City Leaders Meet with the President to Discuss Jobs and Economic Recovery

House Votes to Repeal Three-Percent Withholding Unfunded Mandate

Several Transportation Program Discussions Underway on the Hill

Report Shows Economy Has Significant Impact on Police Agencies

Last Thursday, NLC led a group of nearly 150 city leaders from across the country to a White House briefing on job creation and economic recovery with Cabinet and senior members of the President's Administration, followed by a meeting and reception with the President. The group of leaders consisted of NLC officers, board members, advisory council members, leadership group chairs and vice chairs, state municipal league directors and their presidents, and other local elected officials.

Representing the Administration at the meeting were: Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President; Bill Daley, chief of staff to the President; Cecilia Muñoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs; Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation; Lisa Jackson, Environmental Protection Agency administrator; Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council; and Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

Following the meeting, President Obama hosted city leaders at a reception in the East Wing of the White House and echoed the messages expressed by his Administration earlier in the day, calling for increased collaboration and assuring the group that the White House stands together with local governments. For more information on the meeting, see the full article in Nation's Cities Weekly.

House Votes to Repeal Three-Percent Withholding Unfunded Mandate
Lars Etzkorn, etzkorn@nlc.org, 202.626.3173

Last Thursday, the House, with bipartisan support, passed a bill (H.R. 674) to repeal the law that requires governmental and non-governmental entities to withhold three percent of their payments to vendors and to remit those monies to the Internal Revenue Service. The law was enacted several years ago as a way to close the gap between taxes owed and taxes collected. Implementation of the unfunded mandate has been delayed several times, most recently by the IRS until the end of 2012.

To offset the cost of repeal, the House also passed legislation on Thursday to modify the calculation of modified adjusted gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain healthcare-related programs under the new health care reform law. The two bills will now be combined and sent to the Senate for consideration.

In the Senate, both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) support the law's repeal but have yet to agree on how to offset the cost. The President also supports repeal and included this language in his American Jobs Act proposal.

NLC and city officials have been lobbying for repeal of the unfunded mandate since it became law in 2006 and will now focus efforts on the Senate. Click here to read a letter NLC sent to all House members last week supporting the latest effort to repeal this burdensome requirement.

Against a backdrop of a transportation appropriations spending bill for the balance of the fiscal year on the Senate floor, discussions within the so-called "super committee"-which is charged with trimming $1.5 trillion from the federal budget deficit-working on a long-term spending plan, and consideration of the transportation infrastructure portion of the President's American Jobs Act, last week, Senate transportation leaders announced they will move forward with committee action on a two-year transportation authorization bill.

Transportation Reauthorization

On November 9, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider the two-year bill known as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21). Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), James Inhofe (R-OK), Max Baucus (D-MT) and David Vitter (R-LA), who comprise the bipartisan leadership on the transportation committee, had introduced an outline of the bill in July but were waiting for the Senate Finance Committee to identify additional funding to keep surface transportation programs at current spending levels.

Meanwhile, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) continues to push for a longer-term transportation authorization bill that would cut federal surface transportation programs by 34 percent unless new sources of revenue are found. The cuts would be necessary under House rules adopted when the Republicans took office in January that required transportation programs to be limited to revenues coming into the Highway Trust Fund, which funds federal highway and transit projects. For the past several years, federal gas tax revenues have fallen short of required transportation spending levels and have required an infusion of general Treasury revenues to supplement the program.

As it monitors both efforts, NLC is calling on Congress to enact a new, long-term comprehensive federal surface transportation program that recognizes the central role of transportation in metropolitan and regional economies, includes local voices in planning and project selection and allows the best mix of transportation options to fit regional needs.

Fiscal Year 2012 Transportation Appropriations

As discussions over the long-term spending plan take place in the House and Senate authorizing committees, the Senate currently is considering fiscal year 2012 transportation appropriations spending as part of a larger appropriations bill. This bill, known as a "minibus," would keep highway, transit and bridge programs at current levels. However, funding for Amtrak and high speed rail would be reduced sharply under the Senate plan. 

The House Transportation and Housing fiscal year 2012 appropriations bill calls for reducing highway and transit spending consistent with the House budget plan to ensure that transportation programs live within fuel tax revenues, would cut transit "New Starts" programs, Amtrak funding for states and the popular TIGER grant program.

The House and Senate must come to an agreement on fiscal year 2012 spending levels by November 18 in order to avoid a government shutdown when the current stop-gap spending measure expires or pass another stop-gap measure. 

American Jobs Act

Later this week, the Senate also will take up a portion of the President's American Jobs Act focused on transportation programs. The $60 billion spending package, which NLC supports, would include $50 billion for road, rail and airport transportation projects and an additional $10 billion for an infrastructure bank.

Report Shows Economy Has Significant Impact on Police Agencies
Mitchel Herckis, herckis@nlc.org, 202.626.3124 

The U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office released a study last week that drew on research conducted by NLC and other national organizations showing the impact the economy is having on public safety staffing levels in communities across the country. According to the study, one quarter of cities surveyed have made cuts to public safety budgets, and by the end of this year nearly 12,000 police officers and sheriff's deputies will have been laid off. In fact, the study reports that this year could represent the first national decline in law enforcement officer positions in more than 25 years.

In addition, according to the study, agencies are taking unprecedented actions to prioritize response. Some have stopped responding to motor vehicle thefts, burglar alarms, and non-injury motor vehicle accidents in order to make do with pared back police forces. Agencies have also reported decreases in investigations of property crimes, fugitive tracking, a variety of white collar crimes, and low-level narcotics cases.

View the full report on the COPS Office website: http://cops.usdoj.gov/Default.asp?Item=2602.