Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, criticism of both public and private institutions is a vital part of democracy, but there are times when we as a society err on the side of excessive negativism, with the danger that the important contributions institutions make to the quality of our life can be overlooked. An example of this is the current mood of ridiculing the legal profession. In the welter of legitimate criticisms that are made in the media and elsewhere about mistakes that lawyers make, the extraordinarily important role that lawyers play in fighting for some element of fairness in our society is sometimes lost. In the Boston Globe on Monday, April 17, Professor Charles Ogletree, Jr. of Harvard Law School published an eloquent and thoughtful essay about the role of three of his former Harvard Law School colleagues who, tragically, all passed away last month. Professor Ogletree's moving tribute to Gary Bellow, Abram Chayes and James Vorenberg serves two important purposes. First, it highlights the valuable work all three of these very dedicated, highly talented public spirited men did to make our society a fairer one. And in doing that, Professor Ogletree also highlights how the law at its best--and each of these three men represented that ideal--enhances the quality of our life as a civilized people. It is entirely appropriate that Professor Ogletree wrote this article, because he embodies the tradition and moral leadership through the practice and teaching of law that these three extraordinary men exemplified. Because it is important that we as public policy makers strive constantly to vindicate the values that Gary Bellow, Abe Chayes and Jim Vorenberg worked so hard for during their lifetimes, because Charles Ogletree so well conveys this point, I submit his article to be printed in the Record. [From the Boston Globe, Apr. 17, 2000] Giants of Law (By Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.) Three giants in the legal education reform movement died this past week. Gary Bellow, Abram Chayes, and James Vorenberg have left indelible marks on the profession and have been instrumental in initiating reform that will continue to have an impact well into the 21st century. While they are known for being scholars and gifted teachers at Harvard Law School, their contributions are much broader, and they have touched the lives of generations. Although they spent more than 30 years as exceptional teachers, they spent an equal amount of time as public interest advocates. Bellow is known for his remarkable string of acquittals as a public defender in Washington. He represented Cesar Chavez and the migrant farm workers in California as they fought to reduce the use of life- threatening pesticides and to press for a livable wage. Bellow's success drew the wrath of then-Governor Ronald Reagan. His work ultimately led to severe restrictions on the type of cases that legal service attorneys could accept in representing poor people. Vorenberg's ground-breaking work as a Watergate prosecutor was an important affirmation of the principle that no person is above the law and today is a marker for public prosecutors functioning as public servants. Chayes over the past two years represented the nation of Namibia before the International Court of Justice. He also represented Kosovo refugees in an action claiming that government-led forces engaged in genocide, war crimes, and human-rights violations. Their work in the courtrooms of the nation and the world, however, does not adequately illustrate their lasting contributions to our legal system. Bellow pioneered the clinical legal education movement in the early 1970s. His idea was that, with new constitutional changes requiring that indigents accused of criminal violations receive free attorneys, well-trained and energetic law students could serve in this effort. As a result of his vision, thousands of law students have provided quality legal representation to poor people in civil and criminal cases throughout Massachusetts and the nation. Bellow's casebook, ``Lawyering Process,'' is the seminal clinical legal education textbook used today. It took the unprecedented approach of using social science literature and empirical research to explain the complexities of the legal process, and it is unparalleled in its breadth and depth. Chayes was a pioneer in the field of international law, human rights advocacy, and peaceful conflict resolution. He began teaching and writing in these areas shortly after World War II and served as an adviser and consultant to several American presidents, including John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis. He helped policy makers realize that our salvation as a nation is inextricably tied to our willingness to see world progress as a global challenge, with cooperation and conciliation as an integral element. Chayes trained many foreign lawyers, including some who have returned to their countries and implemented democratic reforms that facilitated unfettered elections, economic productivity, and the protection of minority rights, without compromising principles of national sovereignty. His effort over the past 50 years stands as a testament that one person, fully committed to democracy and peace, can make a difference. Vorenberg's impact influenced not only legal education but also law reform in communities nationally. His commitment to justice and equality started early as he witnessed his father and grandfather hiring black employees at Gilchrist's, the Boston department store, during a time when few accepted the principle of hiring minorities. He also quietly influenced improved relationships between law enforcement officials and minority communities. While Vorenberg's role in developing the Kerner Commission Report is well known, his role in creating the Center for Criminal Justice