[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21728-21729]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRANSPORTATION APPROPRIATIONS

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I come to the floor to speak about 
three amendments to the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill. I do 
wish to comment on the Afghan discussion and thank my colleagues who 
just spoke so eloquently. All three have been leaders on the issue of 
international engagements. I hope the Senators, particularly Senator 
McCain and Senator Graham, as we contemplate the right moves forward, 
will think about and be willing to fund nonmilitary programs as well. 
Many such programs have been shown, in front of the Armed Services 
Committee and the Appropriations Committee, through testimony given by 
Secretary Gates himself, as well as many military leaders, to actually 
help reduce violence by supporting development in Afghan villages, 
empowering individuals, particularly women in Afghanistan who, with a 
little bit of help and a little bit of support, can be the strength and 
cement that holds communities together. Educating girls is an important 
strategy.
  One thing we have learned from the failed policies of the previous 
administration is that we have to use both hard and soft power 
combined, to make it smarter so we can actually win some of these 
battles. That is probably what President Obama and his team are 
thinking about: How do we unite the Congress, get past partisan 
rhetoric, and come up with a smart strategy to win in Afghanistan. In 
that way we might not only protect our troops, but we might be able to 
get them home a little bit sooner. I am sure that is what the President 
is thinking about. I look forward to working with Senators Lieberman, 
McCain, and Graham as we move forward, hopefully, in a bipartisan 
fashion, to protect our troops and to win in a place that we most 
certainly need to and keep the Taliban at bay.
  I came to talk about three amendments. One is an amendment I have 
pending. It is amendment No. 2365. I see my colleague, Senator 
Hutchison, is in the Chamber. She is a cosponsor of the amendment. 
Although we are not going to vote on it tonight, I wished to speak for 
a moment about the amendment. Unfortunately, I will be away from the 
Senate tomorrow for a longstanding commitment. Tomorrow I will deliver 
a speech that I promised to give on behalf of Senator Domenici in New 
Mexico, so I will not be here for the vote. But I know my colleagues 
who are supporting this amendment will stand in and carry the torch.
  My amendment will help disaster-stricken communities in Texas, 
Louisiana, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, 
Tennessee, Florida and California. Congress appropriated $6.5 billion 
in a Community Development Block Grant for the series of disasters that 
afflicted these states in 2008. The problem was, that in this 
particular allocation, we prohibited these communities from using that 
money to match other Federal moneys that might be available, which 
makes no sense. Congress has appropriated funds using the Community 
Development Block Grant to respond to 19 other disasters, and virtually 
never resorted to adding such a prohibition.
  What my amendment will do is revert to the regular language so that 
communities, such as Galveston--I see my colleague Senator Hutchison 
here. She and I will be together in Galveston on Friday to monitor 
recovery efforts there and she has been such a leader in this effort. 
However, there are still many communities in New Orleans and in 
southwest Louisiana and other parts of south Louisiana for which this 
amendment is crucial. It doesn't add money to the bill. It just allows 
us to use money more intelligently.
  For communities that are struggling not just because of disasters but 
because of the atmosphere of tough economic times, it gives local and 
State leaders a little bit more flexibility to pull down some of the 
Federal money that has already been allocated to communities that need 
it the most. It is amendment No. 2365. Senator Grassley is supportive, 
as are Senator Murray and Senator Bond. I thank them so much. We will 
consider that amendment tomorrow.
  Now I want to turn to a new topic and I wish to speak against an 
amendment offered by my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, that 
will be considered tomorrow. I will not be here to vote against this 
amendment but will submit a statement for the Record. I strongly oppose 
that amendment--amendment number 2359, which will be voted on tomorrow.
  This is an amendment I oppose for two reasons. No. 1, it is bad 
policy. The other reason I am against it is because this amendment only 
deals with public housing residents and other HUD-housing assistance 
recipients in the city of New Orleans. It doesn't address the problems 
of public housing residents right here in the District of Columbia, nor 
public housing residents in Chicago or New York, nor Baton Rouge, nor 
Lafayette. Only in New Orleans.
  That is perplexing to me, that it is focused on only one city in our 
State and only one city in the whole country. That is one reason to 
vote against the amendment, no matter what it says, because it does not 
include other communities.
  But the real reason to vote against the amendment is because it is 
mean-spirited and counterproductive. What this amendment basically says 
is that you can be evicted from public housing if anyone in your family 
commits a crime or gets in trouble with the law.
  I understand family members. I am one of nine siblings. I am married 
and now have two children. I have many brothers and sisters and 38 
cousins in our extended family and two wonderful parents. The Presiding 
Officer has met many members of my family. I like to try to take 
responsibility for everyone in my family. But parents, no matter how 
hard they try, sometimes somebody in your family does something that is 
wrong. Should the entire family become homeless? That is what the 
Vitter amendment will do. It is such poor policy. It is so mean-
spirited. It is so counterproductive. It will mean an increase in 
homelessness for a city that has already seen our homeless population 
quadruple.
  More than that, the nature of this amendment is so punitive. It 
penalizes grandmothers or great aunts or moms and dads, or siblings who 
are trying to do the best they can with very little. Children sometimes 
do very bad things. Sometimes you will have a family of five children. 
Four are wonderful and straight-A students. Then you have one child who 
gets in trouble with drugs or becomes an alcoholic, and causes trouble 
for the family. Senator Vitter has put in an amendment which he will 
ask this body to support that would do this: when one member of the 
family gets in trouble with the law, the whole family gets thrown out 
on the street.
  If this amendment passes, I would like for him to have to go to the 
sister in fourth grade, because, let's say, the teenage son who is 17 
is the one who is causing the problems. I don't want people to think I 
just pick on boys, but I think people understand we have lots of 
trouble with this age group of all genders. I would like maybe for my 
colleague to be the one who has to knock on the front door and tell the 
mother and the fourth grade little girl, who got an A on her test, 
performed in the band and has straight A's, that she can pack her bags 
and spend the night on the street. If I could modify this amendment to 
make him have to do that, I would. This is not compassionate 
conservatism. This is mean, and it is nonsense. It needs to be voted 
down.
  To repeat the number, for my colleagues, both Democrats and 
Republicans, it is amendment No. 2359, only for New Orleans and only 
for people in public housing. I hope Members will vote no.
  Let me say one other thing about this. Unfortunately, my colleague 
and some people supported tearing down all the public housing units in 
New Orleans after the storm because some of them were destroyed. Some 
people took this as an opportunity to say: We never liked them anyway. 
They weren't run very well. Which was often true. So let's knock them 
all down and too bad for the people who used to live there, even though 
most of those people worked. I am going to remind my

