Announcement of the
Establishment of the Interagency Low Income
The
President today announced the creation of a new interagency advisory board
dedicated to the administration's welfare reform initiative. The action is
designed to enhance coordination of Federal public assistance programs and
policies that now cut across department lines and to create a focal point for
intergovernmental coordination. The Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory
Board will provide a focal point within the Federal Government for developing
and coordinating new policies to aid low income individuals and families and
for facilitating implementation of those policies.
The
Board Chairman will be Charles D. Hobbs, Assistant to the President, and it
will include representatives of the following agencies: the Office of
Management and Budget, and the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human
Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Labor, and Interior. Other
members may be designated by the President from time to time. When the Board
considers a program for which any other executive department or agency has
responsibility, that department or agency will have representation on the Board
for that purpose.
The
Chairman will advise the President with respect to the system of Federal public
assistance programs, activities, and related matters and will recommend to the
President policies and guidelines pertaining to public
assistance matters for all related programs within the executive branch. He
will, in addition, review policy alternatives with outside groups -- especially
multiprogram reform concepts or proposals of the
States -- and with executive departments and agencies, the heads of which have
been instructed, to the extent permitted by law, to cooperate with the Chairman
in carrying out his functions. He will also monitor the implementation of
public assistance policies.
Mr.
Hobbs, currently an Assistant to the President, with primary responsibility for
public assistance programs, previously served as Director of the White House
Office of Policy Development and was chairman of the Domestic Policy Council
Low Income Opportunity Working Group, which produced the report to the
President entitled, ``Up From Dependency: A New National Public Assistance
Strategy.''
The
President's actions today, taken on the recommendation of the Domestic Policy
Council, reflect his commitment to the objective announced in his State of the
Union Address to Congress on