When Lyndon Johnson launched his War On
Poverty in 1964, he gave the Office of Economic Opportunity command of
ten campaigns* to rescue the nation from want. Almost from the start,
however, the antipoverty warriors have been fighting a losing battle on
Capitol Hill. By now, a large segment of the Congress seems determined
to divest the OEO of its generalship.Whatever praise OEO receives, its defeats—admittedly not
infrequent—reap salvos of abuse. Stung by growing senatorial
criticism, the agency last week issued an upbeat report claiming that
nearly 3,000,000 Americans—1,000,000 of them nonwhite—climbed out of
poverty in 1967. In the War on Poverty's first three years, said the
report, “1,700,000 whites and more than 700,000 nonwhites a year
crossed the threshold compared with an average of 840,000 whites and
80,000 nonwhites each year in 1959-64.” The statistics, while
impressive, may prove porous armor for OEO against its opponents once
Congress reconvenes.Senate foes want to transfer the agency's most lauded program, Head
Start, to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. HEW, which
opposes such precipitous transfers, may also get VISTA, the Community
Action Program's Upward Bound, and neighborhood health centers. Legal
services may go to the Justice Department, which does not want them.
The Senate also may give the Job Corps to the Labor Department.Pinched Budget. Head Start administrators see their problem in the fact
that under HEW the individual states would control the program and
possibly curtail its scope. Traditional support for state control is
one reason for the longstanding Republican opposition to OEO. When Head
Start proved to be not only a resounding success but also a catalyst
for integration, Southern Democrats joined the opposition. Now OEO
fears that segregationists would deliberately downgrade the program in
the South.The House of Representatives may thwart the Senate plan. Kentucky
Congressman Carl Perkins says that OEO's future will be determined “by
its good works between now and next year.” Fearing the worst, OEO
personnel are leaving the agency at record rates. Sargent Shriver's
successor, Bertrand M. Harding, has adopted a conciliatory tone toward
Congress but has thus far failed to placate his foes. Next year's
budget is even more pinched than the outlays that Shriver fought to
increase. Yet even OEO's future is not the key issue The agency's
original mandate, after all, was to create programs that could some day
be turned over to old-line Government bureaus. The underlying problem
actually is not who runs the poverty programs but how effectively they
are run. *The Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Work-Study Program,
Adult Basic Education, Rural Loan Program, Migrant Worker Assistance,
Employment and Investment Incentives, Work Experience Program,
Volunteers in Service to America and the Community Action
Program, which set up Head Start, Upward Bound, Legal Services and
Health Service Centers.