[[Page 21729]]

colleague and others, they don't live there for free. Under the law, 
they pay 30 percent of their income to live in that housing. He wanted 
to knock them all down.
  Some of us fought back and said: OK, we want to reform them. We want 
to build better communities. We will work with you here. So because I 
stepped in and a bunch of others stepped in, Catholic Charities and 
many activists from all walks of life, including the business 
community, we said: We are going to rebuild these communities. Well 
here is the most amazing thing about it: it is working. Shawn Donovan, 
our Housing Secretary, was just there. We had standing room only, with 
people from every different race and walk of life. We are patting 
ourselves on the back saying: It was bad 10 years ago. It was bad 5 
years ago. But now we are all working together in the spirit of unity 
in a city that has been absolutely brought to its knees by flooding and 
by political bickering and bomb throwing. And we made things better. 
Then this amendment has to hit the floor. It is a disgrace. I urge my 
colleagues to vote no on amendment 2359.
  While I am here, I will say a word about another amendment that has 
been agreed to this afternoon by 73 votes, unfortunately. It was 
another Vitter amendment. It was amendment No. 2376. I voted no. There 
were 26 of us who voted no, but 73 Senators voted yes. I know I am in 
the minority, but that is what the Senate is about, giving the minority 
a voice. I wish to say something about this. This amendment reinstated 
a law that says that if you live in public housing, you have to do 8 
hours of community service. That sounds pretty good. People think, we 
are providing housing for people. They should be grateful. The least 
they can do is community service.
  I am a big supporter of community service. I try to do it when I can. 
I support community service and I support calling all of our citizens 
to community service. What I don't support is making poor people and 
mostly minorities do community service, while other people sit on the 
sideline and never are required to do it, even though the largesse they 
receive from our government is much greater than a resident of public 
housing could ever hope to get even if they lived there for 50 years.
  If you lived in public housing for 50 years, you could not possibly 
benefit as much from the General Treasury as if you would if you were 
the executive of AIG to whom we gave a gazillion dollars. Did we ask 
them to do 8 hours of community service? We didn't even ask him to pay 
the money back. Somebody has to wake up in this Chamber.
  I am not fussing at my colleagues because I know people have a 
different view about this. But if we want to require law students to do 
8 hours of community service for the loans they get, fine. But don't 
just pick on the poor because they can't fight back, and they don't 
have any lobbyists up here for them.
  Those are the two amendments my colleague could come up with today. I 
can't wait to see what he comes up with tomorrow.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

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