Melvin Watt: “Mr. Chairman, I am having a little trouble following this debate because it sounds like everybody is saying the same…”

“Mr. Chairman, I am having a little trouble following this debate because it sounds like everybody is saying the same thing, which is that we need more money. At least every once in a while I hear somebody on the other side acknowledge that we need more money, when they are running away from the notion that they are advancing that money will not solve the problem. And so that kind of has my head spinning. Maybe my head is spinning because it is so late tonight, but I keep hearing inconsistent philosophies from my colleagues here. We were talking about opening new slots for working people and public housing so that working people could rotate out of public housing, and so we went around in a circle on that issue, and then we were talking about we always want to do what the President does, but the truth of the matter is the President does not even support this bill and the President has asked for additional funding for this purpose and our authorizing committee will not even ask for additional funding, even though we all acknowledge that we need the additional funding if we are going to rehabilitate public housing. We were talking about more flexibility for local housing authorities, and yet the bill keeps dictating various requirements from the Federal Government on local housing authorities.”