John W. Olver: “This is an amendment that would take a huge chunk out of the CDBG program. This is one of the areas in which I have been…”

“This is an amendment that would take a huge chunk out of the CDBG program. This is one of the areas in which I have been particularly, I thought, most commendable about what the chairman's mark is in the bill for the CDBG. The CDBG is a hugely popular program in communities around the country. We have, as I have mentioned in my opening remarks at the beginning of this bill, 65 percent of our population living in communities in metropolitan areas with over half a million people, and close to 90 percent of our people live in communities with over 50,000 people. It's roughly around 50,000 people that are entitlement communities and get an amount of money that they may use in a flexible kind of a way in their cities and towns of large size, and can directly get that money to use for things that they need in their cities. Their cities and towns have suffered greatly in the Great Recession that we have had before us, and they have housing needs which are very substantial. Now I would point out to the gentleman from Utah that the amount for the CDBG program as proposed by Chairman Latham I am commending him for and strongly support his allocation for this. The amount that he has provided in this bill within the allocation and with the $4 billion reduction that the bill entails is below the number that CDBG was given all the way back in 2008. It has varied up and down, depending upon the allocations and depending upon what has gone on. But this one still is below.…”