at Harvard Law School to help eliminate distrust between police and minority community members is less publicized. He convened meetings of some of the nation's police chiefs in the early 1970s and had them examine ways to address crime control, while respecting the individual liberties of an increasingly diverse population. While it was not called community policing then, Vorenberg's efforts were designed to make police chiefs implement programs that helped them to better understand the communities they served, and to work with clergy, community leaders, and youth, to prevent crime. Former police chiefs like Lee P. Brown, of Houston and New York, Joe McNamara of Santa Clara, Calif., and Thomas Gilmore, the first African- American sheriff in Lowndes County, Ala., credit their visits to Harvard and consultations with Vorenberg and others for the success in vastly improving police and community relations following the turbulence of the 1980s. The lasting impact of Vorenberg's work with police chiefs can be seen in the success of cities like Boston and San Diego, and it offers a blueprint for innovation in turbulent cities like New York and Los Angeles. The accomplishments of these three giants cannot be adequately recounted without acknowledging the significant contributions of their spouses and partners, talented women in their own right. Jeanne Charn was with Bellow every step of the way in creating the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center over the last two decades, and she now serves as director of the center, providing legal assistance to a bilingual and the multicultural population of poor people in Massachusetts. Antonia Chayes joined her husband in resolving international disputes and advising foreign leaders through the Conflict Management Group, an internationally recognized dispute resolution institute that continues to help world leaders and nongovernmental organizations. Betty Vorenberg traveled the world with her husband promoting individual liberty and civil rights, particularly for women and children, while also playing an active role in the juvenile justice reform movement in Massachusetts. The love of the law and passion for teaching the next generation of social engineers was evident even in their final moments. Vorenberg was fatally stricken after teaching one of his classes, and Bellow suffered heart failure en route to class. These educators were the epitome of humility and selflessness. There will not be three like them to pass this way again.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in the absence of anything constructive for the House to do, I yield myself such time as I may consume. To begin, Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the overwhelming majority of our colleagues, approximately 432 of them, for ignoring this exercise in partisan silliness. No one believes that this is anything more than a very feeble effort from a party that is having difficulty in presenting a program to try and look like it is doing something. No one thinks this is going anywhere. We are about to debate an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Look who is here? At this point, it is now myself and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). We are here because we have to be here. If one of us was not here, we would have to stop. So the barest minimum number of people possible to keep this farce going are impressed into it. Frankly, I am a little resentful because we are having a serious hearing in judiciary on the antitrust measure that I cannot be at. I notice my Republican colleagues in the Judiciary, understanding this was coming, scripted it better; and they managed to get a Committee on Rules member to sit in so they could all be present at the hearing. The Committee on Rules presumably has nothing else to do at this time. But now let us get to the proposal. I did hear one Member as I was coming in announced that what we are doing now is what James Madison would have done if he only were as smart as we are. It is true, and it is an inconvenient fact, because we do, as a body, like to pay tribute to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers; and what we are saying here is, boy, the Founding Fathers really blew one. Because this is not some obscure issue. They knew about taxation. They knew about two-thirds. People make one of the least logical arguments I have ever heard, even in this sort of partisan silliness, when they say, well, the fact that the Constitution calls for two-thirds in some cases shows that it really should have called for two-thirds in this case. What that does is establish that the people who wrote the Constitution knew how to call for two-thirds when they thought the subject required it. They said, in certain cases, it takes two-thirds. They then, obviously, made a deliberate and conscious decision not to require two-thirds for taxation. Now, to get around that, I did hear one of my colleagues say, well, if James Madison knew what we knew, he would have done what we have done. I doubt it. The evidence that James Madison would have thought exactly as he would have thought seems to me quite thin. What we have, of course, is the inconvenient fact that James Madison, quite clearly, thought the opposite. The people who wrote the Constitution decided that it would be a majority. And that is, of course, a perfectly sensible thing. We happen to believe fundamentally that a majority of the people, as constituted, and remember the Senate is not that majoritarian, but a majority of those elected from the House on a popular basis and in the Senate on a State basis, make the important decisions. And all of the important ongoing governmental decisions are made by majorities. Now, what has happened is this. The Republican Party used to be a very majoritarian party in its rhetoric. But they have