Editing 79-02-A5 (section)

=== Transcript ===
In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty . The
federal programs that emerged from President Johnson's declaration have
been in business for thirteen years. In that time, the war on poverty
looks as if it has turned into a war on the poor. Anyone who doubts that
should read two recently published critiques of the major federal anti-poverty
programs. The first was published in December in the Reader's
Digest. It is titled, "Wake Up to the 'Nightmare' at CSA!".

CSA stands for the Community Services Administration, the federal
agency that is primarily responsible for the anti-poverty programs .
Reader's Digest investigated CSA and found -- QUOTE -- "an ugly trail of
mismanagement, corruption, waste and misconduct... tens of millions of
dollars earmarked for the needy have been stolen or frittered away... "
-- UNQUOTE. The article documents this claim. Here is my favorite example
of blatant abuse of our tax dollars. The head of one Community Action
Agency "drives a Mercedes-Benz which costs his group (and us) $5940 a
year to lease."

With friends like this, the poor don't need enemies. But I want to
concentrate today not on the Reader's Digest article, which you can read
for yourself, but on a document you probably will never get a chance to
read. It is the Conclusions and Summary of a report by the Investigative
Staff on the House Appropriations Committee of the ACTION agency, the
federal anti-poverty agency that includes VISTA volunteers. VISTA stands
for "Volunteers in Service to America". That report is devastating in its
documentation of the mismanagement and abuse in ACTION under the direction
of Sam Brown, a Carter appointee. Representative Bob Michel bf Illinois,
the Republican deputy leader in the House, asked the Committee to hold
such an investigation after receiving numerous allegations of misconduct
and irregularities at ACTION.

Now let me remind you that the Appropriations Committee is under
the leadership of the Democrats, as is every other House Committee. So,
although a Republican asked for the investigation, it is not, and cannot
possibly be, a political hatchet job. Let's look at the frightening and
open waste and mismanagement uncovered by the report:

--Under Brown, political appointees have tripled in number from 11
to 33. It would seem that anti-poverty is good business for political
hacks in the Carter Administration. -- Sam Brown has hired so many socalled
"experts" that the investigators state that Brown "has not observed
Civil Service Commission rules for hiring of experts." One such expert
just happened to be a former aide to the Governor of Colorado, a political
crony of Sam Brown. This "expert" had exactly four years total working
experience before he suddenly became an expert -- at $100 of tax money
per day. The report states: "Nothing in his background remotely suggests
that he had the credentials for the jobs he supposedly performed for
ACTION." But he was and is a friend of Sam Brown. Brown's attempt to
reorganize the agency, which he announced with fanfare, was called by the
investigators "largely an empty gesture". That gesture cost us almost
$150,000. But hold on. I've saved the best -- or is it the worst? --
for last. Next time I'll be telling you the incredible story of Sam
Brown, ACTION, and something called the National Grants program. Hold
on to your wallet!

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
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