79-02-A5

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Anti-Poverty Abuses I

Transcript In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty . The federal programs that emerged from President Johnson's declaration have been in business for thirteen years. In that time, the war on poverty looks as if it has turned into a war on the poor. Anyone who doubts that should read two recently published critiques of the major federal anti-poverty programs. The first was published in December in the Reader's Digest. It is titled, "Wake Up to the 'Nightmare' at CSA!". CSA stands for the Community Services Administration, the federal agency that is primarily responsible for the anti-poverty programs . Reader's Digest investigated CSA and found -- QUOTE -- "an ugly trail of mismanagement, corruption, waste and misconduct... tens of millions of dollars earmarked for the needy have been stolen or frittered away... " -- UNQUOTE. The article documents this claim. Here is my favorite example of blatant abuse of our tax dollars. The head of one Community Action Agency "drives a Mercedes-Benz which costs his group (and us) $5940 a year to lease." With friends like this, the poor don't need enemies. But I want to concentrate today not on the Reader's Digest article, which you can read for yourself, but on a document you probably will never get a chance to read. It is the Conclusions and Summary of a report by the Investigative Staff on the House Appropriations Committee of the ACTION agency, the federal anti-poverty agency that includes VISTA volunteers. VISTA stands for "Volunteers in Service to America". That report is devastating in its documentation of the mismanagement and abuse in ACTION under the direction of Sam Brown, a Carter appointee. Representative Bob Michel bf Illinois, the Republican deputy leader in the House, asked the Committee to hold such an investigation after receiving numerous allegations of misconduct and irregularities at ACTION. Now let me remind you that the Appropriations Committee is under the leadership of the Democrats, as is every other House Committee. So, although a Republican asked for the investigation, it is not, and cannot possibly be, a political hatchet job. Let's look at the frightening and open waste and mismanagement uncovered by the report: --Under Brown, political appointees have tripled in number from 11 to 33. It would seem that anti-poverty is good business for political hacks in the Carter Administration. -- Sam Brown has hired so many socalled "experts" that the investigators state that Brown "has not observed Civil Service Commission rules for hiring of experts." One such expert just happened to be a former aide to the Governor of Colorado, a political crony of Sam Brown. This "expert" had exactly four years total working experience before he suddenly became an expert -- at $100 of tax money per day. The report states: "Nothing in his background remotely suggests that he had the credentials for the jobs he supposedly performed for ACTION." But he was and is a friend of Sam Brown. Brown's attempt to reorganize the agency, which he announced with fanfare, was called by the investigators "largely an empty gesture". That gesture cost us almost $150,000. But hold on. I've saved the best -- or is it the worst? -- for last. Next time I'll be telling you the incredible story of Sam Brown, ACTION, and something called the National Grants program. Hold on to your wallet! This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 79-02-A5 Production Date 01/19/1979 Book/Page Online PDF Audio Youtube? No
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