Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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The first thing we should look at when we look at this budget is cost, and this is one program that is going up in cost. We are still in a position in this budget in which we anticipate borrowing about 14 percent. We have the $18 trillion debt.

This amendment will reduce the cost in this budget by $300 million, which by itself is nothing to sneeze at, but the real reason for this amendment is the perverse incentives in Section 8 and other tenant-based rental assistance programs.

All of these programs are conditioned upon, first, having little or no income. It is wrong to encourage people not to work. As I get around my district, I find so many employers who cannot find employees today, in part, because they feel it pays better not to work.

Secondly, and more importantly, this program, like so many other programs designed to help poor people, has a huge marriage penalty associated with it. In order to get this low-income housing, it almost encourages one--it does encourage one--to have children without a mother and father at home. To continue this program or even expand this program to more people is to just destroy the moral fiber of America.

This amendment is tailored to not include or not reduce low-income housing for the elderly or disabled. I am aware of the fact that we have people in this country on Social Security maybe making $500 a month, and they may find it very difficult to find anywhere else to live, so I am not chipping away at that part of the program.

I will give you an example. In my district, I talked to someone who ran one of these low-income projects--not Section 8, but more of a project-based one--and they were very proud of what nice, low-income housing it was. It was very nice, very generous. They pointed out the only thing you needed to do to get these apartments for $25 a month was to not have a job. Now, can you imagine anything so foolish as to encourage people to not have a job?

In any event, I hope this amendment passes. I hope there is nobody else in this room who would have any objection to this commonsense amendment designed to restore the moral fiber that made America great.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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I do not give up hope that, by the time this budget rolls around next year, you see the wisdom of the amendment.

I think a lot of people get confused when they find waiting lists for this sort of program. If you are handing out apartments for $25 a month, of course, there are going to be waiting lists; so that is not surprising. Even then, there are certain areas in my State, in my district, where they are trying to find people who are not in the local area to fill these units because there is an excess of units.

Nevertheless, I think you want to think about the perverse incentives you have in a program in which, the more you work, the more your rent goes up. In order to get in, in the first place, you almost can't work at all; and, secondly, what the long-term effect on our society is if you would tell somebody that, if they raise a child out of wedlock, you get a free, air-conditioned, maybe two-bedroom, two-bath apartment, but if you get married to somebody with a job, you lose that apartment--is that the type of incentive we want for the next generation?

I yield back the balance of my time.

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I think all we talked about in that last amendment applies to this amendment, with one additional thing that people should find offensive, because here we are dealing with project-based rental assistance.

Not only are we encouraging some people not to work very hard, not only are we encouraging people not to raise children in an old-fashioned nuclear family, we are also kind of having a strong element of corporate welfare here, too, which is something I don't care for.

Over time, we have this kind of industry growing up in which you operate low-income housing. In some ways, I assume people are entering into it because it is more profitable than a pure, free market sort of thing; and I would think that people who are opposed to corporate welfare ought to be opposed to it for that reason as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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First of all, I would like to clarify something in the amendment. The amendment does not apply to people who were receiving rental assistance--and neither did the other amendment--prior to October 1 of this year. It is not a matter of kicking people out; it is a matter of not putting any further people on.

Furthermore, I think we have to discuss how generous this benefit is. There are so many people in our society who are living with parents, living with other family members, living with roommates, and working to afford that rent. To give somebody a freestanding apartment--some of these are very nice apartments, two-bedroom, two-bath, air-conditioned apartments--without having to work at all to receive that apartment is just a horrible incentive.

I would ask the gentleman to go back in his district and talk to people who live in the neighborhoods where they have these subsidized projects. One of the things I find is that sometimes people who live in maybe high-end areas and are not familiar with these get confused.

I think, if you talk to people who know people who live in this subsidized housing, you will have no problem finding many anecdotes of people who are clearly not hurting materially; and, in order to keep their subsidies going, they cannot work, work harder, or get raises. Above all, they can't get married.

I think you have to ask yourself whether we ought to continue these programs that are around year after year after year or whether it is high time to look at these programs; change the underlying qualifications; change the time limits; change the amount that has to be paid; and, quite frankly, also sometimes look at the very generous accommodations that the government is providing, quite frankly, more generous accommodations than a lot of people who are working quite hard have.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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