Bill Aimed At Ending Poverty In Appalachia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30724, 13 April 1965, Page 13

Bill Aimed At Ending Poverty In Appalachia

[From

FRANK OLIVER.

N.Z.P A. Special Correspondent]

WASHINGTON. The Appalachia Bill, the first major piece of “great society” legislation, passed with suprising ease. It is an interesting piece of legislation. The main thing it demonstrates is that there are a number of ways to make deficit spending or pumppriming look like a charitable affair that cannot in human feeling be denied. “Pump-priming” in the 1930’s became one of the dirtiest of dirty words. Today there is scarely a critical word over the fact that Mr Johnson proposes to spend over a billion dollars for pump-priming in Appalachia. Political pundits are wondering why last year the bill passed the Senate and failed miserably in the House. This year the Senate passed it again and now the House has confirmed the senate's judgment by 257 to 165. This is partly a result of the new membership of the house, which is more liberal. But what is interesting .is that the passage of the bill has evoked so little criticism outside Congress. There was no real outcry from business and the conservatives were relatively quiet. Pump-priming, provided it is done the right way, seems to be as right in the mid-1960s as it was wrong in the 19305. One reason seems to be that it is not on a national scale. It applies to a relatively small area of the country where chronic unemployment and economic depression have reduced millions to abject poverty.

Republicans in the House undermined their own opposition by basing their case in two irreconcilable positions. They wanted the bill applied to other areas of the country and then they wanted it rejected altogether. They never had a chance and some Government pump-priming may

now bring a measure of prosperity to the most depressed area in a prosperous nation. It was while campaigning in 1960 that Mr Kennedy became . distressed by conditions he found in Appalachia. He produced the so-called Appalachia Bill in 1961 and ' it is essentially his bill that has just become law. Mr Johnson backed it as strongly as did his predecessor. It authorises a five-year programme of aid to 360 counties in 12 states, extending from southern New York to northern Alabama, by providing jobs and better incomes for more than 15 million people scattered over an area of 165,000 square miles. Their average income is no more than 1400 dollars a year. In this prosperous nation persons earning 3000 dollars are

officialy considered to be in poverty. The decline in the coal industry seems to have been the biggest factor in sending Appalachia towards poverty and the lack of highways into the mountainous area prevented industry looking on the area with any favour. A great deal of the expenditure will be on modern highways, not only to attract industry but to open up the glorious hill country to both recreation and tourism. Better communications are also expected to help farmers in the area to get their products to market. If the scheme is successful the administration will have set a precedent and a model for helping other poverty areas. The nation can afford it.