Political Quotes

“First, let me profess my love for Tip O'Neill. [Laughter] And I really, sincerely mean it, as I think many people--I know Barbara knows, and I really feel strongly about it--the guy has not been well lately, nor has Millie, his wife, who we love dearly. So, I will take this opportunity through C-SPAN or whoever to pay my genuine respects and affection to him. He knows this. And I think you've phrased it very well--we do have a different approach on how housing should be done in this country. I think when Tip goes back, he was talking about government-paid-for, government-owned housing. Our approach is something else. We believe that the best way to do it is to have tenant management, encourage ownership, voucher systems. We have a program called HOPE, which relates fundamentally to home ownership as opposed to Federal ownership. We have put much more money in the budget for this. We happen to believe that enterprise zones going into low-income areas would do an awful lot to bring business there and thus enable people to buy more homes. So, I hope that the program that we've put forward, the HOPE program, will have the support of many of Tip's former colleagues. I have a feeling it will. We'd made a good step on it last year in the Congress and got good support from both sides of the aisle. But if Tip is referring to the government-owned-bricks-and-mortar approach, we think that that has been tried, and we think in many instances it has failed. We think it has built misery into the system. You've seen programs in St. Louis that at one time looked good, and then they had to tear them down in their entirety. So, I would like to encourage support for this new approach which empowers the people and I think will lead to far more housing. New World Order”