now discovered, to their dismay, that the majority no longer loves them as much as they thought. This really goes back to 1995 when they shut down the Government and were jeered instead of cheered. So what we now have is an announcement by the Republican party that we cannot trust the majority of the American people, as the Constitution says they should be represented; and for measures they do not like, they need two- thirds. Now, it is also the case that the Republican Party is offering a procedural objection to taxes instead of a substantive one. For example, the last time we raised taxes, as I recall, was 1993. We did do some tax increases before that under Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but the last time we raised them was in 1993, in the first year of the Clinton administration. And I remember my Republican colleagues objecting because we were raising taxes on middle-income people. Now, most of the tax increases went there on people making well upwards of $100,000 in 1993, not middle income even by Republican standards; but there was an increase in the gasoline tax and they pointed that out. Well, we recently had a spike in gasoline prices because of OPEC, and I think a failure on the part of the administration to act initially as promptly as they should have, although I think they since have taken some effective action, so one suggestion was let us now deal with that 4.3 cent increase in the gas tax. The Republican Party had a chance to do that. Where is the bill? The Republican Party, having fulminated against the gasoline tax increase of 1993 had the ideal opportunity to come forward with a reduction in the gasoline tax, and a few of them talked about it. Where is the bill? We did get a resolution threatening OPEC that we might call them names if they did not do some things. I have not seen a bill to reduce that gasoline tax. The last time we raised taxes was in 1993. They will talk about how terrible it was, but they will not do anything about it. And the reason is that reality has had a very severe impact on the Republican Party and on their ideology. On the one hand, they denounce government; on the other hand, they seek opportunities to increase it. Now, of course, we have the military budget, the single largest part of the discretionary budget; and it is faith among the Republicans that that is too small. We need vast increases, billions and billions of dollars to increase the military budget. But that is not all. The Republican Party has gone from denouncing the notion of helping older people buy prescription drugs to embracing it. They say there are differences in how much, but they want a new program. The Republican Party is for a new program, which will cost government money. A couple of weeks ago we took a step that I approved of and that many Republicans approved of, and we put the Federal Government for the first time into the business of helping local fire departments in a systematic way. I am glad to do that, but it costs government money. My Republican governor was just down here yesterday acknowledging the fact that a major highway project that he and his Republican predecessor thought were very important to Massachusetts would cost a couple of billion dollars more than they thought. That will cost government money. For much of the time, my Republican colleagues join many Democratic colleagues in talking about increasing the budget of the National Institute of Health, increasing money for transportation, increasing money for the military, buying prescription drugs. We passed a housing bill last week overwhelmingly which talked about how important various Federal housing programs are to help people get homeownership. These cost money. So in the abstract the Republican Party wants to look like the antitax party. But in particular they want to spend government money, just as many of the rest of us do, for good purposes. So what we get, to resolve that contradiction, is an entirely silly effort. I should not say it is an effort, because no one takes it seriously. We get this gesture to amend the Constitution of the United States and to wrench it away from democracy. Now, this is not the first time the Republican Party has shown its lack of faith in the voters. We had that previously with term limits. What they said was, those voters, they do not understand. They cannot deal with elections. We have to put term limits on because they cannot understand it. Of course, for many Republicans the idea of term limits in the abstract was far more attractive than the idea of term limits in the particular, because among the people who will be voting for this constitutional amendment today to limit the electorate's ability to call for a tax increase will be people who will be defying their own pledge to limit the electorate's ability to reelect them. They have decided that does not work. So we have what is, finally, fundamentally, a notion that democracy is flawed; that in this country the compromises they made about majority rule for the Senate, for instance two Senators per State, that was not enough; that we have to go further and make a very drastic change in the basic structure of government and say that when it comes to deciding how much money should be spent for public purposes and how much for private purposes, majority rule does not work. Now, one last point. We hear this remarkably foolish notion that there is a dispute between the money that goes to the Government and the money that goes to the people. But all the money belongs to the people. The people understand, and the Republican Party has been forced to acknowledge it, that there are some purposes very important to the people that they cannot accomplish unless they do them jointly. A tax cut putting money in individuals' pockets does not expand airports. A tax cut putting money in individuals' pockets