Jackson Calls for More Fiscal Stimulus

TO Jesse Jackson, President Clinton's economic package is "progressive language in a Perot framework."

Too much deficit cutting and not enough economic stimulus, says the civil rights organizer who led the left wing of the Democrat Party in the 1988 election cycle.

At a Monitor breakfast yesterday, Mr. Jackson described the problem of "spiritual surrender" in the changing battle for racial equality.

"What is different now than, say, four or five years ago: When we fought slavery, when we fought segregation we were always on the moral offensive. We always had the rightness of our cause," Jackson said.

Now, he describes a cynicism, surrender, and ethical collapse against the rise of drugs, guns, mass `mediaddiction,'" and "babies having babies."

This means the civil rights movement must look not only to politics and the economy but to behavior and values, he says.

A hundred community development banks in blighted areas, capitalized with a billion dollars, could break the cycle of degeneration in about three generations, he suggests.

"You rebuild the spirit and values of the people as you rebuild the structure."

Other concerns:

* A two-track education system with unequal funding. City schools are closed due to lack of funds while prisons are built at a cost of $85,000 per cell. Equal funding for education is a better investment, he says.

* Red-lining of inner city communities by banks, or refusal to loan there, chokes off opportunity, growth, and entrepreneurship.