Kendrick Meek: “I want to say that the main problem I see with this bill is that it is underfunded. It is not because we do not have…”

“I want to say that the main problem I see with this bill is that it is underfunded. It is not because we do not have good leadership on this subcommittee or we do not have good supportive staff, but the fact that it is underfunded, the allocation was not adequate, probably due to the fact that we had to fund a great tax bill, now the results of that tax cut is coming back to haunt us in terms of being able to fund programs that come under our jurisdiction. We were not able to fund veterans as much as we would have liked to have done. Therefore, we are seeing that as being a gap in this bill. The HOME account, however, there were some very good things going on in terms of accountability in the bill. The HOME account was increased by $200 million. It is one of the most valuable housing programs because it is very versatile and it is very effective. That was very good of our subcommittee to be able to do this. Also, the subcommittee increased by 34,000 incremental vouchers which allow access to affordable housing on the private market.”