By Anja Friedrich, USCM Intern
July 1, 2002

Thomas J. Donohue, President and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a Saturday, June 15, Plenary Breakfast of Mayors and Business Council members, urged delegates attending The 70th Annual Conference of Mayors to focus on public education, transportation issues and the U.S. economy.

Donohue echoed some themes that have resonated in recent years with mayors, including moves in some cities to gain control over public schools.

He called attention to New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's support for control over schools by passing a law recently giving the mayor control of a public school system beleaguered by problems and currently under the jurisdiction of a Board of Education.

Bloomberg, Donohue said, advocated putting public schools underneath administrative offices so school executives would be forced to walk through actual school facilities on their way to work.

On another subject, Donohue said that the importance of the federal Transportation Efficiency Act, or TEA-21 legislation, now up for Congressional reauthorization, was critical to transportation support. "A lot of people want to go back to the city because they can get around and they have decent transportation," Donohue said.

He noted that while funds for building and maintaining highways had increased by 5 percent, actual traffic on America's highways had increased by a staggering 95 percent.

Donohue warned that some attention should be paid to formulas in federal transportation legislation distributing funds to various cities and projects, in some cases, he said that those most in need of federal transportation funds would sometimes not get adequate funding.

On the subject of U.S. economic growth, Donohue said that America is in competition with other worldwide economies but, at the same time, is seeking jobs and investment from other countries.

"We have a massive, huge shortage of workers in this country. It's a huge issue that's getting worse everyday," Donohue said, adding that there are now 11million illegal workers in the U.S. and one half of all the companies in the country are run by people from other countries.

He said it was imperative that these companies remain in America, and continue to invest in the country. "If we don't have enough workers, and if we don't have enough tax payers, it's going to be very very hard for us to attract businesses who are looking for workers."

Part of the problem is that the U.S. birthrate has declined in recent years to the point that American families now average only 1.3 children, he noted. He stressed that training for new workers should be emphasized.