Mr. RHOADS. That is correct, yes. In the case of the Clear Haven Home we have our Senator RANDOLPH. At the nursing home? Mr. RHOADS. At the nursing home, yes, we have the financing on our part arranged for. Senator RANDOLPH. That project was over Mr. RHOADS. That was $553,000 total. Senator RANDOLPH. Your other project or projects brought more than $1 million in need of Federal funds, is that correct, sir? Mr. RHOADS. That is correct. Senator RANDOLPH. What is the estimated employment that would result from these projects? Mr. RHOADS. The ones that are still pending, sir? Senator RANDOLPH. Yes. Mr. RHOADS. The man-hour employment, onsite employment, I would estimate, of course, as to the county home project, the nursing home, would provide 400 man-months of onsite labor, and it will also mean at least 15 more permanent jobs at the home. The second project Senator RANDOLPH. I think this is important that we also bring out the permanent jobs created by the public works program. Fifteen would be permanent employees? Mr. RHOADS. That is correct, yes. Senator RANDOLPH. Due to the enlargement of your facility to take care of the necessary nursing cases. Mr. RHOADS. I do not have the figures available with me on the hospital, Clearfield Hospital, however. I feel certain that they would possibly be Senator RANDOLPH. What is the cost of the hospital? Mr. RHOADS. The hospital cost was $100,000 total project. I would estimate probably between 700 and 800 man-months on-site employment, and certainly that will increase the permanent employment there also as they have-I believe the figure is about 4 permanent employees for each new bed, and this will provide 47 new beds. Senator RANDOLPH. How many new beds did you say? Mr. RHOADS. Forty-seven new beds at the Clearfield Hospital. Senator RANDOLPH. We believe that our committee records would indicate that would mean one new permanent job per bed. Mr. RHOADS. That could possibly be. I would say that. Senator RANDOLPH. You are speaking here of two projects that would give you a total of some 65 permanent employees in these two projects Mr. RHOADS. That is right. Senator RANDOLPH (continuing). The hospital and the nursing home. Mr. RHOADS. That is right. Mr. WIDNER. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I might interject one word that is crucial here. Mr. Rhoads talked about the need for planning. Back in 1955 the Curtiss-Wright Co. asked for the erection of a research installation, with a swimming pool, a reactor, very elaborate and complex facilities which would employ highly skilled and high-salaried physical scientists. 26-678-64- 4 This very expensive facility was constructed in the State forest near Clearfield, Pa., and then through a combination of unfortunate circumstances, including the cancellation of the defense contract, the facility was abandoned. But what was really crucial here was that once they got these high-priced people into the Curtiss-Wright area they found it very difficult to find the amenities, the shopping facilities, the municipal facilities that these people normally demand in Clearfield and nearby cities. Now we are trying to replace the Curtiss-Wright installation with a very large 50,000-acre tourist development area on the short route from Chicago to New York which is just outside the town, and we recognize we are not going to get high-grade talent to move into this area, not going to get high-grade enterprise to move in, until we deal with crucial problems like hospitals, sewer plants, and water lines, and so this program is really crucial for the new program. Senator RANDOLPH. I am glad you brought that out, for in this instance, as in many, these public works projects have a direct relation to the overall economic viability of a community or an area. Thank you, Mr. Rhoads, and thank you, Mr. Widner. This concludes our first session. We will resume at 2 p.m. (Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the hearing scheduled to reconvene at 2 p.m. this day was subsequently postponed to reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, December 11, 1963.) ACCELERATED PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1963 U.S. SENATE, SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON ACCELERATED PUBLIC WORKS Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:45 a.m., in room 4200, New Senate Office Building, Senator Jennings Randolph (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Randolph, Gruening, Fong, Cooper, and Muskie. Staff members present: Richard B. Royce, Richard E. Gerrish. Senator RANDOLPH. The second hearing of the current series in consideration of S. 1856 and S. 1121, and the general subject matter of accelerated public works, will begin. Due to the rearrangement of the schedule of these hearings, Senator Joseph S. Clark, one of the original and stanchest supporters of the accelerated public works program, was unable to testify yesterday as scheduled. Other obligations prevent his appearance here this morning, and I therefore submit his statement for insertion in the record at this point. (The statement of Senator Clark follows:) STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH S. CLARK, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to testify on Senator McNamara's bill extending the accelerated public works program and authorizing an additional $1,500 million in appropriations. When you and I, Senator Randolph, along with several other Senate colleagues, introduced the original authorizing legislation for this program in 1962, we conceived of it as an essential weapon in the national arsenal to combat unemployment. We never argued that such a program was the sole treatment for joblessness, nor did we argue that it would cure the problem of the distressed areas overnight. We did agree with President Kennedy, however, when he said that such a program would "provide immediate useful work for the unemployed and underemployed, and would help * * * hardpressed communities, through improvement of their public facilities, to become better places in which to live and work." So we introduced the necessary legislation. Since both of us come from States which, buffeted by the winds of technological change, are victims of that endemic disease, chronic and persistent unemployment, we both are all too well aware of how serious the unemployment challenge in America really is. Almost daily for over 6 months in the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, the two of us have been listening to testimony on this pernicious problem. We both know that it is a very complicated business; that it cannot be solved with one simple panacea. The testimony before the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower has painted an ominous picture of the road ahead. A dramatic increase in the size of the labor force as a result of the flood of youngsters now coming