Urban Aid Program Funds Statement by the White House Press Secretary.

I would like to express, on behalf of the President, this concern over the action of the House Budget Committee in eliminating funds for the Urban Aid program. Those funds are desperately needed by our cities. They are highly targeted to bring relief to those areas of our country and to those segments of our society who have not profited from the overall improvement in employment and the economic situation in our country, as have the rest of us over the past few years.

We will be working to get these funds restored. We hope, as a matter of fact, that even some of those who were somewhat critical of the President in the past, because they thought and felt that he had not proposed enough in appropriations for these programs, will join with us and help to restore these funds.

As you know, some several weeks ago when the Black Caucus was here, as I told many of you, the President told them that while he understood the differences that we had—they feeling that we should be budgeting more money in these areas—he warned that he feared that the big fight would be to maintain in the Congress those funds and those programs which we had proposed.

I think this is an indication that his concern was correct at that time, and we will be making every effort to restore these badly needed funds for our urban areas.