will not solve the problem of putting more police on the streets or aiding local fire departments or increasing medical research through NIH. That is, there are, in a civilized society, some very important purposes that can best be accomplished by individuals spending their own money personally, and that is what the market generates, and that is a good thing; but there are also important purposes, particularly in a complex urban society, that can only be done jointly. And that is why we come together through government to deal with the environment, to deal with public safety, to deal with elderly people and other people's children who will not themselves be able to make it. What this is is an announcement that democracy does not work; that the fundamental scheme of government adopted in 1787 in the Constitution is flawed; and, therefore, it has to be changed. Fortunately, as the dearth of Members in this Chamber shows, no one takes it seriously. It is a political gesture put forward by a party that has no substantive legislative agenda. And I guess, given that, this is as good a way to kill time as any. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka) be allowed to control the time on this side.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in the interest of historical accuracy, I was going to ask if President Reagan said that when he signed a big tax increase in 1982, which he deemed necessary for economic purposes, or when a couple of years later he signed another significant tax increase which raised Social Security taxes? Those were two tax increases President Reagan signed. I do not think either one of them got two-thirds, so they might not have been passed under this. I wonder whether Mr. Reagan said that when he was signing those two very significant tax increases. I voted against both of them, by the way.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley), another member of the subcommittee.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the full committee who has been very instrumental in our working this out. I want to begin with more than a normal acknowledgment of the staffs on both sides, Democratic and Republican, because this is a bill in which a great deal of work has been done. For example, the manufactured housing sections, there was an article in the Washington Post recently raising some questions from the consumer's standpoint about manufactured housing, and some of the questions were legitimate questions. I was pleased on reading the article to be able to say to myself, since I was alone when I read it, but to say that we had, in fact, anticipated many of those questions and had resolved them in a way that was mutually acceptable and protected the consumer interest, while at the same time recognizing that manufacturing continues to be a valuable housing resource for people of limited incomes. So I think Members will find that the manufactured housing section there satisfies legitimate concerns raised by the American Association of Retired Persons, by residents of the mobile homes, and also by those in the States that have regulatory authority, as well as manufactured housing. That is clearly the motif of this bill. I have said this before; I said this last year when we debated legislation to preserve existing section 8 tenancies. There is both a partisan ideological and a nonpartisan, nonidealogical aspect to housing. The partisan idealogical one is very legitimate, and we have a responsibility to deal with it. We deal with it when we debate the budget; we deal with it when we debate appropriations. That is, given the wealth of this country, many of us believe that we are dedicating insufficient resources to housing needs. Indeed, it is the very wealth and the increase in wealth that to many of us demands greater Federal funding to help with housing. In many parts of the country, including the greater Boston area where much of my district is located, in the northern part of California, in other metropolitan areas, it is precisely the prosperity which we are enjoying as a Nation which helps drive up housing costs so that people who are not themselves direct participants in the new economy, people who are not prospering from stock options, who are not getting higher salaries because they bring skills that the global economy wants, these people now find themselves priced out of neighborhoods where they used to live. It is, it seems to me, the responsibility of this society to take some small percentage of the wealth that is being generated and use it to help protect people who are the victims of the unequal distribution of that wealth. Those are efforts we will deal with. We will get some aspects of that today. There will be legislation to increase, for instance, the authorization, an amendment to increase the authorization for housing with people with AIDS, bipartisan, and I strongly will support it. But on the whole, this bill comes within the constraints that have been given to the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and the full Committee on Banking and Financial Services by the budget process; that is, this is not an opportunity, and I wish it were, greatly to expand what we do. If it were, we would have legitimate ideological debates of the sort that a democracy ought to foster. Today, however, we have the end product of negotiations within the framework that we were given. How do we then use those resources best? Those are less likely to be ideological. Once we have the resources, once we confront the existing realities, then we do have a situation where we have to figure out how best to make it work. That is what this bill essentially does today. It makes some improvements, some adjustments. It is the best we can do with where we are. There were a couple of pieces that I want to refer to involving Community Development