Department of Housing and Urban Development Reduction Bill

[Ebowed]

The Elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act

1. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is hereby eliminated.
2. Any laws relating to the Department of Housing and Urban Development are repealed.
Sponsor: Sen. DanielX

[Ebowed]

This bill is giving me a headache.  Also, someone needs to take over as sponsor for the bill as DanielX has resigned.

[Ebowed]

BTW, I think the Office of Public and Indian Housing has already been ruled unconstitutional by Bono v. Atlasia II.  All of the ethnicity-based public services were ruled unconstitutional then, IIRC.

[Ebowed]

The text of the bill is to be stricken and replaced with the following:

1. The funding under Personell and Administration for the Department of Housing and Urban Development shall be cut by 10%.

The vote is on the above amendment.  Senators may vote Yea, Nay, or Abstain.

[Ebowed]

The following shall be added to the Bill:

2. The Office of Public and Indian Housing is hereby eliminated.
3. Any laws relating to the Office of Public and Indian Housing are repealed.

The vote is on the above amendment.  Senators may vote Yea, Nay, or Abstain.

[Ebowed]

The amendment is passed

[Ebowed]

1. Clause 1 will spell Personnel correctly.
2. "any bill" in Clause 4 will be replaced with "enacted legislation".
3. Clause 3 will now read:
Any responsibility or duty, imposed by statute, presently exercised by the Office of Public and Indian Housing will no longer be honored by the federal government.

The vote is on the above amendment.  Senators may vote Yea, Nay, or Abstain.

[Ebowed]

Department of Housing and Urban Development Reduction Bill

1. The funding under Personel and Administration for the Department of Housing and Urban Development shall be cut by 10%.
2. The Office of Public and Indian Housing is hereby eliminated.
3. Any responsibility or duty, imposed by statute, presently exercised by the Office of Public and Indian Housing will no longer be honored by the federal government.
4. Any section of enacted legislation that pertains to the Office of Public and Indian Housing shall be repealed.
The vote is on final passage.  Senators may vote Yea, Nay, or Abstain.

[Ebowed]

The bill has enough votes to pass.  Senators have 24 hours to change their votes.

[Ebowed]

With 5 Ayes, 2 Nays and 1 Abstenation this amendment has passed. I hereby present it to the President for his signiture.

What happened to the 24 hours?  You were more than 7 hours early.

Now the bill has passed.

[Ebowed]

I hereby veto this legislation,

x Ebowed

[Ebowed]

It is my opinion that this bill was passed through the Senate for all of the wrong reasons.  These amendments were made so that something from the HUD could be cut, but the bill wouldn't be as drastic as the original version.  I thought this was unnecessary, because there is no reason that we should have to cut the HUD's budget just because someone proposed a bill to abolish it.  I only support these sorts of measures if they cut something that truly should be cut, such as the Minority Business Development Agency, which had to go for obvious reasons.

Indeed, cutting public housing is not the first thing that should be done in times of a deficit.  There are certainly other things that could be done.

[Ebowed]

Ebowed, as Ernest and Bono have already said, that program has been ruled unconstitutional, and, I could be wrong, but doesn't that mean we're actually paying people to do nothing?  If that is the case, then this is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be cut first.

This bill not only abolishes Indian Housing but Public Housing - "The Office of Public and Indian Housing."

Additionally, I have re-read both Bono vs. Atlasia decisions and can find no inkling relating to Indian affairs.  The only mention I can find of it being ruled unconstitutional is that the GM said so when he was preparing budget figures for the Senate in January.

[Ebowed]

OK, I found the relevant section of Bono v. Atlasia II:

   Subchapter VIII - Native American Programs
Programs that provide benefits to people based solely on their
ethnicity are generally unconstitutional as they deny people equal treatment under the law.

