Senate Journal: Page 1418: Tuesday, April 25, 1995

         Number two, a total block grant relieves the state of any
    responsibility to put up the match that is now required for you to
    participate in the program. Now you may say, well, we would do that
    anyway.  We have a tradition in Iowa of taking care of our own.   But
    what if you lived in a state with a booming population growth, with
    wildly competing demands for dollars?  And what about when the next
    recession comes?  Keep in mind, were making all these decisions today in
    the second year in which every state economy is growing.   That has not
    hapened in a  very long time.

         Will that really be fair?  How do you know that there wont be
    insurmountable pressure in some states just to say, well, we cant take
    care of these childen anymore; weve got to give the money to our school
    teachers; weve got to give the money to our road program; weve got to
    give the money to economic development; weve got environmental problems.
    So I ask you to think about those things. We can find a way to let you
    control the welfare system and move people from welfare to work, but
    there are two substantive problems with the block grant program that I
    want to see overcome before I sign off on it, because there is a
    national responsibility to care for the children of the country, to make
    sure a minimal standard of care is given. Thank you.

         In the crime bill, there is a proposal to take what we did last
    time, which was to divide the money between police, prisons and
    prevention, and basically give you a block grant in prevention, and
    instead create two separate block grants, one for prisons and one for
    police and prevention, in which you would reduce the amount of money for
    police and prevention and increase the amount of money for prisons, but
    you could only get it if you decided -- a mandate, but a fund one -- if
    you decided to make all people who committed serious crimes serve 85
    percent of their sentences.

         So Washington is telling you how you have to sentence people but
    offering you money to build prisons.  The practical impact means that a
    lot of that money wont be taken care of, and we will reduce the amount
    of money were spending for police and for prevention programs.  I think
    thats a mistake.

         Im more than happy for you to have block grants for prevention
    programs. You know more about what keeps kids out of jail and off the
    streets and from committing crime in Des Moines or Cedar Rapids or Ames
    or anyplace else than I would ever know.  But we do know that the
    violent crime rate has tripled in the last 30 years, and the number of
    police on our street has only gone up by 10 percent.  And we know there
    is city, after city, after city in America where the crime rate has gone
    down a lot, a lot when police have been put on the street in community
    policing roles.

         So I say, lets keep the 100,000 police program.  It is totally
    nonbureaucratic.  Small towns in Iowa can get it by filling out a
    one-page, eight-question form.  There is no hassle.  And we should do
    this because we know it works.  There is a national interest in safer
    streets, and its all paid for by reducing the federal bureaucracy.  So
    my view is, keep the 100,000 police, the states flexibility on
    prevention.  And I hope that you will agree with that.

Iowa General Assembly

Index: Senate Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1995 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? sjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

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