Janice Schakowsky: “I have to tell my colleagues I found this budget very hard to explain to people back home. While we are all here patting…”

“I have to tell my colleagues I found this budget very hard to explain to people back home. While we are all here patting ourselves on the back for this string of unprecedented economic prosperity, it seems all too easy to overlook the communities that are not reaping the benefits. The unemployment rate in some of these communities is as high as 20 percent, Mr. Chairman, and more than 5 million families in our country are only a paycheck away from losing their homes. In light of these problems that our families and our seniors are facing, we should use our prosperity to increase HUD's capacity to create jobs, to build homes; but instead we are cutting the HUD budget. The effects of these cuts on the lives of families and seniors and the homeless would be devastating. In my district alone, we would lose $4.5 billion; and hundreds of low-income families could be left out in the cold. We have a responsibility here, a responsibility to expand and not to cut vital housing and economic development programs. This should be a national priority, and at a time when we have a $14 billion federal budget surplus; if not now, when?”