If we say that these assets are unimportant-and that's the message when the Federal Government abandons cities-then we might as well say that keeping our powder dry is unimportant.

I said I didn't come here to bury the State of the Union Message. Neither did I come here to announce the death of cities.

We in our city are making progress. We're about to open a new baseball stadium in the spring, a light-rail system is coming. So is the Christopher Columbus Center for Marine Research and Exploration.

Nevertheless, other cities and Baltimore are facing an emergency. But it's an emergency that is well within our ability to resolve. Keep in mind that people in the cities are not asking the President or the Congress to step into the shoes of local government to bail out cities. We're asking that all of our national leaders work with the cities to achieve the goals that the President himself has articulated-less crime, community empowerment, individual_responsibility, good schools, families staying together, the end of neighborhood blight.

Achieving these goals will not require new bureaucracies. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. All you need to do is to grease the wheel.

Let me give you an example: One aspect of that this committee I know is very proud of-and we've worked with them to achieve-is the NEHEMIAH program.

Everything the President said about Head Start could be said about NEHEMIAH. This is a program that works.

We have three separate NEHEMIAH projects in Baltimore. The largest one is for 300 new homes for very low-income or moderateincome families. It has a total cost of $26 million, of which, $42 million is Federal money.

NEHEMIAH isn't some lumbering Government program sitting on the backs of people who wish it would go away. It's a partnership that people want because it's successful.

This committee should be proud of NEHEMIAH, not because I say so, but because it's profoundly improved the lives of hundreds of people in our city.

Talk to the people who are moving into the NEHEMIAH homes and they'll tell you, Mr. Chairman, they will tell you how NEHEMIAH has improved and dignified their lives.

I bring up our experience with NEHEMIAH to emphasize that there are already models of good programs, but they need to be expanded.

Imagine, for example, the impact of a direct, immediate stimulus package, direct aid to the cities that would allow us to build or renovate thousands of homes per city for low-income people, rather than the hundreds that we've built at the current level of funding. Mr. Chairman, what cities need most are not new forms of programs, they need specific and targeted funds that put people to work, to provide economic security, build homes, empower neighborhoods, fight crime, enhance self-worth, and instill confidence in Government by showing people that Government cares. These should be bipartisan goals.

So I urge you to support the best of what President Bush said Tuesday night, but certainly don't stop there. Forge ahead with a

recovery and growth package along the lines proposed by the Conference of Mayors and by Senators Sarbanes and Sasser.

That is the best prescription for the problems that America's urban communities now face.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for inviting me here today. As you continue these hearings, I hope that you and other national leaders will remember that cities are still the cultural and intellectual centers of our Nation.

Keep them healthy and you'll keep the state of the union healthy.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Schmoke. I appreciate the time and thought that goes into such a carefully prepared and delivered statement as you've just given us, and it's very helpful to us to have it.

Mayor Ganim, we'd like to hear from you now, please.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH GANIM, MAYOR, BRIDGEPORT, CT Mr. GANIM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Senate Banking Committee, staff persons and representatives of the media.

I was elected mayor of Bridgeport in November, about 10 weeks ago. I want to thank you first for inviting me here to testify on behalf of my city, Bridgeport, CT, and similar cities all across the country.

Mr. Chairman, American cities are in crisis. They're not just sick, they're dying. A decade of neglect has resulted in the deep distress and the accumulation of persistent problems which can no longer be solved at the local level.

The responsibility for providing social services to the beleaguered underclass living in urban centers has been delegated down by the Federal Government. The resulting financial burden falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the cities, and tragically, coincides with the aging of municipal infrastructure and the weakening of urban tax bases.

This shift in the major support of social programs has enormous historic significance.

In the past disastrous decade, the Federal Government abandoned fiscal support and traditional domestic programs. And the States were compelled to step in and assume a greater role.

In short order, the States were sapped of their ability to fund social programs and follow the Federal Government's lead in curtailing funding.

A relentless delegation of the responsibility for providing social services from the Federal Government to the State government to the cities has left American cities with no place to turn.

Ironically, the magnitude of many social programs, such as education, welfare, transportation, have been mandated by Federal and State legislation without funding provisions, thereby binding cities to financial burdens they simply cannot carry.

The present national economic situation, the result of the longest decline since the Great Depression, has severely exacerbated problems concerning the delivery of social services. More people are out

of work. More people are unable to make ends meet. More children are hungry. And more needs to be filled with less and less money. Aging infrastructure-roads, sidewalks, sewers, schools-need improvement. But the money is not in municipal coffers.

Basic municipal services have been drastically curtailed. Decimated police forces face mounting crime and drug problems. Senior centers have been closed. Youth programs gutted, library branches shut down, parks overgrown.

Mr. Chairman, we've cut and we've cut-we've cut through the flesh and we're well into the bone.

I listened to the President's State of the Union Message Tuesday night. As mayor of Bridgeport, the largest city in the State of Connecticut, I wondered when the Nation's urban centers had dropped out of the Union.

Although he urged passage of his crime bill and lamented the prevalence of drug problems and crime on the streets, President Bush took no note of the specific plight of the cities. Remarkably, there were no suggestions for revitalizing them, for fostering their economic development.

Cities, we would like to point out to President Bush, are not entities. They are the stages where the results of national economic and social policies, or the lack of such policies, are played out. Cities are where we have to face our failures as a civilized nation.

"The freest nation on earth, the kindest nation on earth," has not "risen to the occasion" of helping its urban centers, to use some of the President's rhetoric.

