Bobby Jindal on Welfare & Poverty Republican Governor; previously Representative (LA-1)

Feds obliged to care for those who can't care for themselves

Don't get me wrong. I firmly believe each and every one of God's children has an obligation to care for those who can't care for themselves, and the government can and should lend a hand. In Congress, I cast a few votes along those lines that irritated my fellow conservatives.

Land of the Free shouldn't become Land of the Free Lunch

Don't get me wrong. I believe in some safety nets. But safety nets can, and often do, create "moral hazards" when they encourage irresponsible behavior. It took the federal government decades to figure out that if welfare subsidizes out-of-wedlock births, you get more out-of-wedlock births! And government programs that promise us "safety" are always oversold and cost more than estimated.

Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.

Proponents of the amendment say:
• This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
• To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
• We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
• Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
• This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.

Opponents say:
• The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
• The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
• The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.