As expected, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson got a hostile reception at the House’s March 8 hearing on moving and cutting CDBG:
Lawmakers from both parties yesterday strongly criticized the Bush administration’s proposal to eliminate the $ 4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant program and replace it and 17 other programs with a new $ 3.7 billion block grant program.
Evidently the Secretary was not taking many bullets for his team:
At times during the oversight hearing yesterday and in recent weeks Jackson has appeared ambivalent about CDBG and the proposal to end it. Two weeks before the administration unveiled the plan in early February, Jackson praised the existing CDBG program that HUD currently administers. In a speech at a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting here, the secretary called CDBG “a very important program [that] has worked and continues to work in this country.”
Even yesterday, Jackson spoke glowingly of the program. In response to a question from Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., the secretary said “most of the cities have done a very excellent job” of leveraging CDBG dollars.
Jackson said yesterday that he now supports the administration’s plans but had not initially favored the CDBG proposal when he learned of it. Jackson said he argued within the administration that CDBG should remain at HUD, but did not ultimately prevail. “We made what we thought was a logical argument…but the decision was made,” Jackson said.
Meanwhile, even the elephants were upset:
Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif., said Jackson’s department was “doing a good job at community development” and that he saw no “reason at all to send [CDBG] over to Commerce.” Miller said he had never heard “a greater uproar” from community leaders than he heard after news of the CDBG proposal spread last month. “There is not a better use of” federal dollars than CDBG, Miller said. “We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater because somebody thinks it’s a good idea.”
When even the elephants are blocking your road …
Vaporware? Diversion? You decide.
