From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: SMOKE & MIRRORS ON THE POTOMAC?
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 08:23:16 GMT

POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES
A Publication of the CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION

Published quarterly. Materials in POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES may be 
reprinted if this publication and the CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION are 
credited and a copy is sent to CEC.

** Written  4:46 pm  Aug 10, 1992 by dwalt in cdp:econconversion **
SMOKE & MIRRORS ON THE POTOMAC?

This spring has seen a sudden blossoming of new legislative proposals for 
conversion adjustment assistance in Washington. While policymakers' 
recent enthusiasm for dealing with the problems already created by 
defense cuts is very welcome, the current proposals raise many questions. 

Right now, Congress  and  the Administration are anxious to look good on 
the issue. To date,  every version on the table uses the figure of a total 
appropriation of $ 1 billion for conversion, though both the  House bill and 
a recent Senate task force proposal call for $ 1 billion over one fiscal 
year, while President Bush has suggested $1 billion over four years. 

In June, the House passed a conversion amendment to the Defense 
Authorization bill which allocated $180 million to fund jobs in math and 
science education for laid off personnel, $200 million for job training, and 
$100 million for state and local planning grants.  $150 million was 
allocated for dual use technology development,  on the stated grounds that 
this year such monies still have to be defined as defense spending in order 
to pass. 

In this House version, funds would be administered through the DoD via a 
new department created for the purpose. The bill was not released to the 
public before the House vote; even legislators did not get much of an 
advance look at it. By late July, the Senate may consider its own 
amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. Although it is still unclear 
what relationship the actual amendment will bear to the  well researched 
proposal of the Senate Democratic Defense Transition Task Force,  it is 
now clear that any Senate  measure passed this year will be  affected by 
continuing Budget Enforcement Act restrictions still in force until 1993.

However, according to James Raffel, Research Analyst at the Washington 
based National Commission on Economic Conversion and Disarmament,  
Senator Mitchell and ten other senators have already put together a multi 
year proposal which  they hope to put forward in 1993.  It is expected that 
this proposal will include much that was in the Senate Task Force 
document,  which calls for monies to be transferred to other federal 
agencies, such as Commerce and Labor, to fund worker retraining or small 
business and community transition. It also puts more emphasis on 
fostering civilian technology than does the recent House version.

Congressional friends of conversion hope that the final House-Senate 
conference committee result will be a bill that embodies as much as 
possible of the task force  proposal. However, that version is just a scant 
beginning of the kind of proactive planning and resource allocation needed 
to transform our economy's defense dependency into a vigorous civilian 
peace economy, as the authors of it acknowledge.

Outside the conference committee, however, lies yet another obstacle. In a 
speech delivered in June to a Phoenix, Arizona veteran's group, President 
Bush laid out the outlines of his own conversion proposal. While he took 
the welcome position that the process of converting excess U.S. military 
capability to civilian uses "must be managed in a rational manner," his 
proposals were limited and poorly funded, by comparison with either 
current Congressional version.

But should any conversion adjustment assistance law emerge intact from 
the obstacle course sketched here, further pitfalls lie ahead. If public 
concern for conversion adjustment gets blunted by the appearance of a 
quick and well-funded fix, the situation may frustrate our hopes of 
planning an environmentally sustainable peace economy for the T90s. 

In this time of fiscal crisis, $l billion for one year of aid may seem like a 
lot to a distracted public. The public may also not notice that the 
Administration has already successfully blocked or drastically delayed 
the implementation of the last piece of conversion adjustment legislation 
passed in 1990, when the price tag was a meager $200,000 million.

Worst of all, the appearance of having dealt with the conversion problem 
could sap public energy needed for pressure to plan an accelerating series 
of interlocked defense cuts and conversion measures in the years ahead.

The passage of the recent House conversion amendment occurred with 
little fanfare. At this writing, it remains to be seen what kind of public 
debate will be created by Senate or Presidential action. But whatever 
Congress and the  President do this year, the process of matching further 
defense cuts with effective conversion law must work in tandem 
throughout the early T90s, or else it will all be smoke and mirrors.
    -- Susan C. Strong

** End of text from cdp:econconversion **

******************************************************************
                     THE CENTER FOR ECONOMIC CONVERSION
                222 View St., Suite C, Mountain View CA 94041
                  Tel: (415) 968-8798    FAX: (415) 968-1126
                          Email: bdelson@igc.org
The CENTER for ECONOMIC CONVERSION is a non-profit public benefit 
corporation dedicated to building a sustainable peace-oriented economy. 
Founded in 1975, the organization serves as a national resource center and 
a catalyst for conversion planning. CEC provides educational materials; 
speakers; organizing assistance to conversion activists; technical 
assistance to workers, managers and public officials confronting military 
cutbacks; and research on conversion issues.

Beth Delson, Editor; Michael Closson, Executive Director; Joan Holtzman, 
Development Coordinator; Marie Jones, Conversion Planner; Susan Strong, 
Senior Research Associate; Rosemary Wick, Office Manager.
******************************************************************

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