Tillis. Welcome. Senator john kennedy, welcome. Chris van hollen. And senator katherine cortez. We appreciate all of you, and im sure i speak for all of the regular members of the committee that we welcome you and look forward to. To a lot of good work. Earlier members of the committee. [laughter] i was told by both sides to speak for myself. I look forward to working with all of us on the committee all members this year. I look forward to working with all of us on the committee all members this year. This committee has a long and distinguished history of tackling important issues and this congress has no exception. We have a significant list of issues that we will need to deal with and we will do that and i am confident we will continue the tradition in a strong and bipartisan manner. I look forward to working with my colleagues. Weve had a number of hearings already that we will be dealing with an and we will work to lead the committee through some very important territories during the session. This morning we will hear testimony on the nomination for the secretary of the United States department of housing and urban development. We will begin todays hearing was an openinwith an opening ste and the Ranking Member and then turned to senator rubio will introduce the secretary decks designate. Members will be recognized in the chair and the order of seniority for those that are present at the time the gavel came down and in order of arrival there after. Each member will be allotted five minutes for a number of rounds of time will permit. Doctor Benjamin Carson was raised by a single mother in an impoverished part of the city of detroit. He attended Yale University at the medical school and became a highly accomplished and respected neurosurgeon. Doctor carson was named director of pediatric neurosurgery at the hospital in 1984 at the age of 33. The youngest such director in the nation. He gained National Fame by becoming the first doctor to lead an obligation that separated twins conjoined at the head, one of many high profile operations led by doctor carson. In addition to his career as a surgeon, hes also a decorated officer, speaker and has written numerous bestselling books on a range of topics. He also ran for president and spend months traveling the country listening to the American People about problems and issues thetheproblems and ie including with respect to housing. Throughout his career hes achieved a great deal of success. Hes demonstrated a fervent intensity for improving the lives of his fellow americans in his intellect is unique, valuable assets for leading an agency. Doctor carson said he plans to continue the conversation with the American People into a listening tour if confirmed. This is an encouraging sign that he wants to hear from stakeholders and more importantly from the American People. I hope to work with doctor carson on how to reimagine the policy. I look forward to working on streamlining requirements for local Public Housing authorities especially for smaller housing authorities. One example is the Public Housing authority opportunities act which seeks to encourage innovative approaches to determine rent and adjust the level of federal oversight over small housing authorities. We should also look at the section eight rental assistance demonstration in Public Housing programs where theres been interest in reform for many years. I hope to work with doctor carson on improvements to produce cost savings, reduce burden and encourage selfsufficiency. Another issue the committee has worked on this home equity conversion mortgages which we call had come. Its important that we evaluate these important parts of the system and i look forward to working with you on the program as well. While the low Income Housing tax credit is under the committees trip is diction, its important to us in the housing market. It provides essential capital to underserved communities and provides key financing for small and Affordable Housing developments. Tackling our homelessness especially among the nations veterans is another issue important to me and other members of the committee. Its critical that allow communities to grasp solutions that work best for the community needs. I hope to work with doctor carson and other members of the committee on these and many other issues of critical need. At this time, id like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record 17 letters and other statements that have been submitted in support of doctor carsons nomination. I wont at this point we all ofl of them, just throughout the hearing we may reference a member of the letters but i do want to just highlight a couple of the first few. This includes letters from the former chair and ceo of the Community Partners and a longtime Affordable Housing advocate. It also includes a bipartisan letter from the former secretaries henry cisneros, former senator mel martinez, Alfonso Jackson and steven preston. Without objection, so ordered. I look forward to hearing from doctor carson today. Before we do that though, we will turn first to senator brown. Congratulations on your role in leading this committee. I echo what was said. We worked together on the finance committee on the number of issues and knew each other for many years and had three or four already productive meetings since it was clear he was going to be the chair of the committee. Welcome to the new members. Its good to see you. Glad all of you are on the committee. I look forward to working with each of you. It was nice to meet you today and i cannot get back your sons or your lovely little granddaughter. I know you have a couple other granddaughters that couldnt make it today and i want to thank you for your willingness to serve our country along with your husband and father and grandfather. As the chairman o noted doctor carson is a distinguished surgeon with remarkable story is wellknown to all of us and millions of americans hes an inspiration and testament to the American Dream much as we might wish otherwise many children wont have the same combination of fortitude and a firm hand in the good fortune. Its the highest