Sec. 3. Basic rights and responsibilities. 
Sec. 4. Overall planning for full employment. 
Sec. 5. Joint Economic Committee. 
Sec. 6. Authorization of appropriations. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF POLICY. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) UNEVEN PROGRESS.—(A) In recent years 
the income and wealth gaps among individuals in the 
United States have expanded. 
(B) Many individuals have become rich or rich-
er, poor individuals have become more numerous, 
and many individuals depend on two jobs. 
(C) Localized mass depression appears in the 
midst of elite opulence, unmet basic needs exist in 
the midst of unused labor, and there is massive inse-
curity in the United States despite large-scale mili-
tary spending. 
(D) Although unused labor exists in the United 
States, unmet basic needs exist in repairing and im-
proving the infrastructure of the Nation, including 
private industry, farming, agriculture, public facili-
ties, public utilities, and human services, with special 
emphasis on the availability of good and affordable 
education, quality child care, health promotion serv-
ices, housing, artistic cultural activities, and basic as 
well as applied research and development.
(E) While some individuals enjoy the best 
health services in the world, many other individuals 
are without health care or have inadequate or overly 
expensive health services. 
(F) While many individuals enjoy higher life 
and activity expectancy, poor individuals suffer lower 
levels of life expectancy and higher levels of infant 
mortality and infectious disease, factors that are ag-
gravated by race. 
(G) Some individuals live in safe neighborhoods 
with good housing and public facilities while many 
others live in bad or over-crowded housing in dan-
gerous neighborhoods without adequate recreational, 
educational, library, energy, or public transportation 
facilities. 
(H) Uncounted individuals, including children, 
are homeless. 
(I) The entire country benefits from the edu-
cation provided by many of the best universities in 
the world, while suffering from some of the worst 
high school education in the industrial world. 
(J) Despite the existence of efficient tech-
nologies for improving the environment, all individ-
uals suffer directly or indirectly from dangerous lev-
els of air, water, and soil pollution, especially agri-
cultural workers. 
(K) Despite discrimination against immigrants 
and their children, the United States is still the pre-
ferred haven of refuge for victims of oppression in 
other countries. 
(2) INSECURE
PEOPLE.—(A) Although about 
10,000,000 new jobs have been created in the 
United States economy between 1993 and 1996, 
there are nearly 17,000,000 individuals who want 
jobs and do not have them or are forced to work 
part-time because they cannot find full-time employ-
ment. 
(B) Millions of individuals face the threat of 
downsizing as the result of mergers, plant closings, 
or higher labor productivity. 
(C) New jobs increasingly come at lower wage 
levels or with few, eroding, or no benefits. 
(D) So-called welfare reform is increasing the 
number of job-seekers but not the number of living 
wage job opportunities. 
(3) JOB-BASED MILITARY SPENDING.—(A) Bil-
lions of dollars are being spent annually on military 
programs that have been and are justified less by 
strategic and tactical military needs than by—
(i) the jobs they create; and 
(ii) the economic health of communities 
that have become dependent upon the mainte-
nance or expansion of such programs. 
(B) Careful termination of such contracts, with 
appropriate protection for workers, contractors, sub-
contractors, and communities could release resources 
for activities to meet unmet human needs while ad-
vancing the civilian economy. 
(4) 
ENTITLEMENT
CONFUSIONS.—(A)(i) 
Among the recipients of corporate welfare, some in-
dividuals have been enlarging their collective entitle-
ments. 
(ii) This has been done through tax deductions, 
Government guaranteed loans, price supports, mili-
tary contracts and other forms of direct or indirect 
subsidy. 
(B)(i) Other individuals have swelled personal 
entitlements at the expense of taxpayers, share-
holders, employees and local communities. 
(ii) This has been done through unprecedented 
increases in salaries, stock options, deferred com-
pensation, and other luxurious benefits. 
(C) Some beneficiaries of elite entitlements have 
been supporting attacks on the rights and entitle-