Bush vs. Clinton: Should Cities Be Such a Federal Case? : In the wake of the riots, urban policy has moved up to a far more prominent spot on the list of most-important issues

The Los Angeles riots spotlighted the not-so-benign neglect of the nation’s cities by the federal government. The fires forced Washington to pay much greater attention to an epidemic of urban ills. In hundreds of cities, poverty, unemployment, welfare dependency and crime have soared, making life miserable for millions.

Reversing these nightmarish trends will require a stronger commitment to urban America. Rebuilding South-Central Los Angeles, Miami’s Liberty City or Chicago’s South Side won’t be easy. The problems are admittedly very difficult, but the next President owes it to every taxpayer and to every poor child just starting out in life to try to reverse the central cities’ decline.

The renewed debate on the urban agenda should result in national policies that create jobs, reduce crime, make work more attractive than welfare and promote greater homeownership in poor neighborhoods. Revitalizing areas written off by most businesses won’t be cheap, and the huge federal deficit limits how much government can reasonably spend on tax breaks or new programs. The challenge for the next President is how to do all this.

Enterprise Zones: No Cure-All, but a Magnet for Jobs

Jobs are the best antidote to poverty, but most low-skill jobs are now created outside of inner cities. To encourage job creation in poor neighborhoods, both presidential candidates endorse urban enterprise zones that offer attractive tax incentives.

The zeal for these zones is fairly new for President Bush. He has given lip service to enterprise zones but until recently never gave them a high priority. Housing Secretary Jack Kemp has strongly advocated urban enterprise zones and other worthwhile urban strategies, but Kemp’s pleas pretty much fell on deaf ears during the first three years of the Bush Administration. The President finally put the weight of the White House behind these special business districts after the Los Angeles riots.

Gov. Bill Clinton, sounding more like a Republican than an old-fashioned Democrat, also endorses “comprehensive” enterprise zones. He proposes as many as 125 urban and rural enterprise zones coupled with other tax incentives, regulatory relief and new community development block grants to revive distressed neighborhoods. He also would require businesses to give employment priority to local residents. That requirement could reduce jobless rates in poor neighborhoods and discourage the kinds of tensions that developed between local residents and employees of outside companies who competed for jobs in South Los Angeles after the riots. Clinton offers the better approach, which he says would cost $1.5 billion a year over four years. Is that a bargain? Or a promise he can’t keep?

Challenge Is to Elevate Cities Without Adding to the Budget Woes

Both candidates promise a pay-as-you-go government that won’t further bloat the deficit. Bush promises less help and would keep costs down. Clinton promises more assistance and he might be able, because his party controls Congress, to deliver on his financing strategies, such as deeper defense cuts, higher taxes on the wealthy and a new payroll tax to fund training programs.

To encourage greater investment in poor neighborhoods that are commonly “redlined,” Clinton would set up a network of community development banks to make loans to small businesses and budding entrepreneurs like owners of day-care centers or apartment buildings. He would also toughen the toothless Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages banks to extend credit to small businesses and make mortgages to low- and moderate-income homeowners. Banks currently do very little to gain a satisfactory rating and few lenders are penalized. If the federal government required banks end discriminatory practices that target minorities, community development advocates estimate that an additional 50,000 Californians would become homeowners every year. How many would get jobs if their neighbors could get small business loans?

Another Challenge Is to Make Welfare a Temporary Condition

No jobs means fewer marriages, fewer child support checks and more families who depend on the government to provide. Welfare, both candidates agree, should not become a permanent fixture in any home. Bush and Clinton both encourage greater personal responsibility. They prescribe jobs for welfare recipients, but they differ on how they would bridge the chasm between a welfare check and a paycheck.

President Bush has encouraged states to experiment with punishing reforms such as reducing benefits to welfare mothers who have more children, or to those whose children fail to attend school regularly. He has opposed more funding for education and job training programs, a proven method of getting poor parents off welfare.

Gov. Clinton, who claims a modest success with welfare reforms in Arkansas, embraces both the carrot and the stick. He would expand education and training, pay for child care, health care and transportation. He would allow welfare recipients to save as much as $10,000; the current cutoff level before losing benefits is $1,000 in assets. But after two years on welfare, poor parents and their children would be disqualified. If a welfare parent couldn’t find a job in two years, Clinton wants the government to employ the parent in a community service job. He is vague, however, on how the public jobs would be created and financed.

Even with new jobs, however, rampant crime would discourage the employee--and the employer.

Bush certainly has the higher profile on law enforcement. His “war on drugs,” for example, favored law enforcement over drug treatment. His “Weed and Seed” program also tilted toward law enforcement and away from social programs. Bush opposes gun control.

Clinton supports gun control, specifically the Brady bill, which would establish a nationwide seven-day waiting period before a handgun purchaser could be given the weapon. But unlike most traditional Democrats, Clinton does not shy away from harsh punishment. He, like Bush, supports the death penalty.

Punishment and prisons, however, aren’t the only answer to crime. To reduce violent crime, the next President must stem the frustration, isolation, alienation and runaway rage that nurture budding criminals.

Finding Programs That Work, Rather Than Make-Work Programs

To start poor children on the right track, Bush and Clinton both strongly support Head Start. Bush deserves credit for doubling the funding for the successful preschool program to allow every needy 4-year-old to attend. Clinton, however, would let in every needy 3-, 4- and 5-year-old whose parents want the child to go.

Poor children who get a head start can best maintain their progress if they attend a decent school in a decent neighborhood. Their parents can get better jobs if they live in better neighborhoods.

A significant expansion of federal housing subsidies would allow poor Americans to move closer to good schools and good jobs. A successful Chicago housing integration program that allows poor families to move from inner-city housing projects to urban or suburban apartments has shown that the new suburbanites are more likely to find jobs and their children are more likely to finish school and get a job than those who remain in public housing.

Public housing, typically concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods, is unfortunately the only housing choice for many poor families. Bush echoes Kemp’s proposal to let poor tenants buy their publicly owned apartments. He is right in principle to encourage homeownership, but a better strategy would create homeowners without selling off government assets.

The lack of affordable housing impoverishes millions of Americans who must spend half or more of their income on shelter. Decent low-rent housing is extremely scarce in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other expensive housing markets. To address this crisis, both candidates support government spending and endorse the low-income housing tax credit to encourage investment in new construction or renovation of affordable housing. Clinton, however, is likely to ask government to do more.

Cities were once the vanguard of America. That was before businesses and the middle class fled, crime rose, infrastructure crumbled and federal dollars dried up. As the poverty rate climbs, more Americans are forced to live in urban ghettos and barrios isolated from good schools, good jobs and good services. Their needs belong at the top of the next President’s agenda. From this perspective, there is quite a difference in the relative priorities of Bush and Clinton in urban policy. However he would finance it--and that’s a big however--Clinton gives the impression of understanding acutely how much is at stake and how much needs to be done, and quickly.