levels of society for some perspective on the study of students knew only about 5 came from households with incomes under 20,000. Different research has shown only one in 13 americans will move from the list income to the highest over a lifetime. Of course we encourage and should encourage children and adults to follow the example of getting a good education, working hard and all that he has done and we should bear in mind many still face barriers to realizing the potential. For those who cannot overcome the odds on their own, should we not help them . Doctor carson has repeatedly commented that government Assistance Programs are harmful. He wrote in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, quote, racist people from both parties about that a paternalistic attitude towards africanamericans and enacted federal and state programs designed to take care of people who couldnt take care of themselves, people who are ignorant, stupid or just plain lazy. Why would we do this, to begin, quote doctor carson the only reason i could imagine that it would be a good idea or the government to foster dependency and large groups of citizens is to cultivate a dependable voting bloc that will guarantee continued power as long as entitlements are provided. Doctor carson suggested all Assistance Programs should be cut by 10 a year until the budget is balanced without exceptions and without regards to whether the population served is vulnerable. Even social insurance programs, social insurance meaning you pay in when you need it and lay off illness and retirement or death. Bad social insurance brunswick social security, medicare, medicaid that he believes are socialist leanings and even they should be subject to a 10 cut. Over 5 look to god for help. We are reaching only one in four eligible families. Many end up on the years long waiting lists simply because of a lack of funding they qualified in the waiting list because theres not enough dollars available. A 10 cut in addition to the shortages we now have a 10 cut in the inadequacies that we have a 10 cut would send hundreds of thousands of families into a tailspin and for some literally a might be a matter of life and death. I should note doctor carson made clear he thinks criticisms of his view o on the illicit stents are unwarranted as of today is an opportunity for him to shed light on these seemingly contradict reviews of the federal assistance. I appreciate our individual time that he had earlier thi we had o begin to explore that. We want to know more. Since 1968 come its been charge1968, its been chargedwie regardless of race and ethnicity or whether they have a disability, all people have fair and equal access to housing and that its grantees affirmative. That is the language, affirmatively for the policy. Doctor carson has been critical in one of the few statements hes made on the subject of the hearing into his new job and one of the few statements hes made on housing policy he called into question more than four decades of the civil rights law and disparaged the efforts to reduce segregation is social engineering schemes designed to legislate racial equality. When we met a couple of days ago we discussed the tragic events in my state and nationwide. Doctor carson knows better than the rest of us a more scientific way if you will the terrible price children and society pay for the legacy in paint, industrial settings in the water. I appreciate the conversation and look forward to hearing more on his views in the role in removing lead hazards. Throughout the campaign, the president elecpresident elect po rebuild americas cities he labeled hellholes. Mr. Trump spelled out his views and his document, the quote from a neannuity over black america h a plan for urban renewal. The plan covers issues such as school choice, investing in Law Enforcement and trade, tax reform and infrastructure investments, but at the time when more than 11 million families pay more than half of their income toward rent, think of that committee 11 million spend more than half their income on rent, half a Million People have no place to call home, the president elect, this plan as nothing about housing. Doctor carson, i know you and the president elect have talked about the urban renewal agenda and we have a chance to learn more about that and the role housing will play and how you will help to deliver on the promise to create Safer Communities and better infrastructure including especially in light of your charge including the Public Housing stock. Welcome again to you and your family and to the committee. Thank you, senator brown. We are honored to have senator marco rubio from florida to introduce doctor carson. The floor is yours. Thank you to the members and doctor carson for serving the country in this role. Im honored to be here to introduce my friend and doctor ben carson who was the nominee to be the secretary of hud. I will begin by acknowledging i didnt have the chance to interact much until about 2015 with both him and i ran for Higher Office and many of those interactions were on stage in front of millions of people over two and a half hours under hot lights answering tough questions. I did have an interaction in the summer of 2015 in iowa he may govern under this but i was feeling very sick that day and ran into the lobby o of the hotl and said im not feeling very good. He said tell me what youre feeling. I described my symptoms and doctor carson said it sounds like youre sick. [laughter]. Even though his a accomplishments in his personal life is extraordinary think is extraordinary. Hes a man of of limitless compassion. A man who who has never forgotten where he started off in like in all the obstacles he had overcome to achieve the american tree. A man was devoted his life in Public Service, has been a mentor, generous cover of his time, founder of the successful nonprofit, all designed to help remove the obstacles that he faced. As secretary of hud doctor carson will encounter department that is broken in many regards it as a fast bureaucracy that reaches all corners of our country. Its based in washington but his most important