[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H2725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ELIMINATION ACT OF 1995

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Hefley] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HEFLEY. Madam Speaker, French economist Jean-Baptiste Say is 
famous as the author of Say's Law, sometimes summarized as ``Supply 
creates its own demand.'' In economic circles, this law is still the 
subject of debate.
  Here in Washington, however, the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development has been proving Say's Law for the past 30 years. We keep 
increasing spending on public housing, and the problem just gets worse.
  Contrary to popular belief, housing assistance was not cut during the 
Reagan years. Discretionary Federal assisted housing outlays have grown 
from $165 million in 1962 to $5.5 billion in 1980 and $23.7 billion in 
1994, resulting in 55 percent more families being assisted today than 
in 1980.
  Has this dramatic growth solved the problem? No. Today, after HUD's 
budget has grown by over 400 percent in 15 years, only 30 percent of 
the families eligible to receive housing assistance are doing so.
  And what kind of housing are they receiving? The 1992 report on 
severely distressed public housing found many public housing residents 
afraid to leave their own homes due to prevalent crime while others 
were living in decaying conditions that threatened their safety and 
health.
  According to HUD's own statement of principles issued January of this 
year, ``the rigidly bureaucratic, top-down, command-and-control public 
housing management system that has evolved over the years has left tens 
of thousands of people living in squalid conditions at a very high cost 
in wasted lives and Federal dollars.''
  Three decades of HUD and homeownership is down, homelessness is up, 
and millions of low-income Americans are condemned to live in 
substandard housing which would be unacceptable if it were owned by 
anyone else.
  Say's Law indeed.
  Quite simply, HUD has failed its mission of providing decent, low-
income housing to America's poor. On the other hand, it has done an 
excellent job of providing jobs to over 4,000 Washington bureaucrats 
who oversee the hundreds of programs within the Department.
  For these reasons, I have introduced legislation to abolish HUD by 
January 1, 1998, and consolidate its needed existing programs into 
block grants and vouchers.
  If it is truly the job of government to subsidize low-income housing, 
then let's do it without the middle man. Rent vouchers allow low-income 
people to choose their own home, rather than have some bureaucrat 
choose it for them. Block grants give money directly to the States and 
local governments--that much closer to the taxpayers who pay the bills.
  These reforms are in line with the recommendations recently outlined 
by HUD itself. The administration's own reform plan proposes 
eliminating all direct capital and operating subsidies to existing 
public housing authorities and converting these funds to rent 
certificates.
  For years, conservatives and liberals alike have been championing 
similar reforms, and it's good to see the current administration 
jumping onboard.
  On the other hand, the administration's effort falls short of the 
bottom line. Bill Clinton proposed to consolidate HUD's 60 public 
housing programs into three general funds. He then requested an 
increase in HUD's budget.
  Madam Speaker, America's poor do not just suffer from a surplus of 
bureaucrats telling them where to live and what to do. They also suffer 
from excess government that destroys jobs and opportunity.
  With $200 billion deficits projected into the next century, it isn't 
enough to just consolidate many little programs into a few big 
programs. We have to reduce the size of Government overall. We need to 
eliminate entire departments. We need to abolish HUD.
  It is time to admit that Uncle Sam makes a lousy landlord and end 
this 30-year experiment in socialist domestic policy. As Bill Clinton 
said in his State of the Union Address, ``The old way of governing 
around here actually seemed to reward failure.''
  Let us stop rewarding HUD's failure by abolishing HUD and eliminating 
the unnecessary bureaucracy. The alternative is to continue investing 
in instant ghettos and Federal bureaucrats.
  That's a solution we have tried for 30 years, and it just has not 
worked.


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