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By Root 1003 0

administration officials conceded that Carter, relying heavily on Ford’s last budget, increased aid by $500 million. In early 1977, the Brookings Institution released a government-sponsored study warning that if federal aid formulas were not changed by 1980, the chief beneficiaries would not be the older cities of the north but small towns, suburbs, and Western and Southern cities. But their projections showed New York to be an exception. Even under the old formulas, New York would receive more than its fair share. Within months, and after skillful coaxing from Senator Moynihan, among others, these formulas were amended to tilt toward older cities. New York was a big winner. Federal monies to New York State increased by $7.7 billion in fiscal 1977, the largest gain made by any of the fifty states. Mr. Moynihan made this announcement in July 1978, presumably to show how effective Senator Moynihan had been. By releasing these numbers, however, he was inadvertently undermining his “gap” argument.

“I think there’s a solid indication that New York is being helped and not scalped by the federal government,” Senator Proxmire told me, attacking both the balance of payments argument and New York’s self-image as an orphan. That hurts, coming from the chairman of a committee which reviews most federal urban aid programs. As Professor Moynihan once declared, “It’s all very well to get a speech printed in a New York newspaper saying New York is being short-changed on this or that program. But it has absolutely no effect if the director of the Office of Management and Budget tells the President that the charge is false.”

When it comes to certain federal policies and programs, the charge is not always false. Yes, the federal government sometimes does commit, or permit, murder. Moynihan can be eloquent on the subject: “There is a fundamental bias against New York State in the way the federal government collects its taxes and distributes its revenues. Tax rates accelerate as money income goes up. Benefits accelerate as money income goes down. The Scythians could not have bred two wild horses better equipped to pull New York State apart. Incomes are higher in New York in the way they are higher in Alaska—because the cost of living is higher.” (One reason it is higher, Moynihan notes with the force of a whisper, is because local and state taxes are higher.)

By not accounting for differences in the cost of living, the same federal dollar is worth more in Texas than New York. But a word of caution is in order: cost-of-living differences among poor people—for whom most aid is earmarked—are only about 8 percent higher in New York, compared to between 16 and 25 percent for intermediate and high-income families. Therefore, if the formulas were changed, New York would receive less of a bonanza than is commonly assumed. The First Bank of Boston found, for instance, that if cost-of-living escalators were added to the revenue sharing formula, the entire Northeast’s share would have risen only $109 million in one year.

As a candidate, Jimmy Carter recognized this and other inequities. In August 1976, in a long interview aboard his campaign plane as it streaked from Seattle, Washington, to Des Moines, Iowa, Carter focused on urban concerns. Invited to the front of the 727, I slid into the wide first-class seat facing the bulkhead. Carter, in the next seat, paid no notice, continuing to read a two-page memorandum, glancing up at aide Greg Schneiders to impart instructions, glancing again at the memo. When he finished, Schneiders lingered and briefed the candidate on the purpose of the interview, requesting forty-five minutes of his time. No, a still-seated Carter admonished him. The campaign had a strict rule: no more than thirty minutes per interview. Then Carter removed, folded, and placed his glasses in a shirt pocket. He had yet to address or even look at me. Perhaps five minutes after I took the adjoining seat, Carter turned for the first time to offer a warm greeting. My tape recorder clicked on. For the next fifty minutes the candidate’s steel-blue