work doesnt take place here. It takes place in the communities where they have housing facilities and provide assistance to people. Ive seen major challenges had faces and consequences on real people. Specifically it and how lack of accountability and the hud inspection process has endangered the lives of men, women, children and not just in florida, but across this country. Hud needs a leader who knows how to overcome tough obstacles. Someone who went told you will never be able to do that, finds a way to do that and does it well. With that, thats what ben carson has done his entire life. For those who may have questions about his call qualifications that is enrolled this committee. I would argue the most important qualification that i would look for in a hud secretary someone understands that hud is not just about providing people a place to live. But its courts about the American Dream. Its about the belief that those who have been left behind and have suffered and fallen down need to stand up on their own 2 feet. To capture the promise of america one thing that makes us different than the rest of the world, were in this country the matter who youre born to or how underprivileged you may be. We believe every human being is created to achieve their godgiven potential. I would would encourage their committee to understand this. Doctor carson believes it not just because he read about it in a book or magazine or that he watched a documentary on pbs, he believes believes it because he has lived it. And that cannot be easily replicated. He has the values, compassion and character and drive that we need, hes a proven leader into her and doing things that are hard and that people believed to be impossible. Throughout life they put their hopes in his hands. From everything ive seen im hopeful this nation will entrust him and the duty of serving a secretary upon. Thank you. Thank you senator rubio and youre welcome to stay. I know you have other responsibilities to attend to. We appreciate your time to introduce doctor carson. Doctor carson, before before we turn the floor to, its necessary to place oath. Would you please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony youre about to give is the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so helping a . I do. I do. Do agree to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the senate . I do. Doctor carson, your written statement will be made a part of the record in its entirety. You may now make your oral statement as you choose. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. May interrupt you before you get started, i shouldve said i encourage you to introduce your family. You think you are about to do that anyway. But you are certainly welcome to please introduce your family who have come to be with you. Yes. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. Senator brown, thank you to senator rubio for that kind introduction. Thank you for members of the committee of virtually all of whom i have met with and have been very gracious. I very much appreciate that. Thanks also to president elect trump for his friendship, leadership, and for his trust in such an Important Role. I like to introduce my family. Directly behind me is my wife candy a 41 years. My college sweetheart. And starting from the send, my oldest son murray, another at yale who is an engineer and his wife who is a youth pastor. My daughterinlaw merlin who is a physician and a businesswoman, and my granddaughter was just a sweetie. My middle son ben junior or bj as we affectionately call him. A very successful businessman. And our good friend mrs. Jackson, wife and former secretary of all funds of jackson. I think you probably know the others here. My youngest son royce and his fatherinlaw alexander. Thank you very much and we welcome you all to the committee today. Doctor carson, you may proceed. Is a youngster, i remember actually feeling i was pretty lucky. We lived in a 750 squarefoot g. I. Home square foot g. I. Home in Southwest Detroit that actually had a long and a little one car garage and we thought that was paradise. Then my parents got divorced. My mother discovered that my father was married to someone else. She didnt have any skills, basically a third grade education. We had no place to live. She could not afford the house. So we ended up moving to boston and moving in with relatives. So i have actually in my life understood what housing and security was. We were there in boston for a couple of years. I remember as a nineyearold looking through a building across the street out of which all the windows have been broken and a sunbeam was shining through. Maybe think about the future. I remember thinking that i probably would never live to be 25. Because what i saw around me but my mother had very different ideas. She worked extraordinarily hard as a domestic leaving the house at five in the morning and getting back at midnight, day after day after day her strong desire was not to be dependent on anybody else. People were always criticizing her and said you have two boys who could be dependent. She said no she would sometimes take us to the homes that she would clean many of them were fabulous homes and she would say, would you rather live in this wonderful place or would you rather live where we live . She would say you the person was the most to do with determining where you live is you. Its not somebody else. Its not the environment. That made a very strong impression on me. She insisted later on when we are able to return to detroit, still not too are ideally cold, still couldnt afford to live there, still in a multi family to levitated place with rats and roaches but nevertheless she was independent. We still had a dream of getting back there. I was a terribles student and she insisted that i read. We were very enthusiastic about it. But back in those days he had do it your parents told you. As i started reading i began to discover new world. We were desperately poor but between the covers of those books i could go anywhere, could be anybody into anything. Within the space of your half i went from the bottom of