Congressman Joe Kennedy - The New Frontier. The Next Generation.

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On November 14 1991 Congressman Joe Kennedy the second granted Black History Magazine an interview dealing with the New Frontier, the next generation. The Congressman was asked about the urban Marshall plan, and how it related to Black Americans and to all Americans. This interview was given prior to redistricting which placed Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and Chelsea in his district. The 1992 riots had not happen yet. The urban crisis had not made the front pages of the America newspapers and television. We asked him how he would deal with the yet unheard crisis confronting Black America. His answers are history:

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MR. SINGLETON.

What is the economic Mashall plan for urban America as it relates to many Blacks who feel locked out of the system?

MR. KENNEDY.

In a country that holds so much hope, to think that there are more Black males under the age of twenty-five in jail, or at least with criminal records, than are in college today, and that you are more likely to hit the age of 40 if you grow up in Bangladesh than if you grow up in Harlem, then obviously there is a crisis taking place. The country needs to come to grips with these issues. I think it is very difficult in today's environment to come up with programs that solely deal with people based on the color of their skin. Because I think that the more we try to ram programs through for Blacks and Hispanics, the more fodder we give to the Right's claim that we're not going to have a race-free society, which essentially allows the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

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Mr. Kennedy

I prefer to link these issues to economic issues and to suggest that what we really have to do is to have a country that provides meaningful opportunity to working people and to the poor...

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So I prefer to link these issues to economic issues and to suggest that we really have have to have a country that provides meaningful opportunities to working people and to the poor. And that we will save money as a nation and as a society by providing real opporunities for people. And that doesn't necessarily mean a continuation of poverty programs that haven't worked. What it really means is providing economic development for our inner cities. If an individual is able to own his own home in Roxbury, the fact is that a house in Roxbury is worth every penny that a house in Brighton is worth. If you look at housing values, rents are as high in Roxbury as they are in any other part of this city.

So the reality is that we keep whole sections of poor people poor by not providing them with the ability to gain assets. Sometimes poor people's groups say to me, If you want to do just an education program, that's a copout for the banks. But I think it's important because I think there are a great number of people out there who have the incomes that could in fact qualify for loans but simply don't understand how the system works. The way that people begin to gain a real economic footing in this country is through the capitalist system.

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"You know...bankers come to my office all the time and say, 'well, listen, the problem is we can't make loans in Roxbury because the housing has no value. We can't make loans because people don't have the incomes.' I mean, you know, the fact is Roxbury is wealthier than Dorchester. If you look at the housing values, rents are as high in Roxbury as they are in any other part of this city."

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I think capitalism works, and we see this in every other nation throughout the world. We end up saying that we are going to export capitalism to Eastern Europe, we're going to export it to China, we're going to export it to the Soviet Union, but there are whole sections of the United States that we don't export it to. That's why I strongly favor economic development enterprise zones, the kinds of opportunities where we don't just maintain the poor in poverty, but we provide real opportunities for people to grow out of poverty. And you do that through education and you do that through the creation of real jobs and the creation of real entrepreneurial activity.

I think that it becomes a real requirement that we provide those opportunities. And that doesn't mean that we don't provide money for Head Start and it doesn't mean that we don't provide money for the WIC Program and it doesn't mean that we don't provide money for the education programs in this country. Those are vitally necessary. What it does mean is that there are whole systems in this country that are developed just to maintain the poor in poverty. I think that liberal Democratic politicians have to challenge themselves to really look at what programs work and which ones don't. And then we have to channel our funding into the efforts that do work.

MR. SINGLETON.

President Kennedy had the New Frontier. That was a time when people came together to change things to make things better because they had dreams and they believed in those dreams more than they did the reality that confronted them. What is the New Frontier for this generation?

MR. KENNEDY.

Right now the New Frontier, the great calling of America, is for jobs, education, and adequate health care. For economic developement of urban America. George Bush's New Frontier is just a pledge to no new taxes. The savings and loans have a problem, they get a trillion dollars from the federal government. The commercial banks have a problem, they received $70 billion last week. The military industrial complex needs a new program, sure, they've got plenty of money for that. But you come down to housing, oh, they're sorry, there's no money available. Education, sorry, there's no money available. You know, you come up with the basic necessities of life for ordinary people and they say there's no money. So ordinary people begin to say, Wait a minute, wait a minute. If you are going to be giving the candy store away here, if the great moral calling in American life is no new taxes, then include me.

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We keep whole sections of poor people poor by not providing them with the ability to gain assets.

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And don't ask me to be the person who sacrifices so that my tax dollars go to all these give-away programs that create a program of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. Let's have the system work on behalf of everyone.

