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THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSALS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1994 Y 4. B 85/3: 103-10 Tie President's Budget Proposals fo... HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET HOUSE OF REPEESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 5, 1993 Serial No. 103-10 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget »«-• :^/ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 65-431 ±5 WASHINGTON 1993 : ForsalebytheU.S.GovernmentPrintingOffice SuperintendentofDocuments.CongressionalSalesOffice.Washington,DC 20402 ISBN 0-16-040675-7 THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSALS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1994 Y 4. B 85/3; 103-10 The President's Bud§et Proposals fo. . . HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 5, 1993 Serial No. 103-10 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget ^•^i-^,^ ' MAY ? 9 1933 / U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 65-431±5 WASHINGTON 1993 : ForsalebytheU.S.GovernmentPrintingOffice SuperintendentofDocuments.CongressionalSalesOffice.Washington.DC 20402 ISBN 0-16-040675-7 COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET MARTIN OLAV SABO, Minnesota, Chairman RICHARD A, GEPHARDT, Missouri JOHN R. KASICH, Ohio DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan J. ALEX McMillan, North Carolina ANTHONY C. BEILENSON, California JIM KOLBE, Arizona HOWARD L. HERMAN, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine JOHN BRYANT, Texas WALLY HERGER, California CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas JIM BUNNING, Kentucky BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee CHRISTOPHER COX, California LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado York DAVID L. HOBSON, Ohio MIKE PARKER, Mississippi DAN MILLER, Florida WILLIAM J. COYNE, Pennsylvania RICK LAZIO, New York BARBARA B. KENNELLY, Connecticut BOB FRANKS, New Jersey MICHAEL A. ANDREWS, Texas NICK SMITH, Michigan ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia BOB INGLIS, South Carolina BART GORDON, Tennessee MARTIN R. HOKE, Ohio DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HARRY JOHNSTON, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii BILL ORTON, Utah LUCIEN E. BLACKWELL, Pennsylvania EARL POMEROY. North Dakota GLEN BROWDER, Alabama LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Eileen M. Baumgartner, ChiefofStaff Richard E. May, Republican StaffDirector (II) CONTENTS Page Hearing held in Washington, DC, March 5, 1993 1 Statement of: Althaus, Hon. William, President, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayor, York, PA; accompanied by Hon. Jerry Abramson, Vice President, U.S. Conference ofMayors, Mayor, Louisville, KY 7 Beeman, William J., Vice President and Director of Economic Studies, The Committee for Economic Development 71 Boulka, Steve, Mitch Geiger, Niki Larsen, and Amanda Peter, students from Anoka High School, accompanied by Bill Mittlefehldt, Teacher 32 CroMsNby, Ned, Linda Hicks and Jack Goleboski, CitizensJury, Minneapolis, 83 De Gennaro, Ralph, and Dawn Erlandson, Friends ofthe Earth 16 Gage, Larry, President, National Association ofPublic Hospitals 48 Muris, Tim, Professor, George Mason University, School ofLaw Ill Ouellette, Michael F., Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs; Richard W. Johnson, Executive Director for Government Affairs, Non-Commis- sioned Officers Association ofthe United States ofAmerica (NCOA) 100 Schlein, David J., 14th District National Vice President, American Feder- ation ofGovernment Employees (AFGE) 119 Tobias, Robert M., National President, National Treasury Employees Union 25 Weill, James D., General Counsel, Children's Defense Fund 1 Young, Eric, Ph.D 123 Prepared statements, letters, supplemental materials, et cetera: Beeman, William J., Vice President and Director of Economic Studies, The Committee for Economic Development, prepared statement of 75 Crosby, Ned, Citizens Jury, prepared statement of 86 De Gennaro, Ralph, and Dawn Erlandson, Friends ofthe Earth, prepared statement of 20 Fried, Bruce M., Executive Director, America's Coalition for Transit NOW, prepared statement of 132 Gage, Larry, President, National Association of Public Hospitals, prepared statement of 51 Goleboski, Jack, Citizens Jury, prepared statement of 98 Hicks, Linda, Citizens Jury, prepared statement of 96 Muris, Tim, Professor, George Mason University, School ofLaw, prepared statement of 114 Non-Commissioned Officers Association of the United States of America, prepared statement of 103 Parents Annymous, Inc., prepared statement of 126 Schlein, David J., 14th District National Vice President, American Feder- ation ofGovernment Employees (AFGE), prepared statement of 121 Tobias, Robert M., National President, National Treasury Employees Union, prepared statement of 27 U.S. Conference ofMayors, prepared statement of 9 Weill, James D., General Counsel, Children's Defense Fund, prepared statement of 4 Young, Eric, Ph.D., prepared statement of 125 Youth Perspective, prepared statement of 37 (HI) THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSALS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1994 FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1993 House of Representatives, Committee on the Budget, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:05 p.m., Room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Bill Orton presiding. Members present: Representatives Sabo, Orton, Blackwell, and Pomeroy. Mr. Orton. We will begin these public hearings this afternoon by welcoming you to the Budget Committee. It is a pleasure to be able to hold hearings to hear the comments and views of the public and public advocacy groups in our budget We process. are very interested in the particular views of each in attendance and look forward to your testimony. Your views, of course, will be taken into consideration in our process. We will allow Members to submit for the record opening statements and also would allow each of the witnesses to submit their testimony in writing in full for the record and summarize their views here before us. To begin the witnesses today, we will invite Mr. Jim Weill, who is chief counsel for the Children's Defense Fund. The Children's Defense Fund is a Washington, DC, based public advocacy and education group advocating particularly the interests of children, the poor and minority children in specific. And, Mr. Weill, it is indeed a pleasure to welcome you here today. We look forward to your testimony and would ask you to proceed as you see fit. STATEMENT OF JAMES D. WEILL, GENERAL COUNSEL, CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND Mr. Weill. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The Children's Defense Fund greatly appreciates the opportunity to testify here today. I am just going to summarize briefly what we put in our written testimony. In his economic stimulus and budget proposals, the President has made a set of what we consider to be very sound choices which, if adopted and implemented by this committee and the Congress, will improve the lives of many of America's children and families and build a stronger Nation in the years ahead. So we urge the commit- (1) tee to craft a budget resolution that will incorporate the Presi- dent's package. While getting control over the deficit is certainly central to building and sustaining the long-term economic health of our Nation, so is meeting the needs of children and families in this country. Neither standing alone is going to suffice. We must do both. Ill-fed, under-educated, unhealthy and increasingly alienated generations of children and youths, our Nation's future workers, parents and voters, will not grow the economy or sustain social security's intergenerational promise or maintain a strong defense or nurture our democracy, no matter how small the deficit is. Our economic peers and competitors already know these lessons, and they generally have lower rates of babies born too small, low- birth-weight babies, of infant mortality, of preventable physical and mental disabilities, of homelessness, childhood hunger, violence among children, low academic skills and teenage births. Unless this Nation changes course, the costs that are being borne today by our children will be borne by the society as a whole tomorrow in the form of lower productivity and economic growth and higher costs for welfare, foster care, remedial education, criminal justice, and other remedial expenditures. President Clinton's budget proposals focus investment where it is most needed to break this cycle and where it will make the most significant difference: On our Nation's children and their families, through programs that we all know work and for which there is strong public support. The first of these is Head Start. Head Start helps children build the confidence and skills they need to succeed in school and to become leaders, taxpayers and productive citizens in the future. A Head Start experience for all eligible children is vital to achie—ving our Nation's first edu—cation goal, as laid out by the governors led by Governor Clinton and President Bush an—d adopted by this ad- ministration as well, the first education goal that all children en- tering school are ready to learn. Head Start recognizes that in order to get ready and to thrive, young children must not only have a quality early education but must also be healthy and well nourished and have their parents ac- tively involved in their learning. But, right now, funding levels only allow about one-third of eligible children to participate. The President's proposal to fully fund Head Start will correct that and assure that an entire generation of our Nation's children enter school ready to learn. We are also pleased that the budget proposals are designed not just to assure that all eligible children can get the program but also that the children will receive a high-quality experience. I would call your attention to the letter sent earlier this week to the Budget Committee by Ed Zigler, one of the founding fathers of Head Start, Urie Bronfrenbrenner, Berry Brazelton, and more than a dozen other distinguished early childhood scholars, all of whom enthusiastically endorsed the full funding of Head Start to reach all eligible children and to assure that the high quality, now characteristic of most Head Start programs, becomes characteristic of all Head Start programs. The President has also announced his plans to assure that all children are fully immunized on schedule. It is a national disgrace that fewer than 60 percent of 2-year-olds in most States in this Nation are fully immunized. While nearly all children catch up by the time they go to school, too many preschoolers are left vulnera- ble to potentially deadly or crippling diseases. There is a terrible irony that this country has played such a key role in dev—eloping vaccines that are saving millions of lives around the world a point we were reminded of sadly this week when Dr. Sabin, one of the inventors of the oral polio vaccine, died and reminded us of the magnitude of the me—dical triumphs of this century in preventing childhood diseases it is a terrible irony that American children now lag behind children throughout much of the world in getting the benefit of these vaccines. Because the money we spend on immunization saves so much more by averting later health costs of treatment, the Nation could avoid billions of dollars in health care costs as well as save scores of lives and prevent thousands of illnesses by immunizing all children as the President has proposed. It is also essential that the Budget Committee preserve Con- gress's ability to pass again the Child Welfare and Family Preser- vation Act provisions that passed the Congress last year as part Tff the urban aid bill that was vetoed by President Bush on unrelated grounds. The family preservation provisions will help rescue families in crisis and thereby bolster the eventual self-sufficiency of both parents and children! It is important for both the immunization initiative and the child welfare and family preservation provisions, at a minimum, that the committee in putting together the budget resolution include lan- guage in the resolution or report which preserves and reserves the ability