Barney Frank: “In other words, to the Members of this House, do not expect to make the real decisions. Pass through a budget, an…”

“In other words, to the Members of this House, do not expect to make the real decisions. Pass through a budget, an appropriations bill, that we know is inadequate, that we know denies to the very needy people important programmatic resources, many of which are well spent. We talk about the Section 8 problem being terrible, but the previous speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey, correctly pointed out that one of the things we have done is to spend money to preserve the existing Section 8 tenancies. Why are we preserving them? Overwhelmingly, we do that because the people who live in those units which were created by Federal funds are so fond of their housing that they put pressure on Members of Congress, so Members of Congress who voted against the program, who voted against funding the programs, vote to keep the programs going so people can continue to live there. We have housing programs that are not perfect, but they do a very important job of trying to alleviate the severe economic distress of tens of millions of our citizens who are not participating in the general prosperity. When we bring forward a bill that say we will do less of that this year in real terms than last year in the face of this great prosperity, we are not serving the basic values of the country. So I hope the amendment is adopted.”