Block Grants, because I believe strongly that the Community Development Block Grant should remain primarily a low-income program. I was pleased that the House last week, when we debated the supplemental appropriation bill, apparently to no purpose, since it never made it past the Rotunda, but we and the gentleman from New York, and the chairman of the subcommittee took a major role, the gentleman from Florida of the Committee on Appropriations did a major job on it, we said, yes, we want to make firefighting a CDBG-eligible activity, but we do not want to dilute the commitment to low-income people in that bill. That is what we did. There are some amendments to this bill that some people say, are you not diluting it? I want to explain one in particular. I am a cosponsor of one that is in the manager's amendment that adds ten more areas which are high-cost areas which will get a change. Here is the change. Right now under CDBG we use the national median. I represent some communities where, frankly, if you go by the national median, given the higher income in some of these communities, nobody would be eligible. So we are asking not that we ignore a low-income requirement, but that the low-income requirement be defined in terms of that particular metropolitan area. There is another one that some people object to which says, we want to be able to let firefighters, police officers, teachers, live in the community. People have a paradox. In some cities we have passed laws saying to municipal employees, you must live in the city. What happens when we tell them they must live in the city because we think it is a value, but it becomes too expensive? So there is language that tries to deal with that. On the whole, this is a bill which is inadequate in one sense, because it represents a national decision to devote too little of our wealth to this problem. But given that decision, which this subcommittee and committee could not affect within the context of this bill, I think we do an excellent job of adjusting within those restraints the programs so we get the maximum out of them. For that reason, I hope that the bill is passed. On the amendments, I will myself be opposing any amendment which tries to dilute the CDBG income guidelines. But otherwise, I think we have a useful bill. One other thing I would add. My colleague, the gentleman from Rhode Island, has an amendment to increase the FHA limits to reflect inflation and price increases. It is especially important, again, for those of us in the high-cost areas. That, it seems to me, is a good amendment. I will be strongly supporting it. On the whole, this bill does the best we can with the limited resources this subcommittee was given to work with. At the heart of Title XI of HR 1776, the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act is a consensus standards development process to update federal standards on manufactured housing. It is important to note that this process of modernizing the safety standards has already begun. In June of 1998, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development designated the Massachusetts-based National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to make recommendations to HUD. NFPA is fully accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop consensus American National Standards as specified by this bill. In fact, the NFPA has submitted to HUD recommendations to completely revise and update the federal smoke detector requirements for manufactured homes. This was deemed to be a priority by consumers, fire safety experts, the manufactured housing industry and by HUD in that there has been an alarmingly high incident of non-working or disconnected smoke detectors when fires occur in these homes built to old HUD standards. These recommendations were submitted by NFPA to HUD over 14 months ago. We are still waiting for HUD to act on them. This bill will correct this deficiency by requiring that the consensus committee recommendations go into effect automatically within one year unless HUD objects. The NFPA Consensus Committee is working on a number of other issues that concern consumers. One issue has to do with moisture and condensation problems of manufactured housing located in humid areas of our country. In conclusion, the National Fire Protection Association has been carrying out the intent of this bill for the past two years and is ready to continue the process of updating the HUD standards, many of which are over 25 years old. This bill will require these modernized standards to go into effect on a much more expedited basis.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I have been persuaded, and I am no longer opposed to this.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, I am all in favor of increasing the authorization. I am not in favor of authorizing in appropriation bills. I will say, we have made a very real effort here, to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio). In the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, we have made a very real effort to authorize, whether it was in the debt relief area or in the housing area, and I think if the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) would look she will note that the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and the full Committee on Banking and Financial Services has done its work in authorizing. The levels have been too low. I would like to see the levels be higher, but it certainly has been the case that we have done our authorization.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I object to the unanimous consent request. The gentleman from Oklahoma is going to object anyway, so I object now.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek), and would that it were my subcommittee. I assure my friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek), that if it were my subcommittee I would authorize in a way that would stretch even her capacity to appropriate, considerable though that may be.