COLUMN RIGHT/ RICHARD COWDEN : End the Stalemate on Urban Policy : Enterprise zones are worth trying. Congress, lacking policy alternatives, should acquiesce.

There is no way to know whether the designation of a federal enterprise zone in the area of the Los Angeles riot would have headed off last week’s violence, because the bill has never been enacted.

That is not to say that Congress has never voted for the legislation. It did so almost as an afterthought by approving a little-noticed feature of this winter’s attempt at an economic-stimulus package, which went down to a veto.

Not surprisingly, the President’s political foes are blasting the past two administrations for failing to address the problems of the inner cities. Having had a ringside seat on federal urban-policy action since 1982, I can say categorically that Democrats in Congress really have no one but themselves to blame. Had they adopted the original 1981 enterprise-zone legislation proposed by the current housing secretary, Jack Kemp, we would have enough data now to determine whether his supply-side approach to urban redevelopment was having the intended effects.

In a policy environment like the one we have had, it is up to the loyal opposition to try the proposal of the party in power if the opposition doesn’t have the votes for its own program. By refusing to test out the Administration’s suggested urban policy, Congress has given itself no room to complain.

One might say that Congress was in control and could have ended the stalemate on federal urban policy at any time. It chose to remain at square one on this issue for 12 years. The same congressional leaders who fretted that Ronald Reagan would use enterprise zones as an excuse to eliminate urban development action grants and revenue-sharing ultimately bargained away those programs anyway.

One of the most persistent detractors of enterprise zones is the Urban Institute, which has contended that tax benefits are not as effective in stimulating jobs and investment as direct spending programs. But when one of the institute’s experts testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, he offered an alternative--”human enterprise zones”--that amounted to a variation on the theme.

The institute’s recommendations included a greater emphasis on job training, prenatal care and preschool education. Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) looked on with dismay and said, “There’s nothing that prevents--and everything seems to encourage--that whatever effective programs we have out there, whether it’s targeted-jobs tax credit, whether it’s Head Start, whether it’s low-income housing, that you bring that to the enterprise zone as a priority. And it’s easy that we would include that in the legislation.” In other words: Stop nit-picking the details. There is no reason why tax incentives and Head Start cannot be combined in a single policy. Let’s get on with it.

Rangel has followed up that thought with a proposal even the Bush Administration has been unable to refuse. It is called “Weed and Seed” and it would target four-fifths of $500 million in existing funds appropriated through several agencies to 35 federally designated enterprise zones. This would offer priority to zones through the Department of Justice for crime-prevention initiatives. It would also provide development aid through Labor, Housing, Commerce, Education and other federal offices. The Administration has not been enthusiastic about Rangel’s idea but has incorporated it into its own budget and would be more than willing to implement it along with its preferred tax incentives.

Our organization is less interested in the form federal enterprise-zone benefits take than we are in the framework that zones can provide for allocating assistance effectively. Evidence from America’s more than 600 locally designated zones indicates that the states have done a fairly good job in this regard.

Further, the prospect of designation as a federal zone would serve as a carrot to prompt cities and states with declining areas to do more to help those neighborhoods than they would do otherwise. This means the federal component of this overall policy would have an impact on business-location decisions and on state and local redevelopment planning.

Congress may well act soon on enterprise-zone legislation, including Rangel’s component. If it does so, and if it all dovetails with the ongoing city and state zone provisions, we will have adopted something that would qualify as a true national urban policy. It will not be enough. It might not inoculate cities against violence, but it will be a start. We will have an initiative in place that we can argue about, amend, improve.

At least we will be doing something other than assessing blame.