18-TKE CAROLINA TIMES - - SAT.. JULY 18, 1231
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To Be Equal
Editorial
We Do Have A Choice
It is baffling, indeed numbing, to know that with the vast potential
political power that blacks have in this country that we have been will
ing to endure the type of grueling assaults on our lives for so many
years.
For example, blacks represent 22 of the nation's population and
comprise 20-40 of the electorate in eight national congressional
districts. Yet, because blacks do not vote, there is only one black
senator in the United States Senate.
In North Carolina, blacks make up 20-40 of the electorate in eight
out of eleven congressional districts, but there are only one senator and
three members in the State House of Representatives.
When we evaluate the quality of our lives and assess how well our
elected officials have served us, the following facts become apparent:
in every school house in this country in districts controlled by
whites, black pupils make up a disproportionate number of special
education classes;
black unemployment is as high as sixty per cent in some areas;
blacks live in high price shacks and run down apartments in crime
ridden neighborhoods;
blacks, due to the unfair justice system, are losing their land at the
rate of several thousand acres each day;
large numbers of black youth are introduced to a life a crime in
their early teens; and
black neighborhoods are buried under freeways and expressways
each day.
AH of these disparaging circumstances exist because we do not, as a
group, assume responsibility for setting goals and objectives for our
own lives; that we are too willing to allow others who have no interest
in our well-being to control our destiny. We do not register and vote in
large numbers.
A voteless people is a hopeless people and we are doomed to further
destruction unless we assume some of the responsibility for what is hap
pening to us. We cannot continue to allow 'somebody else' to deter
mine our fate.
Behind The Block Grants
By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who propose to fayor
freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without plowing
up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the
ocean's majestic waves without the awful roar of its waters.
Frederick Douglass
Things
Ton S&oufd Knot?
iMi
yr 1 1 I I i I 1 ' III 9 KUlZ A V5-; 3
Born in 1845 in New Bern, N.C., he
was educated In Cleveland, Ohio, get
ting his U.B. degree (n 1870! After ten
years of law practice he was elected to
the Ohio House of Representatives, and
re-elected in 1888, and to the Ohio
Senate in 1890-their first Negrol It
was fie who introduced the bill founding
Labor Day, later to become a national
holiday! c
C4
The Administration is pushing its concept
of a "new federalism" with vigor. Its center
piece is lumping the bulk of federal social
welfare programs into block grants to the
states.'?:.: ..' - . ' ' ;
This is justified on a number of grounds.
It is alleged that state and local officials are
closer to the problems, and are better able to
determine which programs fit local needs,
. and that they can deliver those services more
I efficiently.
That's the official justification, and it is
wrong.
The- federal government got into the
business of providing social programs
because of two realities. First, they are
necessary for the nation's security and well
being. Second, the states either did not or
could not meet those needs.
State and local governments are closer to
the people and the problems. That is why
most federal programs are actually run by
those governments. They apply for inclusion
in the programs and administer them under
federal guidelines.
Those guidelines help keep the programs
honest and efficient in a way they would not
be under total local control. Experience with
present block grant programs that turn
funds over to states and cities for fairly
specific purposes but with little federal over
sight demonstrates this.
A recent study by the federal General Ac
counting Office, the watchdog of federal
dollars, reports the misuse of hundreds of
millions of dollars provided under the Com
munity Development Block Grant program.
The aim of the program is to revitalize
cities. But the report says the money is
spread so thinly among so many localities
that major problem areas get shortchanged.
It reports too, that in many cities housing
rehabilitation funds were going for garages
and sun decks instead of upgrading substan
dard housing for the poor. In one city, fifr
teert per cent of federally-funded rehab loans
:.. went to people earning over $30,000.
So it is clear that the experience of block
grants is that they invite local misuse .of
federal funds., The absence of federal
targeting and controls results in costly abuse.
The real intent of block -grants is the
" dismantling of social programs. The first
step is to lump them together, giving states
discretion to determine how much each pro
gram gets. Since the block grants amount to
25 less than the total of the separate pro
grams, that also means less money.
Phase Two comes when state and local '
governments divide up the pie, Since there is
less money to go around, deserving causes
are pitted against each other. Minorities, the
poor, women, the handicapped, are all set in
competition against each other for available
funds.
