Barney Frank: “the ranking minority member of the subcommittee has quite cogently pointed out the fundamental problem with this budget.…”

“the ranking minority member of the subcommittee has quite cogently pointed out the fundamental problem with this budget. I would say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), although I am about to disagree with his most recent arguments, that none of us have any criticism to make of the very good job he did in a very bad situation. We believe he did the best he could with what he was handed. What he was handed, probably the EPA should not let anyone hand him, but he did not have any choice about that. Now, the one thing that I disagree with that he said, suppose a Republican President had a Secretary of HUD; can we imagine a Republican President having a Secretary of HUD who handled the program so badly. I do not have to imagine it. I remember Sam Pierce in the golden days of Ronald Reagan, when Sam Pierce was the Secretary of HUD for 8 years. Ronald Reagan thought he was a mayor, the only time he apparently ever met him; and Sam Pierce was, to use a technical term, disgraceful. He was incompetent, he enabled corruption. More people from that administration went to prison for misuse of HUD. So the notion that somehow we want to get back to the golden days of the Republican administration of HUD is not persuasive.”