Bush Faces Opposition in Own Party to Urban Aid Plan : Cities: Kemp reportedly is concerned that some stiff resistance to the spending package comes from GOP.

The Bush Administration struggled Monday to find the necessary political support for its program of urban assistance, a search made all the more difficult by the opposition turning up within President Bush’s own Republican Party.

Four days after the House of Representatives approved a $494.6-million plan to assist Los Angeles, in the wake of the riots there, and Chicago, after flooding in the downtown business district, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp expressed concern at a Cabinet meeting that some of the stiffest opposition was coming from members of his own party, said a senior Administration official who attended the meeting.

According to two officials, participants in the meeting expressed irritation at the congressional delay in acting on other elements of the President’s urban package, including housing, education, and law enforcement programs.

Fourteen Republican members of the California delegation, most from largely rural districts, voted last Thursday to oppose the $494.6-million package of loans and emergency assistance. The senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he would not be surprised to see pressure put on such opponents to bring them into line on future urban aid votes.

However, other Republicans have expressed skepticism about the likelihood the White House would be able to muster strong support. “There’s no sentiment in suburban and rural America to send a lot of money to inner-city mayors,” House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said the day of the vote.

Despite their concern, Administration officials at Monday’s meeting focused on additional ways to help cities. “There is an unquestioned need and desire to pursue this thing and keep it going,” the senior official said. “ . . . The President wants to move forward. Period.”

A White House official said a new urban policy group has begun meeting. The group, broken off from the Policy Coordinating Group headed by White House domestic policy counselor Clayton Yeutter, is composed of the secretaries of commerce, housing, labor, and health and human services, and the attorney general.

Streets gangs are an initial focus, the senior official said.

At the center of the federal urban aid effort, officials have said, is the government’s “weed and seed” program, which is intended to remove hard-core criminals from the streets and then seed the area with social programs.

One of the social programs under debate is an updated version of the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps. In this case, it would take gang members out of the neighborhood environment and put them to work on conservation projects. Or, the senior official said, the Administration might also consider incentives for private companies to provide job training for such youths.

Another issue given consideration, he said, was a “screaming need for equity capital” that would help minority businesses take root.