the class to the top of the glass. Much to the consternation of all the students who used to call me dummy. There are now saying betty how do you work this problem . I would say sit at my feet youngster while i instruct you. I was perhaps a little obnoxious. But it sure felt good to say that to those turkeys. I had a very different impression of who i was at that point. It is one of the reasons that candy and i started the carson scholars fun. A component of it which are reading rooms. We put in reading rooms over the country, we country, we have hundred 65, primarily in title i schools were kits from come from homes with no books. They go to school with no library or poorly funded library. Theyre not likely to become readers. As you know 70 to make 80 of High School Dropouts are functionally illiterate. If we can truncate that downstream we can change the trajectory of their lives. Thats what its about. Changing lives and providing opportunities for people that it makes all the difference in the world. We had a program at hopkins and i would have 7 800 students at a time come in on a basis. If you went to john hopkins and saw the school buses that was bringing in the kids and trying to encourage them in terms of what they could do. I got involved in the programs in baltimore with these Baltimore Community development inc. And with the Community School and with all the schools in the mayors. That was an important part of my life even though i was extraordinarily busy surgeon. I do believe that government can play an Important Role. I know some have distorted what ive said about government but i believe government is important. It is there, i believe to promote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What is happened too often is people who seemingly meanwhile have promoted things that do not encourage the development of any talent in people on hence we have generation after generation of People Living independent situations. Not that theyre bad people. Its that this is what they have been given. This is is all they know in many cases. I think we have an opportunity here to do something about that. If we take a more holistic approach. Well talk about hud traditionally, most people think putting houses over and roofs over the heads of poor people but has the ability to be so much more than that. Particularly if we take a holistic approach. We think about how do we develop our fellow human being . I see see each individual as Human Capital that can be developed to become part of the engine that drives our nation or, if not develop becomes part of the load. We are the ones who are tasked with helping to make a difference. So, i, i do believe that government is extraordinarily important. One of the things that i want to do, instead of just listening to the sage people of washington d. C. And there some wise people here, i want to go on a listening tour. I want to hear from the people with boots on the ground who are administering programs, who are in a fitting from programs. I want to see what actually works and what doesnt work. I want to analyze why it works and what doesnt work. Before i go on the road i want to do that at high. We have people there but been there for ten, 20, 30, even 40 years. I dont think a lot of people listen to what they say. I suspect the have garnered a tremendous amount of information i want that information from them. I want to work with them on a regular basis. Some people say, but medicine, why why would you go do Something Like that . Well, i actually believe there is a tremendous intersection because good health has a lot to do with a good environment. And after working so hard on with so many people and then putting them back into an environment with lead and with all kinds of inducements for asthma and other chronic diseases, its not very helpful. Im looking forward to the safe and Healthy Homes program at hud and enhancing that program significantly. Why is all of this so important . There was a study which showed that the people did three things the likelihood of living in poverty would be 2 or less. Thats really what we want to do. Keep people from living in poverty. Those three things three things were graduate from high school, get a job, wait until youre married to have children. Think about that. What that means is that there are points of intervention, thinks that we can do to make a difference in peoples lives. Also, think about this fact. In terms of our healing capital that is being wasted, we have 5 of the worlds population and 25 of the prison inmate, that means there something wrong, we have high recidivism rate. We have people we have high recidivism rate. We have people who go to prison with little education and little in the way skills and they come out with little education and little in the way skills. They go back to doing what they were before. So we have high recidivism rates. We need to think about how do we give them education. How do we give them skills and cultivate the innate talent that is in these individuals so they become part of the engine once again. Recognize we only of 330 Million People. That sounds like a lot of people but thats one quarter the people that they have an indy or chana. We can have to compete with those nations in the future which means we have to develop all of our talent. Nice say, that all sounds great and wonderful, but you are a pediatric neurosurgeon. How could you have anything wonderful to say about any of these things . I have to chuckle when i hear people say things like that. Theres an assumption assumption that you can only do one thing. How we have these very limited brains and their incapable of learning anything else. I find that key kind of humor is particularly knowing what the human brain is capable of. Billions of neurons can process more than 2 million bits of information in one second. Any brain can do that. You can overload it. You cant do it. If you learned one new fact every second it would take you more than 3 million years to challenge the capacity of your brain. So, we we do have the ability to learn. More importantly we have the ability to Work Together. And