The best and most humane governors and
mayors ? will have the hard task "of
. distributing funds for worthy causes, know
ing there is not enough in the pot to really
meet their communities needs. . ' - : , .
And in many states and cities, if not most,
the poor will be frozen out altogether. Of
ficials wilt take advantage of their freedom
from control by Washington to spend the
money on programs for which Congress
never intended it to be used, Poljtcally
powerful groups will get money intended for
the poor and the powerless. -
The next phase inevitably will be reducing
Washington's grants, to states and cities for ,
those programs. Congress won't want to ap- '
propriate money for programs over which it
has no control and little political credit. And
part of the drive for lower federal taxes is to
give states room to raise theirs.
But faced with the choice of raising taxes
and cutting programs, local politicians will
likely choose the latter. And that will be the
end of many of the programs we need to pro
vide basic social services and public
amenities.
.That is why the shift from targeted
categorical programs to block grants is more
than a bookkeeping change. It represents a
fundamental change looking to the dismal
days of the past when government shirked its
responsibility to meet society's needs.
Business In The Black
Country's Got To Follow The Leader
General Motors Behind The Move
By Charles E. BeUe
What's good for General Motors is good
for the country," according to the current
GM chairman as well as a previous GM chief
executive officer. Openly boasting before a
devoted audience of "our country first"
Commonwealth Club of California
members,- Robert B. Smith, chairman of
General Motors Corporation, claimed "U.S.
automakers are aggresively moving to meet
these (foreign) challenges."
Calling President Reagan "probably
California's greatest gift to tlienation,"
Smith claims Reagan and GeneraTMotors
Corporation are both on the right path for
recovery of the automobile maker and the
country.
Mr. Smith, an ex-Navy man, is steering his
ship at full throttle toward automation of
work positions. Placing the blame for being
.behind -th ..Japanese squarely on the
shoulders of the U.S. working man, Mr'
Smith stated that "GM's labor costs are
more than seventy per cent above the
Japanese." Just looking at dollars per hour
costs alone, the chairman says U.S. labor
costs almost $8 per hour too much.
Furthermore, "Relief time, another form
of pay for time not worked,, is about three
times the Japanese standard." While Mr.
Smith stresses the fact that "the majority of
our GM people are hard-working, long-term
employees who come to work everyday, and
who are dedicated to doing the best job for
themselves and for GM, some cuts in salary
and staff are still in store.
The new "J" car series line of GM cars
created in a sensational seven month span,
will start being produced "with modernized
plants and processes." Robots, not people,
will be employed greater in future produc
tion of GM automobiles.
GM's major effort to improve its com
petitive position for automobile sales
worldwide will be carried out under "a
massive five-year, $40 billion capital invest
ment program the largest eyer undertaken
by an industrial "company. Cars, madefor
' " GM, according to the chairman, are fbr'ex
port as well as domestic sales.
Outside the U.S., GM expects sales to
reach $32 million by the end of the decade,
up almost 35. Perhaps Smith senses
something several European states have not
noticed. Japanese car exports to the Euro
pean Common Market countries leaped
almost twenty per cent for the first three
months of the year. Only France and Italy
have not suffered fatalities under the
Japanese assault, because the governments
in those two countries, as does Japan's
government, protect their home markets
from foreign imports.
General Motors is a giant who is not
afraid of foreign' competition and supports
free trade no import restrictions in the
U.S. or any other country. "GM has no
fears about domestic or foreign competi
tion," claims Chairman Smith. "We have
always said the way to beat the Japanese is
not with paper and pen in Washington, but
with products in the market place."
The new "J" car lines, including the
Chevrolet Cavalier, the Pontiac J-2000 and
the Cimarron by Cadillac, are expected to
lead the GM charge. These highly fuel
efficient cars can achieve thirty miles per
gallen in the city and 47 miles per gallon on
the highway on some models, says Smith.
The chances are great "the car of the
future" will no doubt have a "J" associated
with it.
Affirmative Action
States Rights And Human Rights
Gerald C. Home, Esquire
Many will not feel the hot breath of
Reagan's budget cuts until next October 1st.
And by that time it may be too late to com
plain. Jobs are the bottom line and a black
community, reeling from an unemployment
rate that makes the "Great Depression" of
the 1930's seem inviting by comparison, will
be particularly affected,
i One of Reagan's first targets was the
Comprehensive Employment and Training
Act, which provides so-called CETA jobs.
