Jerry Nadler: “we are all in favor of emergency help to people who suffered from storms and to pay the bills for what we are doing in…”

“we are all in favor of emergency help to people who suffered from storms and to pay the bills for what we are doing in Bosnia. But, Mr. Speaker, some of the offsets here are unconscionable. Mr. Speaker, in the entire budget there is $10 billion for section 8 housing. This is not for new section 8 units. This is for supplementing the rent payments of low-income people in existing housing. This bill proposes to cut that by $2.2 billion, 22 percent. And since there is no new section 8 housing, what does it mean? It means we are going to not renew the contracts of existing section 8s. It means that, in the next couple of years, we are going to say to 350,000 families, leave your homes. We are going to throw them out on the street. We are going to tell them the subsidies end. The rent doubled, they are guaranteed not to be able to pay that because, if they could afford it, they would not be in the program in the first place. So, in order to meet some people's definition that we should not fund emergency programs out of emergency funds, those 350,000 people are out of their homes. I hope that is not what we want to do, Mr. Speaker.”