that is critical. We in america, democrats, republicans, independents, republicans, independents, were not each others enemies. We must come to that understanding. Theres real people out there who want to destroy us but we dont need to be doing that ourselves. We need to be combining our collective intellect. One of of the things i learned in my private life as a board member at kellogg for 18 years in cosco for 16 years, is how to select a good ceo. And theyll tell you. A good ceo doesnt necessarily know everything about the business. Hes not a marketing specialist. He may not be a financial specialist. But he knows how to pick those people and how to use them. And that is one of the marks of good leadership. So in closing. Ive been very fortunate to be able to move from the bottom rung of the socioeconomic level to the top rung. And to understand how people feel and all those Different Levels. Have to tell you, we, we are all in the same boat. A part of the boat sinks the rest of it is going down to. Means what we need to do is exercise true compassion. Chew compassion is not keeping people in a situation situation where we can feel good about what were doing. True compassion is putting them in a situation where they can feel good about where theyre going. Thank you doctor carson. Well go to fiveminute increments for members of the committee to question and discuss issues with you. I encourage both both you and the members to keep an eye on the clock. If we start running over youll hear me tap the gavel to remind you to wrap up so we can all have a fair opportunity for participation. I will begin first and then we will turn to senator brown. As i mentioned in my Opening Statement we received a letter of support from bart harvey who is the former chair and ceo of enterprise Community Partners. Mr. Harvey prays the charitable work that youve done to help send disadvantaged students to college. He wrote, although we come from opposite sides of the political structure we share, belief in helping people move up and out of poverty. He has done that through his outreach to the community and his philanthropy. I have done it through my work with enterprise. He further wrote, i can about your is character, his heart, and is character, his heart, and his drive to help others. Given huds role in the fight against poverty and for increased opportunity, i believe he can bring these issues to the National Attention they deserve. Doctor carson, how will your experiences working with the surrounding community at john hopkins into the carson scholars help fund, help you run the department of housing and urban development . Having an opportunity to interact with a lot of people in baltimore in particular east baltimore which many of you know is not necessarily a very affluent area and thats putting it mildly, and understanding a lot of their Housing Needs because many of my patients who came out of that environment, an environment where i children with lead poisoning, chronically and what that did to them intellectually. What what it did to them medically. So so many children with asthma, which is induced and most of those cases by environmental influences. And recognizing that if we can give those people hope, then they can move out of that situation. Giving them hope starts with giving them a safe and productive environment. An understanding and understanding how you create those environments are something that will make a very big difference. Its one of the reasons why i have looked in baltimore and talk to the commission in washington, d. C. And talk to a commissioner in atlanta earlier this week and ive talked to multiple mayors and they have given me there take but theyve also invited me to come and look at the places where they are, both the good and the bad. Those are things that i intend to do, not only early on, but continually threat the process because i believe theres a constant learning process. Michael is to get everybody into a decent position. 100 of americans. Thank. Thank you. I know youve heard some criticism of your alleged positions with regard to public assistance to the poor. And you we heard some today. Id like to ask you if you, within your words would like to discuss with us what your view is of how we should approach public assistance to the poor. I believe that we in america are compassionate. We have a history of being compassionate with people. We obviously dont have to do something, but that would not be american. That would not be who we are. Of course i feel very strongly that we should do everything we can. Not only because we are compassionate, but also because were smart. Because we recognize that for every one of the people that we do not develop, that is someone whos talent is not contributing in the movie for it of this nation. If were going to be successful in the future as i mentioned before we have to develop all of our talent. So for people to imply that i dont understand or dont want to do a thing poor people, i believe that they perhaps are only looking at words that have been skewed and nodded actions. Thank you. We have about 30 seconds left. Ill ask you, you been nominated to run the department of housing and urban development. Everyone is familiar with your impressive life story. In your Opening Statement your mentioned that you want hud to help heal americas divisiveness. Can you elaborate on that . One of the things that i was alarming is the fact that we are divided on the basis of income, race, gender, religion, age, just about everything. We continue to allow the purveyors of provision to drive those wedges between us. I believe hud is particularly well positioned to bring haley in this area by truly manifesting fairness toward people. By truly getting people involved with each other. I want to work to bring mentorship programs, we have a lot of successful people who can mentor young people who are in more desperate situation and show them a different way. We have Publicprivate Partnerships which are winwin situations. Those are things that are extraordinary helpful. Those are some that will always say to the government give us