Mayors’ Group Says Budget Will Bring Urban U.S. ‘to Its Knees’

Urban America would be brought “to its knees and perhaps to its face” by cuts in domestic spending proposed by President Reagan, a leader of the U.S. Conference of Mayors said Friday.

“The ghettos of this country will grow under this budget,” Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said in releasing the conference’s analysis of the fiscal 1987 budget proposed by Reagan earlier this week.

Favor Tax Hikes

Riley, who is scheduled to become president of the conference this spring, said that the mayors favor federal tax increases to help reduce the federal deficit.

He said that cuts in programs for the poor and elderly and in grants to state and local governments were inconsistent with Reagan’s optimistic State of the Union speech and “unacceptable to the American people.”

“It would bring the American central city to its knees and perhaps to its face, as along the American road the Mercedes heading to the suburbs speeds by and kicks sand and gravel in our face,” he said.

Reagan’s budget would cut federal outlays to cities and states by $10 billion, to $99 billion, in fiscal 1987. It would eliminate the $4.4-billion general revenue-sharing program of no-strings aid to cities and eliminate or slash grants for housing, community development, transportation, job training and other uses.

The Conference of Mayors said that, when other programs are included, such as welfare and child-nutrition programs and spending authority for use in later years, the cut is more than $17 billion. It said also that Reagan’s proposals would cut an additional $7.5 billion in urban spending for the current fiscal year.