John LaFalce: “I rise in order to express my strong opposition to the very inadequate funding levels for housing and community…”

“I rise in order to express my strong opposition to the very inadequate funding levels for housing and community development in this bill. This bill continues a very regrettable practice of the majority party to underfund housing programs, with the hope that Congressional Democrats and the administration will go to conference and insist in conference on more realistic funding levels. I do commend the work of the Subcommittee on Housing chairman, who does the best he can with clearly inadequate funding allocations dictated by the budget resolution. But, at the same time, I am very concerned by inaccurate characterizations that housing is doing well under this bill simply because budget authority is theoretically up by billions of dollars. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of this increase in budget authority does not benefit housing programs, individuals or services at all, but is simply an illusion of higher funding. Mr. Chairman, 5 years ago, the majority party's first act was to cut the housing budget by 24 percent. We have been playing catchup ever since, in spite of the efforts of Democrats to beef up funding to meet needs. This year's House bill is no different. The bill is $2.5 billion lower than the administration's request; and, with the exception of the illusory section 8 increases, every program is flat funded or cut.”