Poverty Bill's Progress

Between a bloodletting by its foes and a force-feeding from its friends, the Administration's poverty program was in danger of total renovation on the Senate floor last week. The pro gram's critics sought to dismember Sar gent Shriver's Office of Economic Opportunity; its champions strove to heap half again as much largesse on the OEO as the White House had requested or wanted in a year of planned retrenchment. In the end, after an elaborate series of votes and floor maneuvers, the Senate passed a slightly enlarged version of Lyndon Johnson's poverty bill by a vote of 60 to 21.

As it turned out, the liberals' effort to add a $2.8 billion, two-year emergency job scheme was a boon for the Administration. Their attempt, promoted by Pennsylvania Democrat Joseph Clark and New York Republican Ja cob Javits, consumed so much of the Senate's time and attention that mo tions to deprive OEO of its major func tions were virtually brushed aside. Then a coalition of Republicans and South ern and small-state Democrats buried the Clark-Javits proposal, 54 to 28. Ver mont Republican Winston Prouty tried for a compromise figure of $925 mil lion for one year only, which elicited wider support -- but not wide enough.

It lost, 47 to 42.

The bill that emerged left the OEO structurally unscathed and authorized $2,258,000,000 for the current fiscal year, which was still $198 million more than Johnson had requested. The addi tional funds were earmarked for a variety of purposes including day-care centers to allow mothers receiving welfare to work, health and family-planning services and further efforts to promote small business and job training in slums.

House members are lining up a far fiercer gantlet for the bill than the Senate presented. Many House members, who are in a cost-cutting mood, want to reorganize OEO into oblivion; there is also a widespread conviction that poverty funds should be pared. And, unlike their Senate colleagues, the House critics complement rather than offset one another. When the authorization bill runs its House test, the President is more likely to be fighting for enough money than fighting off too much.

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