Kit Bond

I thank you for that. That is good news.

In addition to the obvious benefits of CARES, I believe it will also spur some major construction spending.

I appreciate your hard work, commitment, and compassion as the Secretary of VA and in my humble opinion, your record will identify you as the finest VA Secretary ever.

I am appalled that some quarter of a million veterans on any given night in this Nation are homeless.

Your record identifies you as the finest VA Secretary I have ever worked with

The VA was created with the central purpose of being a safety net for our veterans

We are saving more lives on the battlefield, but often the lives saved are lives of people who have very severe injuries

I strongly believe you, Mr. Secretary, have done an outstanding job in meeting the changes and the challenges of serving our Nation's veterans

I continue to be disappointed that OMB or somebody somewhere has chosen to strike out the priorities that this committee and Congress have put in, in the past.

Are you sure you're not going to be attracting the highest-risk home buyers into this program?

Well, we commend you for progress in that area. And as you might have gathered, I am very much concerned about this.

Thank you very much, Senator Mikulski.

It seems to be a decision by FHA that it can afford to house as many people as possible, no matter the cost of the default to the fund or the impact of a family's credit in the future.

While you're speaking of Kansas City, we are hearing grave concerns that many PHA's, and specifically Kansas City, will have a significant shortfall.

You know, I have grave concerns that some areas are getting too much money, some areas are not getting enough.

If HUD truly wants to allow PHA's to meet local housing needs, where there's a shortage of housing, where the rents have been driven up, why not allow PHA's the ability to use Section 8 assistance to develop more low-income housing as part…

I'm worried about redlining in the concentration from this flexible voucher, because you're going to be shorting the PHA's.

It seems to me that the potential is to increase homelessness and increase the 'zip codes of poverty'.

Well, No. 1, we'd like to have the data, if you'd provide that for us today.

No. 2, why can't you fix the FMR problem?

You have staff out in the heartland, don't you? You've got a great staff, I know, in Kansas City.

I want to know who the HUD official is who is supposed to go out and look at that.

I want to make sure now when you get an invoice for somebody who's done repair work, does somebody from HUD go out and look and see if the job is done?

It seems to me if you're going to be paying hard cash for somebody to do the repairs, you ought not to pay.

Well, this proposal has a ticking time bomb in it.