More Than Money

January 15, 1990

It seems so simple: The Cold War is over, so take some of the defense money that had been used to fight it - say $50 billion - and use that to finance an Urban Marshall Plan to improve the lot of cities and minorities. That is the proposal of John Jacob, president of the Urban League, outlined in the civil rights group's 15th annual "State of Black America" report.

But it isn't that simple. The original Marshall Plan had to contend only with repairing the physical damage inflicted on Europe in World War II. A trained, eager work force was ready to do the job.

Pouring billions of dollars from the "peace dividend" into an Urban Marshall Plan could certainly succeed in repairing the crumbling infrastructure of America's cities, but there's no guarantee that money would solve the human problem.

Poverty has economic and social causes. Much of the poverty in inner cities today is rooted in a social breakdown far more resistant to solutions than what might be regarded as "traditional" poverty. The disintegration of families, drug abuse, homelessness, illiteracy: These contribute to a poverty that doesn't disappear with the publication of a "help wanted" advertisement.

Jacob is right to stress the need to invest in a domestic program aimed at revitalizing cities and training minorities. The need to do so is more than a matter of conscience. "America can't compete if she continues to warehouse a significant proportion of her work force in poverty and ignorance," he says.

No one disagrees with that. But how do you motivate pregnant women who would rather smoke crack than look for a job, and what do you do with their babies? What changes do you make in an educational system that is failing to meet the needs of minority students? How do you reverse teen-pregnancy and infant-mortality rates that are an embarrassment and a tragedy?

These are $50-billion questions. And unless the programs designed to answer them are on target, any Urban Marshall Plan will be as grand in its failure as the original Marshall Plan was in its success.

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