Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick: “I thank Chairman Knollenberg for your leadership, sir, Michigander, appreciate working with you. And to our ranking…”

“I thank Chairman Knollenberg for your leadership, sir, Michigander, appreciate working with you. And to our ranking member, Mr. Olver, thank you very much for working together. As I always say, when the chairman and ranking members work together, it certainly makes our subcommittee work better. I rise in support of our TTHUD bill, that is Transportation, Treasury, HUD, IRS and several other agencies put together in an acronym we call TTHUD, the TTHUD bill, some $67 billion bill for transit agencies, for our roads and bridges, for our housing needs, and Treasury and the like. I think the bill is a good bill for what we had to work with, but it is far short of the needs that America has to fund its highway system, to fund its transit system, also for community development. I think housing in this bill takes a major hit, and it is so unfortunate. HOPE VI, which is a program for distressed housing in mainly urban America, has been zeroed out. I think that is unfortunate. And I know you can't fund a war at over $350 billion and think we can, at the same time, invest in America. That is why I think we must bring our troops home in the most practical time, and redeploy our troops around the theater area so that America is safe, and that we protect our interests at the same time. But working with the dollars that we have, the HUD part of this bill has been devastated. The brownfield area has been zeroed out.…”