more money we need more money for this program in that program. Yes, it would be wonderful if there is an unlimited amount of money but the place where there is a lot of money is in the private sector. While we have to concentrate on his help in the private sector to recognize that in the long run private sector does better when we develop all of our people. Thank you very much. Senator brown. Thank you i would like to begin by asking the record that is that weve received in our staffs can Work Together to make sure there were not duplicated. And i also neglected in my Opening Statement that senators reid from rhode island and warner from virginia both have responsibilities on the arm service and intelligence to do hearings confirmation hearings today cannot join us but wanted to be here. So i wanted to say that. Thank you for your Opening Statements. I appreciate many of the ideas and goals that you have express. Some however that you might think know are inconsistent with statements youve made over the past few years. If confirmed, youll be be held to the ideas that you have express today, not ones that you may have written or talked about in a president ial race. You testified that you want to make communities more inclusive. It seems and odds in odds of one of the only housing policy that you have taken a public stand on fair housing. As i mentioned your 2015 column critiqued huds new rule to affirmatively further fair housing. You characterize characterize that role as a government engineered attempt to legislate equality you likened it to a failed socialist please elaborate on huds role implementing the act especially the requirement that huds grantees affirmatively for housing. Thank you for that question. And an opportunity to explain that because it has been distorted by many people. As you probably know, that act says that we want people who are receiving hud grants to look around and see if they find anything that looks like discrimination. And then we we want them to come up with a solution on how to solve the problem. Theyre not responding to people saying theres a problem, theyre theyre single and look for a problem. And they give us a solution. What i believe to be the case is that we have people sitting around desk in washington d. C. Deciding how things should be done. Telling mayors and commissioners that you need to build this place right here. What i would encourage, i dont have any problem whatsoever with affirmativeaction or integration. Have no no problem with that at all. But, id do have a problem with people all dictating it when they dont know anything about whats going on in the area. We have local hud officials and where people who can assess what the problems are in their area and working with local officials can come up with Better Solutions than a one side fits all cookiecutter program from people in washington, d. C. Thats the part. Im sorry with five minutes your objection is not to affirmative further. The objection objection as to whether thats done with washington or the hud office in clovis, ohio. It is central dictation to peoples lives. I want to hear your views on housing rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender and queer people. These people also also face discrimination as you know alarmingly high rates of homelessness and bowling. Your statement talks about improving the lives of all communities no matter the race, greek, color, or orientation. Yet you have raised questions about whether lgbtq people should enjoy the same rights as everyone else. You believe hud hud has a duty to take action for lgbt to people. If confirmed in this position of course i would enforce all of the laws of the land. I believe all americans regardless of any of the things you mentioned should be protected by the law. What i had mentioned in the past is that no one gets extra rights. Next her rights means you get to redefined everything for everybody else. That to me. Im glad to hear you say that moving forward you will respect that. Absolutely. Last question, weve seen a dramatic increase in Affordable Housing needs as you pointed out 11,000,000 families, quarter million of all renters pay more than half their income for housing. Struggling to make ends meet. One thing goes wrong temporary layoff, illness, they lose the home we talked to my office about the Matthew Desmond book, evicted which i hope you will read and i know some of your staff has already. Peoples lives lives turned upside down when there evicted. They lose their possession and never quite catch up again. When half of their income with housing. Im surprised agenda has not even mentioned housing and we talked about an urban agenda. Have you talked about your plans for housing or his plans for housing. Tell us about those plans and what plans have come from those discussions. Yes we have talked. We talked this morning. Youll have to attack the problem that you described from both ends. There are a large number of people spending 30 to 50 of their income on housing. Thats unacceptable number. So they they need to raise their income or decrease the cost of housing. I think both of those areas are areas we need to work upon. Do you support raising the minimum wage and you support the overtime roll which in my state alone or in your home state of michigan met more than 100,000 in each state people got races that are making 30 and 40000 a year . Ever talk about raising income the overtime role would mean real money in peoples pockets i support creating an environment creates Capital Investment which were the engines that joe people from no place into record time. So you dont support the overtime ruler minimum wage . It means my philosophy is that we can increase wages by increasing opportunities for them and creating the environment were those opportunities exist rather than artificially trying to change it. I dont think its artificial that someone works 50 or 60 hours a week and is been classified as management can work those hours over 40 making 35,000 a year youre not get paid. I dont think its artificial when the employer has denied them that i agree its not artificial, and