more likely to do well in school, stay in school, finish school, and do well later in life, producing great benefits not only for themselves and their families but for their communities and their country...
...Likewise, the federal government needs to get lenders back in the business of financing job-creating investment and homeownership, not junk bonds and corporate take-overs...
...In the past, federal policy--for example, tax incentives for corporate relocation, highway building, and the siting of rnilitary installations and contracts--promoted the flight of jobs and investment from our cities to sprawling suburbs and even overseas...
...Recent studies report that our pension funds are joining many American corporations in heading overseas...
...One way is for the federal government to insure deposits when funds are used for these specific purposes, but not to insure them for the kind of real estate and corporate speculation that swept the 1980s and helped bring us the current economic crisis...
...9 Create a national youth service corps that gives high school graduates an opportunity to devote two years to community serviceworking in our urban neighborhoods and rural areas--for which they'd earn a full college scholarship...
...We should also revise federal laws to provide incentives for public and private pension funds to invest in economic development and affordable housing...
...is one of only two major industrial nations (the other is South Africa) without one...
...In Canada, for example, access is universal, spending per capita is less, and providers operate with much less paperwork and red tape than their counterparts in this country...
...But, as Helen Ladd and John Yinger demonstrated in their recent book America's Ailing Cities (Johns Hopkins), our large cities simply lack the resources--the tax base--to do the job...
...Tax incentives to private business should be coupled with public capital and job training in our inner cities to promote economic development...
...For example: 9 Make Head Start--a proven cost-effective winner in the anti-poverty effort--available to every three- and four-year-old child...
...It makes human and fiscal sense...
...In Boston, we recently used the leverage of CRA--first enacted in 1977 to limit banks' "redlining" practices--to push local banks to create a $400 million community reinvestment program...
...experience shows that an additional dollar spent on prenatal care saves about $3.38 as a result of the reduced rate of low-birthweight babies...
...We have to relieve the current credit crunch that is starving our economy of much-needed investment capital to finance job-creating projects and rebuild our urban neighborhoods...
...can build the world's foremost work force...
...We cannot expect a quick fix to a problem that has been evolving for many years...
...4. Fair Federalism...
...Some cities are on the verge of bankruptcy and many cities are currently laying off teachers, police and firefighters, shutting down schools, hospitals, and recreation programs, and are barely able to perform such housekeeping tasks as filling potholes and plowing snow...
...It's time to bring them home---and put the pensions of American workers to work for American jobs...
...It also means extending and increasing unemployment benefits to laid-off workers while they are retrained...
...Cities house most of America~ poor people and are expected to provide them--as well as other city residents--with decent schools, health care, police and fire protection, parks and recreation programs, and other public services...
...That means reaching all young people--in or out of school--with first-class training, while guaranteeing them a decent job upon completion of the training...
...9 Retool our job training efforts to provide all Americans with the skills they need so that the U.S...
...3. Credit Where It's Due...
...That is shortsighted and it shortchanges our children...
Vol. 118 • April 1991 • No. 8