   Subchapter X - Legal Services Corporation
Subchapter X of chapter 34 employs a means test based of income level in order to determine eligibility of persons to gain assistance under it.  In keeping with the precedent of the first Bono v. Atlasia case, a program employing such tests is inherently unconstutional.  This court does not rule at this time on the constitutionality of this program absent of such test.

If we are to bow to the every whim and demand of the Supreme Court, this essentially means that either all welfare programs are unconstitutional, or the rich can apply for welfare.  So go ahead and pursue your veto override, if you really want, but you may as well keep in mind that we already approved a cut/abolition of this Office when we passed the last Budget.

I should add that the wording in that section of the ruling is highly vague, does anyone have a list of what exactly was ruled unconstitutional?

[Ebowed]

Nay for the reasons given previously.

Thank you.  I urge the Senate not to vote in favor of this override.

[Ebowed]

The Bono decision pertains only to the actual program in question and no justice has ever said that all social welfare is now unconstitutional.  There are also specific sections of the Constitution authorizing things like Social Secrity and Medicare.

Indeed, the wording of the decision pertaining to that act is rather vague, but you'll note that the second part I quoted essentially allows the rich to apply for welfare.  This much was admitted when the ruling was made, either way.

The office has already been cut, and this bill is horribly written and was passed only so that a cut could be rushed through.  What exactly is the point of this bill?  There is none.  I vetoed it both because of practical concerns and to take a principled stand against the actions of this Senate.

[Ebowed]

The office has already been cut,

Okay, why didn't you tell us this before we passed the bill?  I thought it's operations had been cut, but I knew nothing about the actual program being cut.

I didn't realize that until after the bill had been passed.

and this bill is horribly written

Please explain.

It tries to cut/abolish two things at the same time in an unorganized manner solely for the sake of getting a cut passed.  It looks like it was written on the back of an envelope; I don't really think it can be saved at all.  The bill was never a good idea to begin with.

and was passed only so that a cut could be rushed through.

I don't think so.  All the Senators discussed it for about 6 pages and most could agree that this could be cut.  If we can agree that something can or, better yet, needs to be cut, we should jump at the opportunity.

The only reason that discussion occured was because someone introduced a bill that would abolish the entire Department in the first place.  So, the Senate felt the need to at least cut something because the original bill was too extreme.  As I said, I feel that this was done for the wrong reasons.

[Ebowed]

Still, are you sure?  You brought up that you thought it had been cut before, but Ernest said that it hadn't been cut, just declared unconstitutional.  Could you show me where you got that info?  Thanks

*The following programs were declared unconstitutional by Bono v. Atlasia II, and will cut from the FY 2006 Budget:

- Public and Indian Housing Programs, specifically the Native American Housing Block Grant cutting $0.626 billion for FY 2006 and all future years.

This was approved by the Senate when it voted Yea, 7-3, on the federal budget.

Okay, instead of insulting the writting could you please point out the actual flaws with the bill?

Much of the actual writing flaws were fixed with Peter Bell's amendment, but this doesn't change the fact that it smells like a television cartoon's script after coming out of a censorship board.  It's just an unorganized mess, combining two cuts into one bill, their only relation being that they're in the same department.  Why not write a thorough HUD cuts bill (not that I'd sign it), instead of just getting a couple agreeable cuts here and there?

So, if that sole purpose of the bill had always been to cut the Office of Public and Indian Housing would you have not vetoed it?  I really can't see why it matters where the idea came from, just what the bill is actually doing.  I'm just wondering what the problem was with what the bill would actually accomplish.  Do you have a problem with Jake's 10% cut, my abolishment of the OPIH, or both?

Oh, of course I have a problem with what the bill accomplishes, or else I wouldn't have vetoed it.  My complaints regarding why the bill says what it does now are only secondary, and I'm simply warning the Senate that this is a horrible way to go about pursuing legislation amendments, particularly budget cuts, in general.  There's no reason to amend and pass a bill solely because the bill was introduced in the first place.  If a bill is a bad idea, reject it.