That's where I think there is the need for Democratic politicians to point out just exactly what has gone on in America and to state that before you can put out the call for people to give something back to America, you have to have a foundation of faith where if people give something back to their nation, it's going to mean something.

MR. SINGLETON.

And for corporations, giving back to your nation can also mean creating jobs and encouraging ownership by trading with minority businesses which are also socially responsible to the poor.

MR. KENNEDY.

That's exactly right. We have a deficit at the federal level that is now going to reach $365 billion a year. We have state deficits that are breaking the backs of the state governments. The biggest companies in the country are going bankrupt left, right and center because of the greed and avarice that took place in the 1980's, the selling of junk bonds. You look in the newspaper today and you see corporations that are losing millions, upon millions, upon millions of dollars are which are paying their executives the same millions and millions of dollars that they were when they were profitable. And then all of us, it seems today, are tapped out. Everybody is spending more money than they have coming in. So the reality is that the truth about what has gone on has to be told to the American public.

MR. SINGLETON.

We spend 6 percent on education at the federal level. Do you think we ought to increase that?

MR. KENNEDY.

Well, of course. But before you can say, Let's put more money into housing, let's put more money into education, let's put more money into food programs and the like, you have got to give people some faith that this isn't just all going to waste, that it isn't all going into a deficit that allows the Japanese and the Germans essentially to control us because they buy our debt. And then if you become a debtor nation, you're paying off the creditors and the creditors are all these foreigners.

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Right now the New Frontier, the great calling of America, is for jobs, education, and adequate health care. For economic development of urban America. George Bush's New Frontier is just a pledge to no new taxes.

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So you've got to come up with a very tough analysis on what has gone on and then you have to come up with a plan to fix it. I think we ought to have a balanced budget in this country, and I think we ought to have a balanced budget amendment to get there, because I don't think the Congress will ever do it on its own. I think the Democrats cloak themselves in this robe that says, We are not going to cut any programs. And the Republicans say, No new taxes, and as a result everything gets thrown into the deficit. So I'm saying, Look, we have a deficit this year of $365 billion. Ten years ago this country ran a surplus. Today we are running a $365 billion debt. We run, in one year, close to half what it took 200 years to add up to. So we have to say to ourselves, How are we going to fix this problem?

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My tax dollars go to all these give-away programs that, you know, that basically create a program of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

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In the last ten years we have lowered the taxes for the richest Americans from 70 percent to 28 percent. We've lowered taxes on corporations from 56 percent down to 34 percent. At the same time we doubled the defense budget. So we have to say to ourselves, Wait a minute, if you're going to increase spending and cut everybody's taxes, at some point you have to pay the piper. Now, how are we going to do it? Well, it seems to me that you can ask the rich to pay more. So this idea of no new taxes, I say no. Ask the rich to pay more. You say, Well, what programs are you going to be cutting, Joe? Well, you've got a super collider machine that costs billions and billions and billions of dollars and nobody can tell you what it does.

MR. SINGLETON.

An atom smasher?

MR. KENNEDY.

Yeah, it's an atom smasher. It's going to be built in Texas. You have B-2 bombers, and you have Star Wars systems that any expert is going to tell you won't work. I mean, nobody has got a rocket ship that's going to hit the United States, so you have to ask yourself whether or not it makes sense for us to be acquiring those kinds of systems. And if we spend 6.7 percent of GNP on national defense, why do we need to support the Europeans that spend 3.3 percent? We spend $100 billion or more defending the Europeans, who are only willing to spend half of that to defend themselves. The Japanese limit themselves to 1 percent of GNP on national defense, 1 percent. We spend almost 7 percent. And yet we spent $50 billion to defend the Japanese. At the same time we have to balance the trade deficit of almost $50 billion with them. So that's $100 billion right there.

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I think that we ought to have a balanced budget in the country...Ten years ago this country ran a surplus...So what we have to say to ourselves is look how are we going to fix this problem.

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Now if you wanted, you could ask, Why should I be able to get social security? Is $457 a month really going to make the difference in my life after I reach the age of 65? I hope not. And if I lose all my money and that's the way I end up, sure, then I should be eligible for Social Security. Am I ever going to use the Medicare system? But, you know, I'm eligible for it, and there's a lot of people like me that will use Medicare instead of using their own money. But we've got to come up with tougher answers to these questions. I think that if you can get to those tougher answers and revamp American priorities, then you can come up with a new frontier for the 1990's. But until you get some of those basic building blocks put into place, I think you are talking to yourself, because nobody believes that you are going to do anything.