Tom Coburn: “I think the removal of the barriers for housing affordability has been great. The regulatory impact analysis, the grants…”

“I think the removal of the barriers for housing affordability has been great. The regulatory impact analysis, the grants for removing regulatory barriers, these are things I see in my own community that limit people's ability to achieve housing. I think also the title III section 8 homeownership option is a great step forward to allow people to get into a home that otherwise was not there. The pilot program with that is great as well. The transfer of unoccupied and substandard HUD housing is something that has been long awaited because it needs to have that option if we are in fact going to clean up some of the neighborhoods that we have and clean up some of the homes. The last thing I am appreciative of is the rural housing opportunities that were made, and that is very important to my district. I do have some concerns about it, and I would just take a moment to say that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) has an amendment, and if we combine her amendment with my second amendment, what we do is to enlarge this pie to all Americans to in fact go into these neighborhoods and create greater demand and greater assistance to raise the level of the neighborhoods.”