Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this amendment would cut $200 million from the HOME Investment Partnership and transfer the savings to the deficit reduction account. This simply takes the level of funding to where it was last year. We are often told we need to cut spending. I think we need to. Yet, with this program, we're actually increasing the funding from $1 billion to $1.2 billion, so it's about a 20 percent increase. This is the largest Federal block grant to State and local governments, designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low-income households. In 2011, a nationwide investigation by The Washington Post described the program as: a dysfunctional system that delivers billions of dollars to local housing agencies with few rules, safeguards or even a reliable way to track projects. This was The Washington Post saying this. It wasn't some conservative Republicans. This was The Washington Post. According to The Post: These lapses have led to widespread misspending and delays in a two-decade-old program meant to deliver decent housing to the working poor. Nearly 700 projects awarded $400 million have been idling for years while the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has largely looked the other way. It does not track the pace of construction, and it often fails to spot defunct deals. Instead, they're trusting local agencies to police projects. Again, that was a quote from the investigation.…”