Rick Lazio: “If I could reclaim my time only because we are so limited, I only have less than 5 minutes now, one of my major problems…”

“If I could reclaim my time only because we are so limited, I only have less than 5 minutes now, one of my major problems with this, of course, is that it suggests that somehow we ignore the fact that people who are in public housing are receiving a benefit. It suggests that we are asking people to give community service. This is not voluntarism, it is not called voluntarism in the bill. It is community service. We are asking tenants to provide community service in return for a benefit. They are getting compensated. The benefit of public housing, the apartment that they receive and in many cases the utilities that are paid are part of the compensation that people are receiving. In return we are asking the minimal amount of 2 hours a week, 15 minutes a day, 8 hours a month in return for the benefit of receiving an apartment, public housing and in many cases, as I say, the utilities as well. Interesting, in my home, if I can because my time is so limited, I would say to the gentleman, in my home this week on Saturday I received a letter from an elderly lady who wrote to me. She had been watching the debate on television, and she had said that her Social Security check just about equaled the rent that she was paying in her market rate unit. She was older, she had lost her husband, she was a widow, and she said in her letter: Congressman, I would be pleased, ecstatic, to give at least 2 hours of my time a week. I am elderly. I know there are things I could do.…”