Local government officials vowed yesterday to mount a vigorous fight in Congress against the Bush administration's plan to eliminate the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant program and replace it and 17 other federal development programs with a $3.7 billion Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program.
Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley called CDBG "one of the most effective programs to expand opportunity in our urban cores," and likened President Bush's call for its abolition to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Back on Sept. 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores in two of our great cities and they did that because they knew that that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most," O'Malley said. "Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our commander in chief, the president of the United States, and with a budget axe, he is attacking America's cities, he is attacking our metropolitan core."
O'Malley also said the administration's argument that the nation cannot afford the program because it is fighting a war overseas is "a lie." The program is being sacrificed because Bush wants to preserve his "tax cuts for the wealthy," the mayor said.
The plan "weakens America's cities" and is "a betrayal of the basic equation of what it means to be an American," O'Malley said at a press conference sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties.
The proposed program, included in Bush's proposed fiscal 2006 budget released Monday, would replace programs in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and three other departments and would be administered by an as-yet-unnamed agency that would reside in the Commerce Department.
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans hailed the plan last week as a "bold strategy" that would help strengthen the economy and communities, and put "decisions back in the hands of local officials" by curbing federal red tape. CDBG funds can be leveraged in municipal bond transactions.
Other elected officials -- who complain the Bush administration did not confer with them in advance regarding the proposal -- blasted the plan yesterday at the media briefing and promised to press Congress to reject it.
Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joe Riley said the proposal "severs a covenant" and "breaks a promise" with poor Americans. The idea of putting the business-oriented Commerce Department in charge of the program is "very disturbing," Riley said.
Don Plusquellic, president of the Conference of Mayors and mayor of Akron, Ohio, said killing CDBG would have a "devastating impact" on communities and pledged to "fight this to the bitter end."
District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams said CDBG is an "economic laser" and is "one of the finest tools" available for economic and community development. Williams is also president of the NLC.
James Garner, mayor of Hempstead, N.Y., said eliminating CDBG was "totally unacceptable."
Montgomery County, Md., Executive Douglas Duncan cited CDBG's long pedigree. "Thirty years of helping people succeed should not be dismantled overnight," he said.
Representatives from two business groups also expressed opposition to the proposal, which they said would hurt economic and community development efforts.
Roger Platt, senior vice president and counsel to the Real Estate Roundtable, said CDBG provides a "big bang for the buck." By leveraging private dollars, the program has helped bolster local property tax bases across the nation, Platt said.
Roger Gerst, state alliance co-chair for Maryland for the International Council of Shopping Centers, said CDBG should be preserved because it helps maintain the vitality of urban cores.
Affordable housing advocacy groups, including the National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies, the National Council of State Housing Agencies, and National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, also oppose the proposal.
The plan has so far received a cool reception on Capitol Hill. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's panel on housing and urban development, denounced the proposal yesterday, which he said would wipe out "HUD's flagship program for funding urban and economic development activities."
"Not only is HUD being neutered as a significant partner to state and localities in terms of economic and urban development projects, but the proposed new block grant in Commerce is yet to be enacted and likely will be a low priority in that agency," Bond said. The administration has pledged to put legislation aimed at implementing the proposed Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program before Congress in the summer.
