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LaRouche Addresses Mayors
Conference in Austin, Texas


AUSTIN, Sept. 6 (EIRNS)--Lyndon LaRouche addressed the annual meeting of the Texas Conference of Black Mayors in Austin, Texas today, stressing the need to make major changes in the U.S. Congress in the November elections. LaRouche spoke as a former candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, in the opening session. In attendance were eight mayors, city officials, representatives of the National Conference of Black Mayors, and other conference attendees.

LaRouche emphasized that the major problem facing city officials is the collapse of the tax revenue base. "In terms of what a tax dollar will buy today," he said, "the tax revenue base is collapsing, it has done so over the last twenty-five years.

"The reason is that the economy, as measured in physical terms, is collapsing. Jobs that pay decent wages are gone, the infrastructure is no longer there, water systems in major cities are eighty to one hundred years old, as in Washington, D.C., we are faced now with power shortages. We can't afford the medical care we could in the past." He explained that the only competent way to measure this collapse is the way he does, by looking at the market basket, per capita, per family, per square kilometer, which shows that 60% of the American population is sliding into destitution.

"People are desperate. We have to have a turnaround, now," he said.

He identified this as part of a global collapse. The financial and banking systems of every major nation are collapsing, he said. Mexico is going to blow up, it may not make it until Dec. 1. Argentina is disintegrating, Brazil is about to blow up, Colombia is in deep trouble, Peru, all of central America.... This is not only happening below our southern border. The French banking system is gone, Italy, gone, Germany is gone, the conditions for people in Russia and eastern Europe are catastrophic.

"What I'm concentrating on is to build a coalition of forces to change politics in the United States. This coalition especially includes members of the civil rights movement, who have been involved with me. We can take enough votes away from people in Congress who don't want to make the changes which must be made, to get those in who can and will act. We need a stampede. It has to be at the national level, the President is well meaning--we need a new Congress."

"You might have heard that I have some scalps on my belt," he added. "Some of you may have heard what we did to Ollie North, or rather, what we caused him to do to himself. We are moving to defeat the Governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge. Look what this man is doing, he's killing people with his medical cuts, in the name of balancing the budget. We cannot continue to rob our poor to pay the deficit." He added that we have been doing some work to clean up the Democratic Party. "You might have heard something recently about Fowler's premature retirement, and Dick Morris."

I'm hopeful, he said in conclusion. I believe "we can get some inspiration in Washington, get some confidence that we can turn the tide away from this Contract on America."

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