I was surprised to hear my friend from Connecticut refer to the fact that it was 2 o'clock in the morning, as if that was a reason not to debate. That is because his leadership decided this. That is because his leadership was in such a…

the people who are supporting the underlying budget have too little faith in the private market. I mean this quite seriously. The private market does not need as much help as they think. We have a private sector economy that is capable of…

this does not legislate a cut in the CPI, but it assumes one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been under a lot of pressure, and this budget assumes that the CPI will be downgraded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics so that elderly people…

the gentleman from Florida finally addresses the point I was making, as opposed to a point I never made. What he is acknowledging, of course, is that this grandfathering, et cetera, that he is talking about, it is a substantial repeal of…

if the claims being made on behalf of the majority's bill were valid, I would support it. If rhetoric could cure poverty after this debate, there would not be a poor person left anywhere in public housing. But this bill that the majority…

I am encouraged, Mr. Speaker, by articles that appeared in the financial sections of the Washington Post and the New York Times over the past few days and, in particular, by a speech given by Chairman Alan Greenspan to see that we are now…

Mr. Chairman, when we debated this question of restricting aid to the very poorest, and that is what we are talking about, the bill says we should do less than we have been doing for the very poorest people. The argument in favor of…

this notion of a work disincentive, given the existence of the welfare bill, would cut you off just comes out of thin air. The notion that people quit jobs or refuse to get jobs because they might get a section 8 when they would have no…

again reclaiming my time, how does this exclude them? I think the gentleman misstates when he says that they will be excluded. I think he is inaccurately suggesting that the amendment of my friend from Massachusetts will totally restrict…

my clear understanding is the gentleman from Ohio was talking about 30 percent below median, not 50 percent, and 50 percent is the accurate people, people not being excluded below 30 percent.

I wanted to ask, because these are laudable goals to help them get out, I assume that means a job, what are the housing authorities going to do? How are the housing authorities going to do job training? Then we are talking about a lot…

I want to respond and say no, I can see that the gentleman has defined it as not an unfunded mandate. It does require them to spend more money out of the same pot they are getting. My experience with a lot of housing authorities is they…

we ought to remember that for the 12 years before 1993, the Republicans controlled HUD, and for 8 of those years, under President Reagan, the most corrupt and inefficient Cabinet secretary in recent memory, Secretary Pierce, was in charge…

they are going to transition to where? The gentleman keeps saying they are going to transition to somewhere. He said before, we are going to spend all this money, it is just to renew the section 8, it is these same number of units. And…

Money is denigrated whenever poor people are the recipients. The gentleman from New York just correctly said that it would be very unfortunate for the veterans if they lost money. I agree. One reason I am skeptical about this budget deal…

Mr. Chairman, as we proceed with the majority's rope-a-dope strategy, I hope we can focus on the serious importance of this issue. Obviously public housing requires great change. The question is, in what direction? It is also important to…

I would be glad to have my amendment say that this does not take effect until we have no bad housing projects. Once that happens, then this could take effect.

Mr. Chairman, this is a further effort to get some of the unnecessary bureaucratic gobbledegook out of this bill. Last year we debated at length in this bill an effort by the majority to raise the amount of rent that tenants could be…

The gentleman may have voted to abolish it, but that does not entitle him to abolish it in his mind and act as if it was abolished. The fact is that the gentleman just said, if you give more money to HUD, it must come under the 602(b)…

I am going to propose an amendment later on that we have a tenants' referendum on these things. I do not doubt the sincerity of my colleagues in insisting that the work requirement and the self-sufficiency contract are really what the…

This is an amendment, Mr. Chairman, that deals with another piece of what we debated last week. We debated thoroughly last week the 8-hour work requirement. There is another requirement in this bill, in the same provision, and it has to do…

We are in the process, we are in the process of trying to determine what the majority determines. The majority, until it has voted on this, has not spoken yet. But finally I have to say I understand the gentleman can feel beleaguered…

But many of us have also talked about substantial reductions, the space station, the B-2 bomber, areas that we consider----

I have to say to my friend with all sincerity, invoking the President is not an argument. Invoking the President, with whom you are free to disagree and disagree frequently, the fact that the gentleman coincide on this one, as the…

The gentleman seems to have forgotten that his side forgot to do a budget this year. He not only forgot about NASA, he forgot to do a budget. There has been no 602(b) allocation, so his whole argument is nonsensical. What the gentleman…