Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Neugebauer amendment. I think that we have to look at bureaucracy. And I must say that I think that the existing federally administered program designed to serve the housing needs of low-income Americans, the HOME Investment Partnership Program, is a program that's already in place. It has the personnel system, the regulatory oversight in place to accomplish the same objective as the National Housing Trust Fund. And instead of creating a new Federal bureaucracy to address low-income housing availability, I think we should focus our efforts on improving the HOME program. Mr. Neugebauer's amendment creates a pilot program, and I think we could call it 'HOME Lite,' within the HOME program. And so instead of reinventing the wheel and establishing another Federal trust fund and a brand new program, I support improving and being creative with an existing program. If we look at the HOME program, the staff is already participating, they understand the jurisdictions the HOME program will be looking at, and so there is no learning curve for implementation. Revitalizing the HOME program will be more efficient by having less start-up costs, administrative costs, and the funds will be distributed to the project sooner, and not later.”