Administration: The Politics of Poverty

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The phone rang aboard the presidential jet as it swept west toward Texas. It was White House Staffer Larry O'Brien with the news that the House had just passed Lyndon Johnson's anti-poverty bill. When Lyndon heard that, he turned to an aide and grinned broadly. "As far as I'm concerned," he said, "I have everything I want."

Part of that everything, obviously, was a political plus that would no doubt be impressed on the electorate this November. The impression, in fact, began one morning last week when the President, conducting the appropriate ceremonies in the Rose Garden, signed the $947.5 million program into law with 72 give-away pens. "The days of the dole in our country are numbered," he promised fervently. "We are not content to accept the endless growth of relief rolls or welfare rolls. We want to offer the forgotten fifth of our people opportunity and not doles."&*

What It Does. It would be unfortunate if anybody accepted Lyndon's prophecy at face value, however. For as devoutly as he and other Americans hoped that one day poverty would be banished, the cruel truth is that the three-year program as now constituted —or more precisely, jerry-built—stands little chance of eradicating any substantial portion of poverty. Democrats and Republicans alike hold that opinion, although naturally the Republicans are more vocal in their criticism. Says New Jersey's liberal Republican Congressman Peter Frelinghuysen: "This act is going to undermine the programs we already have operating. Overlap and duplication are almost inevitable."

The bill's key provisions (including first-year appropriations):

∙YOUTH PROGRAMS. Total cost: $412.5 million. Provides for three separate youth projects: 1) a Job Corps ($190 million) for 40,000 school dropouts, aged 16 to 21, who, with the O.K. of host-state Governors, will live in rural conservation camps or urban training centers, get a basic education, job skills and $50 a month: 2) work-training programs ($150 million) for 200,000 boys and girls aged 16 to 21, who will be paid for part-time work while attending school—or, if they have already dropped out of school, fulltime work with counseling for job placement afterward; 3) a work-study program ($72.5 million) for 140,000 indigent college students who will be paid for part-time work on or off campus while they continue their studies.

∙URBAN AND RURAL COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAMS. Total cost: $315 million. To get local communities cracking on their own poverty wars, federal funds up to 90% of cost will be pumped into public or private nonprofit agency programs when requested, but again only if state Governors do not object. Also included are adult education projects to teach people 18 and older to read and write.

∙RURAL AREAS. Cost: $50 million. To provide 15-year loans (maximum: $2,500) to low-income farm families, the money to be used to improve farms or farm operations.

∙EMPLOYMENT AND INVESTMENT INCENTIVES. Cost: $25 million. To offer 15-year loans (maximum: $25,000) to small businesses for hiring the chronically unemployed.

∙WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAM. Cost: $150 million. To open job and training opportunities for heads of families now on relief, or those ineligible for relief.