Rick Lazio: “Mr. Chairman, we are still arguing about income-based rent. Therein lies the philosophical divide. Therein is the reason…”

“Mr. Chairman, we are still arguing about income-based rent. Therein lies the philosophical divide. Therein is the reason why people who manage public housing and do this on a daily basis day in and day out, and live with the problems, live with the challenges, work with the people, and understand the problems, why they say that this approach is so devastating to work. They say it has been a disincentive to work, it has been an incentive to fraud, and it has caused a humongous amount of change in terms of mixed income, which is very important. Let us talk about mixed income in public housing for a second, because the Brooke amendment and the Frank amendment would continue to compound the problem that exists in public housing today because it chases out the people that get a job, because it is a tax on work. It is a tax on employment. It is a work disincentive. It hurts the working poor. It increases rent for the working poor.”