but you create the right environment and the employer will have to pay them more because the competition will require it of him. Thank you mr. Chairman. Doctor carson, i want to first again thank you for accepting this nomination. Thank you. A lot of us want to do everything we can to expedite this and im going to do a little of it this morning by not using all my five minutes. But we appreciate you. We appreciate what you are and what you stand for what you have done. And what you could do. I think youre very wise you can learn things because all the wisdom is not here at hud, but there are some there because you reference that earlier. Theres experience there. But Housing Housing goes to the very essence of a family. An opportunity a neighborhood in a town or city and nation. We have got to do theres a lot of broken things. I dont know all the answers this is my 31st year on the committee and ive seen a lot of hud secretaries, go. You can make the difference and i believe youre taking the job to make a difference. In the interest of time and youre not there yet, i have six questions. Im not going to read them all to you but i would like you to get them answered not be for your confirmed but after he settled down. One question deals with fha mortgage insurance premiums. Another deals deals with distressed asset stabilization program. One deals with downpayments, fha , the other is hud spending considering the national debt, the other is hard and doj enforcement in dealing with fraud and everything that deals. Risksharing, theres a difference between the way of virginia loan Program Works in fha which id like to some of these questions for the record to be answered by the future hud secretary but not today. In the interest of time ill back my time in the interest of getting you confirmed. Thank you, all very important issues. Thank you senator shelby. I appreciate appreciate the president you just set. [laughter] senator men that does. I appreciate and love senator shelby but will not follow his precedent. Let me say congratulations on nomination. And your granddaughter has the right idea. She has her pink earphones on. So its not an option that you have at the hearing but nonetheless. Preparing for this hearing in your background i learned that we grew up in similar circumstances whether it be detroit boston or union city missouri, we both have parents who make have as much as us. We both had had to put in mothers who are willing to sacrifice everything and anything to give us a chance to succeed. And you did succeed with notable accomplishments in your field of pediatric neurosurgery. You nominated to lead an agency in a completely different feel and our job is to assess your fitness to lead hud. In reviewing your past comments and knowing where we came from to get here today, i can help us see that you and i have arrived here with a divergent views on how to empower and create opportunities for the most vulnerable among us. Ive serious questions and i appreciate the visit you had in my office about whether your worldview fits the core mission. You stated quote property is really more than of a choice anything else. During the republican president ial debate in february 2016 you suggested 16 you suggested that quote, getting rid of all regulation is the key to getting rid of poverty. You characterized i know you talked about the legal obligation to include and create fair and Inclusive Communities and i want to follow up on that with you a bit. You propose that every federal agency should trim their budgets with a 10 acrosstheboard cuts yearoveryear. I think of more of a meat asked not a neurosurgeons wife. Im concerned that you believe that some of the programs i have send to to know as the mayor and state legislator to empower, promote and improve our communities given that record about views on poverty, i like to get a sense on do truly believe in the mission of hard . For instance should the government continue to provide rental assistance to more than 4,500,000 low 5 million low income households across the country who are currently receiving it . And who use that to find a place to call home. Thank. Thank you senator for that question. If you follow carefully what ive been saying the concept of cutting across all the different departments was presented as a concept. In other words, not favoring one group or another group. I have modified that much later on to 1 . The point being, we can never seem to cut because people have their programs and they say this one is sacred and this one is not. So the point being if we can find a number in which we can agree and begin to cut back, we can can start thinking about fiscal responsibility. Mind we are approaching a 20,000,000,000,000 dollar national debt. My specific question is do you agree that the government should continue to provide rental assistance to the more than 4. 5 million households across this country. I think the rental Assistance Program is essential. What ive said is that when it comes to entitlement programs it is cruel and unusual punishment to withdraw those programs before you provide an alternative. In response to senator brown you talk about fair housing and you said you have no problem with affirmative action or integration but under the law theres an affirmative obligation to affirmative the for housing. And you said what you didnt care for the topdown response but yet the new rule that was developed through a twoyear process requires local communities to assess their own patterns of racial and income segregation i make genuine plans to address them. That is not a top down. So, are you committed to the statutory obligation of affirmatively pursuing furthering for housing . This is been a judgment passed on by the supreme court. It has become the law of the land and of course its confirmed i will enforce it. Thank you. Senator to me. Thank you mr. Chairman. Doctor carson, welcome to welcome to the committee. Thank you for your willingness to serve. Im grateful for you for the service you provided to our country a verys race. In the service youre about to undertake. I appreciate you coming by my office in the discussion we had yesterday. It strikes me as a misguided notion to measure the success of a Government Agency like had by the number people who live in hud housing. A better measure would be how many people no longer need hud housing. Id like to explore that with you especially this idea you talk about how how you hope to work with other agencies and departments within the government to help develop the innate capabilities of these people. First a few specific questions about fha. In 2006 fha insured 2. 