Schwartz, former city councilman and current president of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, says federal funding cuts for various community programs could cost Philadelphia roughly $12 million in monies earmarked for community development, law enforcement, job training and youth services. After a press conference last week at which he released a report on the issue — it's now awaiting a U.S. Senate vote — Schwartz expounded on possible effects.

You called the government's plan shortsighted. Can you explain this?
Cities need help, particularly cities with a lot of poor people. They need to keep programs to help people survive, like housing, schools, dealing with crime and economic crises. … The city government doesn't have the ability or responsibility to provide for all of that. And in the past 30 to 40 years, the federal government has assumed a lot of this. Now, the federal government is pulling back and cities are getting in trouble. … We see what happened in New Orleans — the government didn't fund the levees and now they have a $30 billion deficit to rebuild. That's what I call shortsighted. What do you suggest the government do instead? There are tax cuts taking $225 billion out of the federal treasury. … I suggest repealing [those two proposed tax cuts], which are only helping families that earn almost a quarter of a million dollars a year. How do we think the community benefits from [that]? What is ISCV doing now that it knows about these proposed cuts? We want to make it clear to [Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum] that we know about this. I have an e-mail list with 1,500 activists from community organizations. We need to keep hammering away at the Senate and House. Nationally, we are working with the [Congressional] Progressive Caucus and the Americans for Democratic Action. … We want to make the point that these community [organizations] are not isolated programs [and cutting them back will] undermine and cripple the community. How can Philadelphians help? Tell Santorum and Specter we want our senators to join the group to fight for America's communities.