Rick Lazio: “Now, there are people who argue against change in this body, there are people who argue that what we are doing is fine…”

“Now, there are people who argue against change in this body, there are people who argue that what we are doing is fine, that it is OK to maintain super concentrations of poverty, that we should not be worried about transforming people to self-sufficiency. But this debate for the last 3 days and the days that will follow that we will debate this bill is in fact about self-sufficiency, it is about transformation, it is about community work and the work ethic and responsibility and those values that we think are important in every American community. We reject the premise that this is entirely about money. Public housing authorities get $3 billion. In Chicago along State Street there are buildings that we in this body, people in this body, would not want to sleep in the worst day of their life, yet we have children, American children, living there with broken windows and broken doors and hallways that are filthy. In New Orleans in a place called Desire, perversely, ditto. In those two examples, Mr. Chairman, it was not a lack of money, because those housing authorities left money on the table.”