Tax Cut Clouds Bush's Urban Agenda
Policy: Critics say the government won't have enough money to give big cities needed help.
By RONALD BROWNSTEIN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON -- President Bush will arrive in Los Angeles today
bearing a more ambitious urban agenda than his father offered after the
city's riots 10 years ago--but still facing charges that his tax cut has
made it impossible for Washington to meaningfully confront the most
pressing problems facing big cities.
Bush has spent much more time in urban settings than his father, former
President Bush, whose failure to respond more aggressively to the 1992
Los Angeles riots may have been a turning point in his defeat that year
by Bill Clinton.
And compared to his father, Bush has offered more comprehensive
proposals to reform schools and the welfare system, to invigorate
government partnerships with religious charities, and to encourage
homeownership in the cities. These initiatives generally have won Bush
more praise from Democrats than almost anything else in his domestic
agenda. Yet Bush continues to draw criticism from Democrats and some
urban experts not so much for what he is doing in the cities as for what he isn't.
Many critics argue that the $1.3-trillion tax cut Bush pushed through Congress last year--coupled
with the unexpected costs of the war against terrorism--has denied government the funds to make
significant investments in urban problems from schools to public safety. "The tax cut . . . will
probably crowd out the ability to make the kind of investments that are needed," says Bruce Katz, a
former Clinton administration official who now directs the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy
at the Brookings Institution.
White House officials reject that analysis, pointing to increased funding for federal programs aimed
at high-poverty public schools and a tax credit Bush has proposed to encourage urban
homeownership. "Critics of the administration are always going to talk about the tax cut," one White
House aide said, "but I don't think it is going to affect our ability to put money into good programs."
In some ways, these arguments echo the campaign debate over the cities between Clinton and
former President Bush that flashed after the 1992 riots.
Though policy affecting the cities did not remain a central issue in that campaign, the Los Angeles
riots still may have been a pivotal moment. When they erupted, Clinton was badly bruised by a
Democratic primary victory that had raised questions about his honesty and integrity.
But Clinton reacted quickly to the riots. In a series of speeches and a dramatic visit to
South-Central Los Angeles, he offered an extensive series of policies that blended new government
spending in areas such as education, calls for personal responsibility and efforts to encourage
greater private investment in the cities.
Former President Bush, meanwhile, appeared hesitant. Initially he emphasized law-and-order
themes in denouncing the rioters. He didn't tour Los Angeles until a week after the violence
began--three days after Clinton. And, rather than offering new ideas, the president repeated
initiatives he already had proposed.
Jack Kemp, Bush's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who accompanied the president
on the trip, says the charge that he was not interested in the cities was unfair. But some believe
Bush's failure to respond more aggressively helped cement the image that he lacked an agenda for,
or even much interest in, domestic problems.
By contrast, during his presidential campaign, the younger Bush visited urban neighborhoods more
frequently than most Republican candidates to highlight his ideas for reforming schools and
increasing government partnerships with faith-based charities.
Tellingly, in Los Angeles today, Bush will visit the community development arm of the First African
Methodist Episcopal Church--the same church that was Clinton's first stop when he toured Los
Angeles after the riots.
"Bush is uncommonly at home," says Kemp, who for many years has urged the GOP to court
minorities. "He's very much at ease in an urban setting."
In substance, Bush's approach to urban issues lands somewhere between his father's agenda (which
was heavily influenced by Kemp's ideas) and Clinton's. Bush's agenda shares several common
themes with Clinton's--such as rewarding work, encouraging homeownership and spurring
community action. But Bush generally supports a government role much more limited than Clinton
preferred, and more expansive than his father would accept.
Education is one example. The elder Bush built his education reform agenda around vouchers that
parents could use to send their children to private schools.
Though the younger Bush also supports vouchers, he constructed the education reform bill he
steered through Congress last year around a federal mandate that states annually test students in
reading and math--and undertake corrective actions in schools that persistently fail to improve
student performance. That was a more intrusive federal role than conservatives usually prefer, but
the bill passed with broad Democratic support.
Bush, though, has opposed Clinton-era ideas popular among Democrats to increase federal
spending on education. Among those ideas are reducing class sizes, expanding the availability of
preschool, and subsidizing new school construction. Some Democratic allies on the reform bill are
now accusing him of failing to adequately fund it.
Homeownership issues show a similar pattern.
The elder Bush's agenda was limited to a modest plan of helping tenants in public housing buy their
units. Clinton emphasized a series of federal regulatory actions--including tougher enforcement of
fair lending and community reinvestment laws--meant to prod banks to offer more urban mortgages.
That pressure helped raise homeownership among blacks and Latinos to the highest level ever
recorded.
The younger Bush hasn't fully signaled his attitude toward those regulatory efforts. But he has
proposed a tax credit for developers who build homes in low-income neighborhoods, and aides say
the White House is finalizing additional proposals to encourage more private investment in urban
areas.
That's likely to draw support from at least some Democrats. Many urban Democrats, such as
former HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, also praise Bush for supporting high levels of
immigration--which has provided a vital source of energy and population for cities that had been
losing numbers.
But, echoing a common Democratic complaint, Cisneros argues that these efforts may be
"overshadowed" by the disappearance of the government's budget surplus.
"The future effects of the tax cut could undo a lot of the good of what [he's done] . . . because there
just won't be the resources," he says.
Counters Ronald Utt, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation: "The real
question is whether any of these programs make any difference in the first place."
In recent years, urban issues have attracted relatively little attention--partly because the 1990s
boom improved conditions in most cities, and partly because both parties have been focused
primarily on suburban swing voters.
But the Democratic criticism suggests that another big-city explosion would present this President
Bush with a debate similar to the one his father faced. Though even most critics acknowledge that
the younger Bush has demonstrated more concern about urban problems, they say the tax cut has
enfeebled his ability to respond--leaving him, in effect, with more will than wallet, as his father once
said.
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Bush....mr urban blight |