of Congress to move these two initiatives this year as man- datory spending. Other key investments in the President's budget which will di- rectly benefit children and their families and help them progress toward better futures include: Full funding of the WIC program, expansions in key job training and youth employment programs, the expansion in Job Corps and the improvements in the Earned Income Tax Credit. These and other provisions all move toward as- suring that all of America's parents and youth have the opportuni- ties to secure the skills necessary for employment and that, if he or she works full time, no American parent will have to raise his or her children in poverty. In sum, the President's budget provides the Congress and the Nation with the opportunity to make a difference where it counts, for children and their families and their futures, and, thus, for our Nation's future. We urge the committee to include the President's proposals in their entirety in the budget resolution and to assure that the proposed investments for children and their families become a reality this year. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement ofJames D. Weill follows:] Prepared Statement ofJames D. Weill, General Counsel, Children's Defense Fund Mr. Chairman, the Children's Defense Fund greatly appreciates this opportunity to testify here today on the President's budget proposals. In his economic stimulus and budget proposals, the President made a set of ex- tremely sound choices which will improve the lives of many of America's children and families and build a stronger Nation in the years ahead. We urge the Commit- tee to craft a budget resolution that incorporates the President's package. First, the President's proposals provide a good mix ofdeficit reduction and investment measures. The President and the Congress are faced with the problem ofcon- trolling the deficit while also investing in our Nation's future. Just as getting control over the deficit is central to building and sustaining the long-term economic health of our Nation, so is meeting the needs of our children. Neither standing alone will suffice. Neglecting an out-of-control deficit subverts our economic and social future. But neglecting the desperate needs of millions of American children just as surely subverts our economic and social future. Ill-fed, undereducated, unhealthy and increasingly alienated generations of future workers, parents and voters will not grow the economy, sustain Social Security's intergenerational promise, maintain a strong defense and nurture our democracy, no matter how small the deficit is. Yet that is the mounting danger we have been facing as the American dream has come near to collapse for millions of families, youths, and childr—en in all races and classes. Th—ere are more poor children in America today over 14 million (14,341,000) than in any year since 1965, despite the near doubling ofour Gross Na- tional Product during this period. Particularly hard hit have been America's young families. These families (headed by adults under the age of30) with children are the group in which our N—ation invests the least and they are the group in th—e deepest trouble. Even though in an effort to compensate for falling hourly wages more of these young adults are working than a generation ago, they are still starting out with family incomes one-third below those oftheir counterparts in the early 1970's. Young parents, in particular, but all American parents are working harder for less, as their benefits and wages have shriveled over the last two decades. Yet, we have not responded to the growing need of these families for decent child care, as their work effort has grown, and we have let their access to private health insur- ance wither away, so that often two jobs provide less protection to a family today than one job did a generation ago. We have not provided their children the schools and pre-school environments they need to thrive and learn and prepare for the 21st century economy. And we have created a society in which more and more children live in single-parent families. This economic and social decline has struck virtually all types of families with children: white, black and Latino; married-couple and single-parent; and those headed by high school graduates as well as dropouts. The plight ofAmerica's families isn't just a product ofthe recession, and won't be solved merely by the return of stronger economic growth. Most are not victims of cyclical economic trends; they are victims of structural economic problems and a failure of the public sector to meet families' needs. The number of preschool children in poverty kept rising for several years in a row in the late 1980's even while the economy was growing. The economic and social costs of poverty, ill-health, neglect and violence among our Nation's children are staggering. We suffer far more than most ofour economic peers and competitors abroad from high rates ofbabies born too small, infant mortality, physical and mental disabilities, family homelessness, childhood hunger, school absenteeism and dropouts, grade repetition, violence among children, low skills and teenage births. Unless we change course, these costs being borne by our children today will be borne by our society tomorrow in the form oflower productivity and economic growth, and higher costs for welfare, foster care, remedial education, criminaljustice and other remedial expenditures. President Clinton's budget proposals take major first steps in breaking these cycles and focus investment where it is most needed and where it will make the most significant difference: our Nation's children and their families. The President has chosen to invest in children through programs that we all know work, where there is strong support and consensus that public investments can and do make a difference. Head Start and immunizations are the first places to start investing in the next generation, both because they enjoy widespread support and because they lay the groundwork for future success..Head Start helps children build the confidence and skills they need to succeed in school and to become leaders, taxpayers, and produc-