Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to H.R. 5972, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for the Fiscal Year of 2013.

The purposes of my amendment are straightforward and simple. First, the amendment aims to hold one particular Federal agency accountable for its terrible mismanagement of resources, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Second, the amendment saves over $24 million in taxpayer dollars during these trying economic times. I was perturbed to read that Appropriations Committee Report numbered 112-541 as it related to HUD's administrative operations and management. I will read an excerpt from page 71 here:

While the Committee appreciates the expanded Congressional Budget Justifications the Department submitted, the committee is appalled with the quality of the information the Department and administration provide throughout the year to explain and to justify their budget requests. HUD does not have adequate knowledge of the number of people it takes to implement a program. Further, the information HUD provides is often wrong, contains mathematical errors, and calls into question HUD's entire Congressional Budget Justification and the Department's competence in managing its resources.

On the following page, the report goes on to show that HUD cannot account for much of its data regarding salary and benefit levels for its employees. HUD also violated the Anti-Deficiency Act multiple times in FY 2011, in which the Department hired more people than it had resources to pay.

Let me say that I do appreciate the committee's awareness of the situation and its desire to lower funding levels in this bill, as compared to last year's levels. But I believe that HUD's administrative, operations and management resources can and should be reduced to FY 2008 levels. This is a reasonable level of funding that allowed them to do their job during very troubling economic times. Unfortunately, we still live in such times; and that fact, combined with their negligence, means that they must operate with less. Business incompetence isn't an answer and cannot be rewarded within any budget.

For these reasons, I ask each Member of the House to support my amendment to the underlying bill. This is a win-win for the American taxpayer. You can cast a vote to hold government accountable and reduce the deficit, and you have the ability. Join me in supporting this commonsense amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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