zeroing out the grants is an extraordinarily troubling issue for those local communities.

Maybe we should follow up with your staff and see how this works.

The President's housing budget is completely silent on the specific housing needs that face welfare recipients.

I continue to be very troubled by the on-the-ground information that I get feedback on from some of the public housing authorities in New Jersey.

I consider zeroing-out the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program, a program aimed at improving the safety at public housing developments, particularly troublesome.

Overall however, this budget falls short of meeting what I believe is HUD's core mission--fulfilling both the short- and long-term housing needs that America's families, our communities and frankly, our economy, rely on.

I also find it uneasy that with Congress in the business of reauthorizing TANF this year, that there is no comment with regard to housing issues.

As you can well imagine as a former business person, though, that if you had bonded, if you had gone to the banks under the projections that you were going to receive grants and it had been indicated that those were going to occur, then…

Furthermore, the Administration espouses the need to physically improve public housing; its budget actually cuts $441 million from the Public Housing Capital Fund, the program which funds public housing repairs and rehabilitation.

I would certainly encourage you to come to Cumberland County with me and you would see where those grants have been very effectively used and brought new jobs.

As I suggested the last time, I would love to take you up to New Jersey and visit some of these public housings and we can go to Cumberland County at the same time.

At some point I would appreciate it if your staff could show me whether the funds that were allocated are still going to fund the same activities with regard to drug elimination activities and security and public housing authorities.

The idea that people would move into public housing and stay there forever was not what the original intent was.

My concern, and I appreciate what you just said, is hopefully it will work.

What we have done is change the rules...so that people are actually materially better off going to work.

We have been doing this experiment now for a couple of years.

What if it does not work?

Historically it has been funded out of CDBG, but as I understand it, it would be funded under your budget proposal, out of the capital funds, which would mean the $417 million reduction would be more like $472 million.