Over 300,000 have received public sector
jobs pursuant to this program, many of
them black. But barely after reaching office,
one of the President's first acts was to hold
i back or reallocate about $1 billion in funds
for the current fiscal year. This has forced an
immediate dismissal of tens of thousands of
workers.
"Last summer we had 8,000 individuals in
Sublic service employment and we nearly
ad a riot in the city anyway", said Willie F.
Johnson, executive i director of
Philadelphia's office of Employment and
Training. "Now they have taken away one
of the tools we use to provide not only
employment and training, but hope for our
young people. It adds to the burden the city
faces in trying to keep calm during the sum
mer". There have been certain problems with
CETA jobs, not the "least of which, has
been the wages that are below those paid to
regular municipal employees, which at times
made it resemble "Workfare". But it is the
crudest of ironies that a President elected on
a pledge to "put America back to work "has
instead chosen to "put Americans out of
work".
This won't come as a surprise to those
who know that the sfaff that meets with
Reagan daily Is as white as fresh snow or that
on Nancy Reagan's staff there is not one
black. Unfortunately, ; many voted for
1 Reagan on the premise that he would "get
the n- s" ana thus far, he hasn't disap-
pointed them. Even the few blacks on
Reagan's team make George Wallace or
Jesse Helms sound "liberal". Jay Parker,
who professes to be an Afro-American, has
opposed staunchly affirmative action. Like
Interior Secretary James Watt, he had the
temerity to announce that he would think
twice before visiting a black doctor just
because the physician might have been ad
mitted to medical school pursuant to an af-
firmative action program. With this kind of
- Judas Iscarlot attitude on the part of the
black staff, one can only imagine what other
fiendish plans besides slashing a life-line
of CETA jobs the Reagan Administration
is cooking up.
While throwing some out of work, Reagan
has proposed putting others to work. But
this is not a benign proposition.
"Workfare," Reagan's "new" program is
in fact as old as the hills. He proposes to
makY welfare recipients work a
guaranteed applause line for the racist set
but is vague about the disabled and mothers
with small children unable to afford child
care, who comprise, a disproportionate
percentage of recipients. He ignores the
report of his own General Accounting Office
which shows that the administrative costs to
run "workfare" in the United States today
far exceed the amount saved in lower food
stamp bjenefits and work performed.
Historians have documented this rather sim
ple, elementary fact from as far back as
1619. It was at that time in Speenhamland,
England that the borough fathers learned
that forcing work on the dependent poor had
a tendency to drive down wages. If
employers can get workers from the welfare
rolls for nothing (or for less than the prevail
ing wage), they will pay other workers less.
From their point of view, it would not make
sense to do otherwise. And from the point of
view or anyone who happens to work for a
living, it would make sense to oppose this so
called "workfare" with unusual staun
chness. Another one of Reagan's pet phrases is
"states rights". Again, though put in a new
bottle this is decidedly old wine, having been
thrashed soundly at least in the 1789 Con
stitutional Convention, definitely , by the
Civil War, arid the J3th and j 4th Amend-
merits. One would think that this bitter con
flict that pitted North against South had set
, tledjor all time the notion that states ould
(direct whatever they wanted against the
- population within their '.borders without ,
.Washington intervening. Reagan is not an
historian or a lawyer but' one., would hope
, that he was taught in civics class these simple
. truths. v
, But .what is at stake" here is' not truth but
money, power and racism. In addition to
seeking a cut of more than $40 billion in
domestic programs in tjhe, fiscal 1982 budget, "..
Reagan has proposed va arge-scale shift to
. the use of "block grants'', This would shift ;
responsibility for more than $15 billion in
education', social annd health services to
state and local governments.
Reagan must know that many of these
programs family planning, community
and mental health programs, clinics for
migrants and Black Lung victims, myriads
of health and education efforts were
developed by the federal government
precisely after it became inevitably clear that
local and state officials were not addressing
fundamental health, education and welfare
needs. Concentrating lobbying efforts in
Washington, D.C., rather than dispersing
them in fifty state capitols, catalyzed this
(Continued on Page 11)
iilii
l.e. Austin "V
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