Developing Manpower Legislation A Personal Chronicle (1978) / Chapter Skim
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PUBLIC SERVICE JOBS--THE MANPOWER BATTLEGROUND
PUBLIC SERVICE JOBS--THE MANPOWER BATTLEGROUND
Pages 72-91
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From page 72... ...
The state and local government prime sponsors of PSE programs were already awash with funds, and we had felt it necessary to push them very 72
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From page 73... ...
Early in February l975 Chairman Daniels in the House and Senator Javits introduced bills to authorize funds to increase Title VI to one million jobs for fiscal l976. Both bills reflected what was then believed to be the mood and will of the Congress -- to go all-out on job-creating programs.
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From page 74... ...
In early June Chairman Daniels introduced a new Title VI bill that completely revised his February approach of simply increasing the authorization to provide for one million PSE jobs. The new bill removed major responsibility for public service employment from state and local prime sponsors and gave community groups and the federal government a much larger share in program operations.
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From page 75... ...
By the end of the session Chairman Daniels, under strong pressure from state and local prime sponsors, had retreated from his second version of a new Title VI and was floating a third version, which kept the program with state and local prime sponsors (as had his first version)
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From page 76... ...
It therefore occurred to us that seeking funds under Title II authority would cause very little dislocation in the total PSE program and would dispense with the need for Title VI. As we further considered the possibility of requesting all additional PSE funds under Title II, we liked the fact that Title II did have a trigger so that as the economy improved the program would be automatically phased down without the need for specific congressional action.
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From page 77... ...
In order to provide phasedown funds for the small number of sponsors who could not qualify under the 6.5-percent trigger, we requested that the Appropriations Committees provide us some flexibility in the use of discretionary funds. No sooner had the President's l977 budget proposal reached the Congress than Chairman Daniels, on January 22, l976, introduced his fourth Title VI bill for the 94th Congress (HRll453)
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From page 78... ...
However, it was apparent that most sponsors had become beguiled by the "pot at the end of the rainbow" -- by the belief that Congres was going to greatly expand the Title VI program. Consequently, they and their Washington representatives were spending all their time with the House Labor Committee in trying to find a way to get a big bill launched, rather than putting any pressure on the House Appropriations Committee.
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From page 79... ...
On April 2 the House Labor Committee prepared and introduced its sixth PSE bill, "The Emergency Jobs Stopgap Extension Act" (HRl2987) , which was a simple authorization of appropriations for the ensuing few months, without any program changes or expansion.
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From page 80... ...
Senator Taft asked about those who are ineligible for unemployment compensation but who have been unemployed for l3 or more weeks and I said that, personally, I would support coverage for such individuals. Later in the hearing Senator Taft turned to the question of an income test, noting that under the Committee's draft proposal an unemployed person otherwise eligible would nevertheless still be ineligible for a public service job if the income of other family members exceeded 70 percent of the lower living standard budget, which for an urban family of four persons would be $6,439.
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From page 81... ...
We now began to work closely with the Senate Appropriations Committee staff in an effort to convince them to include the needed supplemental funds in the urgent supplemental bill that was now before the Committee. (The President had requested urgent funds for a major national immunization program to combat the projected swine flu outbreak; thus there was an emergency appropriations vehicle to which the PSE funds could be added.)
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From page 82... ...
In order to completely conclude the matter we decided to try to get a letter from Senator Magnuson reiterating the Senate Committee's desire that we proceed to carry out the intent of Committee report language and use discretionary funds in non-Title II areas. By the time Congress returned from its recess, I was able to make available to all concerned both a written opinion from the solicitor and the letter from Senator Magnuson.
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From page 83... ...
The Senate bill was one we could clearly work with; it contained the targeting provisions, the income tests, and the one-year project provisions -- all of which we thought were crucial to any desirable program. On the same day the House and Senate Budget Committees reported out the Budget Resolution for fiscal l977.
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From page 84... ...
the unemployment rate had leveled out at 7.5 percent so that we could no longer credibly argue that things were improving and that PSE was, therefore, no longer needed. I called Secretary Usery early Friday morning, May 7, and by Friday noon I had his pledge to go to the Economic Policy Board to seek approval to work with the Senate Committee in fashioning a bill that we could support.
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From page 85... ...
I attended a conference of many leading manpower specialists at Arden House in New York May 20-23, and I tried to plant some seeds along the lines of the Senate bill -- even though I knew it was high-risk behavior since the President had not decided to support the Senate bill. On May 27 Secretary Usery sent a memo to the Economic Policy Board that explored all the various options for the President; he recommended that we continue quiet negotiations on the bill and not publicly oppose it.
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From page 86... ...
William Seidman, the director of the Economic Policy Board, stating: "The President has approved expressing support for an extension of Title VI... at current levels as long as new employees are limited to the long-term unemployed." The President requested that the Secretary of Labor inform the Republican Congressmen participating in the conference "...that he will sign a bill extending Title VI at current levels as long as new
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From page 87... ...
On September 8 Undersecretary Michael Moscow, Deputy Undersecretary Kenneth Duberstein, and I met first with Chairman Daniels to try and sell him on getting closer to l00-percent targeting; then with Congressman Quie to try to get him to hold firm on the need for l00-percent targeting; and finally with Senator Javits to try to get him to withdraw his compromise bid and hold tight for the Senate approach.
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From page 88... ...
I argued the social desirability of using PSE only for the most disadvantaged; I also argued that the state and local governments were now receiving new countercyclical revenue sharing funds that should go a long way toward providing adequate funds so that regular government employees would no longer need to be transferred over to Title VI PSE programs. Although Young generally agreed with the conceptual points I made, his position was that the countercyclical grant program was too new to be able to predict whether it would obviate the rehire question, and, until more experience had been gained, the AFLCIO was not going to support giving up entirely reliance on the looser eligibility requirements of the current Title VI program.
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From page 89... ...
The final vote in the House, 295-9, showed that targeting, income eligibility criteria, and a project approach changed the character of the program enough so that even most conservatives could support it. Having this revised PSE program on the books made it possible for the new administration, in February l977, to quickly convince the Congress to double this Title VI PSE program, as the cornerstone of President Carter's "Economic Recovery Package."
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