Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

Mr. Chairman, it was mentioned earlier that we have two visions about the housing program. Unfortunately, I see so little difference between these two visions. One, I see that the bureaucracy is centralized, spending a lot of money and not doing a very good job. The other vision is that if we decentralized bureaucracy and spent even more money, that somehow or another we will improve the public housing of America.

However, I do want to challenge the statements here that all of a sudden something is being cut, because the way I read the figures, actually we are increasing the amount of money. That should satisfy some opposition, but it would not satisfy me if we are spending more money. We are supposed to be spending less money. But according to the CBO figures, we spent $25 billion last year on HUD funds, most of it going into public housing, and this year the proposal is that there will be $30 billion. As we look at these figures on out, by the time we get to the year 2002 we are up to $36 billion.

So there are no cuts. There is a 20-percent increase this year. So I do not see how these funds are being slashed. I would like to see the funds cut and spent a different way. I think private enterprise is a much better way to build houses. There is no proof that this 30-year experimentation of $600 billion has been worth anything. We have spent $5 trillion on the war on poverty, and rightfully so. There are a lot of people complaining there is still a lot of poverty, still a lot of homeless, still a lot of people not getting medical care. I think that is true, but I think it represents the total failure of the welfare state.

It is coming to an end. Unfortunately, no matter how well intended, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio] has done tremendous work, and has worked very hard to improve this situation, I wish I could share his optimism. There is no reason, Mr. Chairman, to be optimistic about this bill, if it is passed or not passed. We have to address the subject of how we deal with this problem.