Byron Dorgan: “The more I have reviewed what has happened in section 8 housing, the more I have become convinced that if you were to…”

“The more I have reviewed what has happened in section 8 housing, the more I have become convinced that if you were to try to find among the dumbest ideas on how you might provide housing for low-income folks, among the dumbest ideas, you would select the approach selected some 20 years ago called section 8 housing. It resulted in, as I understand it, a series of very significant tax benefits paid upfront--generous, significant tax benefits paid upfront--for the construction of housing with preferential mortgages and mortgage amounts being given in excess, in most cases, of what would be provided in normal private sector construction. In addition to that, once the property was built with these tax benefits and with the preferential mortgages, section 8 provided a contract for rents that provided automatic escalators every year for whatever the period of the contract--in most cases, 20 years, I understand. The result is, for example, that in a rural county of North Dakota, Towner County, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $270.”