John W. Olver: “In this instance, it is again a case of freezing a salaries and expenses account at the previous year's level. But this…”

“In this instance, it is again a case of freezing a salaries and expenses account at the previous year's level. But this one has an interesting sidelight in that, in the legislation that we have before us, we have adopted a Presidential recommendation for a partial-year funding for project-based section 8 vouchers, which is going to cause considerable additional administration than the usual program of doing full-year continuation of those voucher programs. There is going to be much uncertainty if this goes on all the way to adoption. There would be much uncertainty for the people who are the owners and providers of that housing, and probably some loss in actual affordable housing available under the project-based section 8 program. So this is a case where they need that assistance. This is where we administer the housing programs for the elderly and disabled, the so- called 202 programs and 811, chapters 202 and chapter 811 for elderly and disabled people, as well as housing counseling assistance. In addition, we have the Federal Housing Administration, which is having a much larger level of activity as we are trying to dig out of the foreclosure crisis from the past, and that agency needs to have personnel that are qualified and able to do the right job. So again here--and by the way, I made an error in my previous comments when I said there was a reduction across the board for HUD.…”