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for that. One of the things that has been very heartening about this debate and I mean this, with regard to this, with regard to the points that were made by the gentleman from Oklahoma on the previous amendment and joined by the gentleman from South Carolina, I think what we have seen is a consensus that whatever criticisms we might have had of various government housing programs in the past, sufficient improvements have been made in the way in which they are operated so we can, with some confidence now, increase funding for them. We have come out of a period when there were two constraints on funding for government housing programs. One was the concern that they were not being well run; another, the severe deficit condition of the Federal Government. We are making very substantial progress on both. This bill is a recognition of that, and there are some initiatives here. One of the things that we have done, we got out of the housing production business. Section 8 became purely a rental program. One of the things that was commented on, I believe by the gentleman from Wisconsin earlier, was that this bill begins to put section 8 back into a program that could help housing production because it puts it into a homeownership situation. Obviously, one cannot use section 8 for homeownership if it is on an annualized basis. One cannot buy a home with a one-year certificate. So we are recognizing that there is some value to lengthening it. There are other parts of this bill that try to do that. Raising the FHA limit, let me put it this way, we have a demand to raise the FHA limit. Where does that come from? People who have had good experiences with FHA. There were periods in our history when people heard FHA and thought, oh, the program is not running well. It is now running well enough so that there is considerable interest in expanding it. The gentleman from Oklahoma made some very good points on his second amendment about expanding some of these programs, but we need to have funds with which to do that. So I hope that the lesson of today will be, first, that we are trying as prudently as possible to expend the funds made available to us but, secondly, that we are making a very good case for an increase in funding; that the allocations that go for housing programs ought substantially to be increased and we are going to get some further indications of that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would say at the outset that my opposition is quite tentative, but under the rule there is no other way to get time. So in the interest of making sure that everybody has a chance to offer amendments, I am prepared to express, as I said, the mildest of opposition to this amendment. I think I am capable of being persuaded to the contrary. I am open minded. I guess one would say, Mr. Chairman, I am claiming the time as leaning against, which I believe, as I look at the parliamentarians, is acceptable under the rules.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, the major reason for differentiation is the nexus between municipal employment and the municipality. We have in fact many municipalities which have decided to impose residency requirements. They require that certain employees live in the city. Part of the impetus for this legislation is the increasing problem when people are faced with an inconsistent set of demands. On the one hand they are legally ordered to live in the city, and on the other hand they cannot afford it. It is not my understanding that cities order other people to live there. The people who would be covered if the gentleman from Oklahoma's expanded amendment were adopted are not subject to a requirement of municipal residency nor has anyone thought that there was a logical reason to do that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield our remaining 2\1/ 2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chairman, I want very much to help this city and others. I do not want to single out one city because of a particular political situation and provide large funds there when they inevitably come at the expense of others, because we are in a zero-sum situation. We have budget caps. We have a limited budget. And money spent on one program inevitably takes away from other programs. I wish that we could expand all of the programs. I would be willing to do it. I understand that the gentleman wants people's vote. I understand that there are others who want the gentleman's vote. But that is not what governs. What ought to govern here is public policy. It is not good public policy in disregard of the basic economic considerations of CDBG to take a large chunk, and understand the total amount most recently appropriated for special purposes was $60 million. This adds to the special purpose. It adds an amount that is more than half of what had previously existed in that account. It is disproportionate. It is not that we do not think we should do some of these things in the much smaller amounts in which we have done them, but $35 million for one community when we have many needy communities is a mistake.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Chairman, reclaiming my time, the reason I say this, lawyers can be very picky; and if we mention one thing and do not mention another, the inference can arise that it was meant to be excluded. So if it had just said first amendment, it would be different; but where it says the establishment clause, lest be there an inference that we did not mean the free exercise clause, I would like to include that. If we could do that, I would be largely satisfied. Madam Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).