‘Los Angeles Issue’: Back in the Spotlight : Clinton speech revives national dialogue on the city’s needs

President Clinton revived the national debate on the problems facing Los Angeles when he mentioned the “events” of last spring and later made a reference to South-Central in Wednesday’s address to Congress and the nation. He proposed “to bring new hope and new jobs to storefronts and factories from South Boston to South Texas to South-Central Los Angeles.”

Hope and jobs are inextricably intertwined. Good jobs are the best antidote to poverty, family breakups, drugs and crime.

Jobs, as Clinton insisted, must be the immediate priority. More jobs would help a middle class stung by a long recession, a working class willing to do what’s needed and a welfare class asked to achieve independence. Clinton promises 500,000 new jobs if Congress approves $30 billion to repair roads, bridges, transit systems and housing. But that is only the start of putting Americans back to work.

Los Angeles, plagued by a near-double-digit unemployment rate that measures only the people who haven’t given up hope, could use every one of those half-million new paychecks. To put all those jobs here would be impolitic, of course, but if projects are awarded on the basis of need, Los Angeles should get tens of thousands of the new jobs.

Disadvantaged young Americans would benefit from 700,000 summer jobs, and even more if businesses help out as they should.

Government can’t and shouldn’t do all the hiring. Small businesses, the engine of job creation during the last decade, must be encouraged to put more people on payrolls. To do that, Clinton has proposed that Congress grant firms with revenues under $5 million a permanent investment tax credit and also give small firms easier access to credit and new technology. These incentives would encourage the start-up of firms and the expansion of existing ones.

Small businesses form what is left of the economic backbone of inner cities. Some survive despite crime, bank redlining, poor access to insurance and prejudice. To overcome these barriers, the President proposed a “network of community development banks,” which would ease the credit crunch that chokes off commerce in communities like South-Central Los Angeles. Entrepreneurs willing to invest in their communities would find credit easier to obtain from community development banks--private, nonprofit financial institutions that have more flexible lending standards than banks and make loans to entrepreneurs in low-income areas.

Clinton also wants $1 billion for enterprise zones. These special districts would reward investors for bringing businesses and jobs to distressed areas. Businesses willing to invest in poor neighborhoods deserve rewards for coming, and for staying.

Businesses willing to take that kind of risk also deserve assurances that employees and customers will be safe. More police would provide such assurances. Although local governments pay for cops, Clinton offers help in this area. His police corps would put 100,000 new officers on America’s streets through an ambitious national service program that would give loans to college students. The loans would be repaid in the traditional fashion or through stints of public service in the police corps or schools or as community workers.

Fixing what is wrong in our cities won’t be cheap. But a smart investment today can pay off with healthy, employed, well-housed Americans--and that would make for healthier, safer cities.