"I expect to hear from the various witnesses this morning that the recession related problems of our major cities are still with us. That is not good news. But I also expect to hear that an important new idea we enacted in the law last year is working better than some of us had expected. That is not too often the case with new Federal programs. So it is certainly cause for some celebration. It was almost 2 years ago that we held our first hearing on the countercyclical assistance proposal [to help local unemployment]. Although the basic concept had been around for some time, it had never before been proposed as actual legislation. Few people could even pronounce it, much less explain the idea"--Page 1.