National League of Cities Urges the
Administration and Congress to Look to Cities to
Save and Create Jobs
Washington, DC – In letters to President
Obama and Congressional leadership, the National
League of Cities (NLC) outlined four key strategies
for advancing economic prosperity which called for
the federal government to do more to create jobs
quickly and stabilize local government budgets.
The full text of the letters may be found here.
With cities facing sizable budget shortfalls that
are expected to only grow more severe, local
government budget tightening can act as a serious
and significant drag on economic recovery for the
next two years. To ensure a climate for job creation
and recovery, NLC requests direct assistance to
local governments to help save public sector jobs.
The letters also ask for investments to be made
in America’s workforce by funding, among other
programs, a public service employment program to
provide immediate employment to jobless residents
through community improvement projects with clear
public benefit.
NLC requested that any jobs package prioritize
targeted infrastructure spending to create jobs
while also laying the foundation for long-term
benefits in communities. This would be best
accomplished by an expansion of existing programs to
allow for local ingenuity and to get money into job
creation quickly.
Finally, to ensure sustained long-term growth,
cities and small businesses need access to credit.
NLC recommends that measures designed to improve
access to credit be included in any jobs package.
“Since the onset of the economic downturn, city
leaders have been forced to make tough choices in an
effort to provide desperately needed services and to
drive their local economic engines while responding
to large and often persistent budget shortfalls,”
NLC President Ronald O. Loveridge, mayor, Riverside,
Calif., wrote in the letter. “In the absence of
additional federal intervention, a deepening local
fiscal crisis could hobble the nation’s incipient
recovery with more layoffs, furloughs, cancelled
infrastructure projects and reduced services.”
The National League of Cities is the nation’s
oldest and largest organization devoted to
strengthening and promoting cities as centers of
opportunity, leadership and governance. NLC is a
resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and
villages, representing more than 218 million
Americans.
www.nlc.org.
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