President Bush's attitude confirms the findings of a recent survey, and that is that the Federal Government has lost touch with the cities. Responses from Federal legislators displayed an overwhelming ignorance of the urban issues and how we might solve them.

Mr. Chairman, in the next few days, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut will announce a bill to authorize grants to help immediate and critical problems of urban areas.

Speaking for Bridgeport and other Connecticut cities of New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury, New London, and Norwich, all of which would be eligible, I seek support for Senator Dodd's bill and I'm certain that every urban mayor in the United States joins me in seeking support for this bill.

Senators, I commend your committee for considering the particular needs of urban communities and their residents as you designate and design an approach to put the economy back on track. We are counting on you to keep urban issues from falling off the national agenda.

Allow me to explain how urban issues impact the city of Bridgeport.

First, let me point out, though, that Bridgeport is a distressed city. But it's a distressed city not without realistic hope for a slow but very definite turnaround.

In fact, business, civic, and municipal leaders have developed a plan to pull this fine city out of the decline caused by the demise of a once thriving manufacturing sector.

Bridgeport, Connecticut is a great city that impacts the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Fairfield County. We have

beautiful parks, museums, a seaport, the State's only zoo, the largest deep water port between New York and Boston.

Looking to the future, Bridgeport, a well developed transportation hub, with its harbor on Long Island Sound, with a foreign trade zone and is the headquarters of the Connecticut World Trade Association.

Our city is perfectly suited to becoming an import-export center and a feeder harbor for the Port of New York.

And this is our plan.

All we need is money for development. Other cities, I'm sure, have plans to develop their ways to economic health. I urge you to propose the appropriation of at least part of the $50 billion peace dividend noted by the President in his address for municipal economic development.

Broadening municipal tax bases through prudent economic development will curb the flight of middle-class and resultant decline of our cities. Such weakened cities will only become, as they are now, a continued drain on State and Federal funds.

Cities need Federal and State legislation prohibiting passage of mandates which are not sufficiently funded. And cities do need welfare reform, as suggested by the President. But they cannot and should not be expected to bear costs associated with welfare and other social programs. These must be assumed by the Federal Government.

It is time to accept the fact that cities do not create homelessness and poverty. The demise of rising expectations, hopelessness, and incapacitation by drugs, alcohol, AIDS and illiteracy are not the fault of the cities.

These problems are pandemic to our Nation.

The causes are deep and serious, involving a national economic recession and the breakdown of the American family and other socializing institutions.

We all own these problems. Every citizen of the United States must share in the shame and the burden. We must also share in seeking the solutions.

The free flow of drugs, the availability of assault weapons, are not the fault of the cities, whose police have to deal with murders, muggings, robberies of epidemic proportions. And in Bridgeport's case, the department staffing is at its lowest levels in modern history, the size inversely related to the need.

Of course, we could use grant money to increase law enforcement, but another creative avenue is available to us and could be stimulated and replicated if supported by Federal funding.

We are speaking of the regionalization of many aspects of crime fighting and drug prevention. The burglars, the muggers, and the car thieves, and even the murderers, don't bother to stay inside city borders.

Bridgeport and its immediate suburbs have had spectacular success with a Regional Auto Theft Task Force. And we look forward to a full information sharing network. Such programs will save money in the long run and improve police effectiveness. But seed money is needed.

We need Federal legislation banning all assault weapons and requiring licensing and testing procedures for all other weapons.

It is a perversion of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to protect ownership of weapons designed solely for the effective killing of human beings. Statistics show that more than 12,000 people were slaughtered by gunshot in 1990. At this rate, by the year 2000, homicide by gun will exceed battle casualties for the entire Vietnam War.

Between 1986 and 1988, gunshot wounds among urban children rose 300 percent.

Senators, isn't it time to give our children the right to walk to school and play in the neighborhoods without being shot to death? We urge you also to design more effective drug traffic prevention legislation. That a Nation that could mount a successful war 6000 miles away cannot protect its borders against the incursion of drugs is incomprehensible.

Historically, cities have been the centers of culture and learning in a civilized society. Cities are the throbbing hearts of regions.

Take the case of Bridgeport. For the region, it provides: four hospitals; three courthouses; a jail; Government offices; most of the senior living facilities; most of the low- and moderate-income housing; a railway station; an airport; a waste treatment plant serving adjacent suburbs; bridges and highways which are regional facilities; and a garbage-to-energy plant serving 20 towns.

Our surrounding suburbs, which are among the Nation's richest, also rely on Bridgeport to supply the lion's share of the region's social services. They have effectively exempted themselves from social problems through exclusionary zoning and high land costs. We're not interested in suburb-bashing, but we feel it's time to compensate cities such as Bridgeport for being the providers of services and facilities used by a region.

The cities are more hospitable to the less fortunate. And Bridgeport, at least, does not ask that the poor and the homeless be relocated to suburbia. We will care for those who come to us, but the cost must be shared.

Federal, not State and local, revenues are the means for suburbs and rural areas to share equitably in the cost of social services and facilities which are provided by cities.

Senators, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the greatest challenge in 1992 for this country's future will not be fought abroad, but right here at home in the cities of America.

We ask for your help in revitalizing our cities, to help us serve our citizens' needs. Cities, and mayors of those cities, are on the front lines, dealing with America's problems.

Cities desperately need some revenue reinforcements and we ask for your help, to bring all the Bridgeports across the 48 states back into the union.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Let me say that we've been joined by Senator Dixon, Senator Sasser and Senator D'Amato.

Before we call on our next mayor, I'd like to just inquire, do any of my colleagues have a brief opening comment they want to make?

Senator Dixon?