on, coupled with increasing technological displacement is going to make it difficult, indeed, to bring unemployment down to even acceptable levels. I must say that weekend reports indicating an increase of 500,000 in the number of Americans without jobs last month is disconcerting. Let us hope that it is just a statistical freak rather than an indication of a new trend. But it is certainly my view-and probably yours, too-that the sickness of joblessness, whether of the temporary "cyclical" variety which occurs throughout the country, or the virulent, endemic kind to be found in our distressed areas, cannot be cured unless the economy of the Nation as a whole is expanding at a healthy rate. For this reason I support-and will continue to support-fiscal and monetary measures, such as the President's proposed tax cut, designed to stimulate overall consumer demand thereby encouraging business and industry to expand plant and output which, of course, means more jobs. But I am just as convinced that we cannot put all our eggs in one basket. The tax cut is a treatment to which the general economy should respond well, but it will not get at the disease which infects our distressed areas and these areas harbor a very large share of our national unemployment. My own state of Pennsylvania, for example, accounts for 10 percent of all those without work in the country. Let us be frank. A tax cut by itself will not be enough to cure the economic deficiencies of many communities in these areas. Most of them are industrial and mining towns which grew up in the 19th century with inadequate regard for the basic community facilities and amenities necessary to support more than one industry. When their major industry-whether it was coal, railroads, textiles, or steel-was hit by technological change, their limited community assets were incapable of attracting new enterprise to take its place. No amount of advertising and ballyhoo; no amount of industrial financing is going to cure that problem. It is going to take concerted public investment in basic community facilities to put such towns back on their feet. And that will take money. Unfortunately, because of their depressed economies, these communities have very little capital of their own. They must, of necessity, look beyond their own resources. The State capitals can help them but slightly, for they too, are up against a fiscal blank wall. It The accelerated public works program helps get at this difficulty. provides three important benefits: First, it provides immediate employment; secondly, it makes the funds available to do a job which is not getting done because of the lack of local funds; and, thirdly, it gets at the roots of economic distress by helping to build the physical facilities necessary to support new enterprise. After a year of operation, some of our hopes and expectations for the program have been vindicated, particularly in my own State. Pennsylvania, with a comparatively long experience in the industrial development field, was geared up to take advantage of the first accelerated public works allocations when they became available. As a result we are the only State to have used up nearly all of the maximum allowable allocation available to us under the law; an allocation limited to 10 percent of the total funds authorized for the program. To date our Commonwealth has had $70,310,000 in grants under the program approved, the highest of any State. Pennsylvania was consequently able to establish one of the best records among the States in the amount of employment generated. The projects approved under the program up to November 5 will make possible an estimated 101,724 man-months of employment. The way in which this money has been spent is of important consequence. Nearly one-third has gone for water and sewer facilities. A little more than one-fourth has gone to hospitals. The remainder has gone for public buildings, roads, recreation, and conservation. This is clearly not "pork." It is urgently needed community investment which would have, of necessity, been long delayed if this program had not been established. May I request that at this point in the record a table be printed showing how Pennsylvania's accelerated public works grants have been spent? Approved projects-Status of APW program, Pennsylvania, as of Nov. 20, 1963 But more important, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that there is still a backlog of projects in Pennsylvania at least as large as the number already approved. And this is a backlog here in Washington of approvable projects. No one can say how many urgent projects there are back in the State for which applications have yet to be submitted. There are, in the Office of the Administrator, at this moment-from Pennsylvania alone-approvable applications from 26 hospitals, 23 communities needing waste-treatment facilities, and a staggering 286 community facilities projects of one kind or another, a backlog which totals $74,145,000. There are those among us who look at the economic indicators and see the economy on the rise; who view with some skepticism a tax cut in the face of what, to them, is a horror of horrors: a budget deficit; and who refuse to consider any new appropriations in the interest of "economy." Now it is true that the economy has been behaving quite well for the last 34 months. We are living through one of the longest-lived business recoveries since the end of World War I. But what has it done to unemployment? We have yet to drop below 52 percent. And we have been stuck at that level of stagnation since the end of the Korean war. The problem will not be solved by leaving it to itself. It will not be solved by a tax cut alone, either. It can be solved only by intelligent application of the correct remedies in all the various infected parts of the economy's anatomy. And this will cost money. I agree with the President, when he remarked last Sunday that "we waste as much by not doing anything as we do by doing too much." In my judgment, we are doing too little to restore the country to full employment. Next year, 1964, must be the year that we take on this task. With each day that passes unemployment saps our strength and our vitality. We cannot sacrifice our health on some false economy which, in the long run, will destroy us. That is why I believe a wise expenditure policy which directs urgently needed funds into areas of unmet need is just as vital as any other economic remedy available to the Federal Government. And, certainly, accelerated public works have a major part in such a policy. Senator RANDOLPH. We are privileged this morning to have as our initial witness, Representative Lionel Van Deerlin, of the State of California. You may proceed either to present your statement as read, and insert it in the record, making such comments as you desire, Representative Van Deerlin, or however you wish. |