James A. Leach: “If I could reclaim the time, I want to thank the gentleman from New York for his very thoughtful representation to this…”

“If I could reclaim the time, I want to thank the gentleman from New York for his very thoughtful representation to this body as well as defense of the U.S. military and the veteran. I would only like to make one comment, because in all of this discussion about programmatic grouping, 601(b), 602(b), whatever it may be, the fact of the matter is, the greater relevance is how did the committee come up with the figure? And the figure in this budget is precisely, dollar for dollar the recommendation of the Clinton administration. This committee has worked vigorously and cooperatively with the administration on this housing budget. I make this point because the figure of the gentleman from Massachusetts is somewhat over 50 percent greater than the majority on the committee has recommended, which means it is 50 percent greater than the administration has requested. There are a lot of things we could do with more money in all sorts of Federal areas. I, personally, think maybe housing has been a little more short-shrifted than I would like, but the fact of the matter is we are dealing with a budget dilemma.”