Gore defends urban agenda.

I read with interest, in the June 1994 issue of Black Enterprise, your distinguished panel's evaluation of our empowerment zones/enterprise communities (EZ/EC) program, our efforts to reform the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and our promotion of community development (CD) banks, all of which

the panel cites as being the "key components" of the Clinton urban economic policy. (See BE Board of Economists Report, "Can Clinton's Urban Policies Really Work?" June 1994.) While these initiatives are indeed vital parts of our policy, the panel perhaps failed to appreciate our more broadly gauged strategy to ensure that no American is invisible when the U.S. economy is calculated."

Without question, African-Americans living in urban areas suffer disproportionately from poor education, unemployment and low wages. Despite the expenditure by the federal government of billions of dollars, too many African-Americans have been kept from sharing in the American dream. This administration has applied the lessons of the past to develop a new approach to remedy what ails urban America. Our strategy recognizes that: (1) the best answers to rebuilding America's central cities lie within the communities themselves; (2) federal money alone will not cure the problems of America's distressed urban areas; and (3) the federal government must more effectively coordinate its various programs and resources.

Moreover, our strategy recognizes the multifaceted, interrelated aspects of urban life, human development and racial discrimination. Our approach therefore encompasses a number of different initiatives - not simply the EZ/EC initiative, the CRA reform and the expansion of CD banks, the three programs that were critiqued by the BE panel.

Our urban strategy includes, for example, a number of efforts that will increase urban communities' access to capital. We have developed an initiative that will target the Community Development Block Grant funds to distressed communities in order to leverage private investment in commercial projects in those areas. In addition, we have joined the National Community Development Initiative, which this year will channel million in federal and private funds to community development corporations in 23 cities, and will leverage another $662.35 million from state and local governments, foundations and banks and other corporations.

Our approach also recognizes the importance of preparing our young to be a part of the American dream. We have fully funded the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children and the Childhood Immunization Initiative so that all of America's children can get a vigorous, healthy start in life. And, to ensure that our children can begin school ready to learn, we expanded the Head Start program. We also have targeted Title I educational funds to the neediest schools so that all of our schools will have the resources to meet the standards set in the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Our National Service Program will make college more accessible to America's young people by engaging their energy, talents and skills in the revitalization of America's communities. We also have crafted a national plan to help young people who are not college bound prepare for good jobs - the School-to-Work Opportunities Act.

Our urban strategy also addresses the housing problems faced by many of our central cities. Our administration has doubled homeless assistance and has adopted a "continuum of care" approach to homelessness, which will move homeless families and individuals from the transiency of the streets and emergency shelters into stable, permanent and safe housing.

Finally, we increased the Earned Income Tax Credit to ensure that no American family of four or less with a full-time worker in the home will live below the poverty line. Now, America's unemployed will have a greater incentive to work, and low-income taxpayers will receive larger direct payments to help with basic living expenses. We will enable this nation, the richest on earth, to eradicate the term, the working poor."

In short, we have a coherent, comprehensive and powerful urban economic strategy. It includes - but is not limited to - the three initiatives discussed by the BE panel, about which, needless to say, the President and I are quite excited. When viewed in its entirety, we are confident that our urban economic strategy will bring into the spotlight many Americans who have been invisible for too long.