7 of mortgage originations. By by 2015 fha was insuring 17. 1 of such originations. So so the contention liabilities have ballooned to the point where it was 245 billion in 2006, 1,200,000,000,000 dollars today. Taxpayers on the dollars today. Taxpayers on the hook for 1. 2 trillion worth of mortgages. That all the while there is a industry in the business for ensuring mortgages. To share my concern that this massive explosive growth in the fhas mortgage guarantee business has interfered with a viable private alternative that does not involve taxpayer risk at all . Thank you senator. Thank you for the enjoyable time we had at your office. First of all, it is a big number. I mean eight and a half million fha loans. In in one and a quarter trillion dollars. So of course we have to be concerned over talking numbers of that magnitude. We also need to make sure that we balance that against the ability of homeowners to have some security in the loans that they make. Does it have to be one particular entity that does it . Absolutely not. But we do do have to have a mechanism, backstop you might say of some type. Otherwise when someone comes in and buys up the loans and secures them were probably not going to be able to sell them to particularly some of the entities that would buy them because they wouldnt be comfortable. So i look forward to working with you and other members of this committee to figure out how we can shrink that liability of a taxpayer while still providing the security for the individuals who want the loans. I appreciate that look for to working with you. I believe there is a very vibrant and capable private mortgage Insurance Industry that wishes to provide that service, is able to do so when does so at no taxpayer risk. I know youre aware of this, but just this week secretary castro announced a 25 basis point reduction in fha mortgage insurance premium. This this was surprising for several reasons. The capital ratio that the statutory minimum is 2 . Its only a 2. 32. This strikes me as very little buffer and as recently as 2013 fha needed a bailout. So i wonder did secretary castro or his folks reach out to you or to your knowledge anyone else in the Trump Organization since youd be responsible, assuming youre confirmed for implementing this change which is about to go to in effect . No, they did not. I too was surprised to see something of this nature done on the way out the door which of course has a profound effect. Were talking 5,000,000,000 dollars dollars next year. Thats not chump change. So certainly of confirmed im going to work with the fha administrator and other Financial Experts to really examine that policy. Thank you, i appreciate that. And if youll indulge my last question is just ask doctor carson if you would share with us your thoughts with how you hope to work with other agencies and departments of the federal government to help people achieve what theyre capable of achieving and the independence that comes with that. Thank you, i think thats an important concept and some of you may remember when jack camp was the secretary of hud he started a governmental Intern Agency program against homelessness. It really was quite effective and important. What i would be thinking about it for going to develop the whole person, not just putting a roof over their head but making sure they have access to a next lit education of their children do. That means working with the department of education and working with the department of labor in terms of helping to train people. Not just to be people who stand on the corner and hold the sign and basic labors but apprenticeship programs because theres a lot of shovel ready jobs but not so many people to handle the shovels. We need cement workers and welders and brick workers in a number of people in those skills have been banishing from our society. This is an opportunity to bring them back, not only does it give the person an immediate job, but it provides them with a mechanism to climb the letters of opportunity in our society and give some stability beyond what we and the government would be facilitated. That should be our goal. Several other areas, transportation is crucial. I think we need to be working with the Justice Department because there are some inequities there. That are keeping us from developing talent that can contribute to the strength of our nation. Thank you very much. Thank you mr. Chairman and congratulations on your new role of serving this committee. Im looking for to working with you in six new members of our committee. Doctor carson, thank you for being here. Before we get into some of the questions i raised to my letter to earlier this week i want to get an answer to a simple yes or no question, if you are confirmed to lead had, youll be responsible for issuing billions of dollars in grants and loans to help develop housing and provide housing related services. Housing development is an area in which president elect trump and his family have significant business interests. Can you assure assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar that you give out will financially benefit the president elect or his family . Senator, i was a worried that you would not get back, thank you for coming back. Im back. I can assure you that the things i do are driven by a sense of morals and values. And therefore i will absolutely not play favorites for anyone. Doctor carson, im actually trying to ask a more pointed question and its not about your good faith. Thats not my concern. My concern is whether or not among the billions of dollars that you will be responsible for handing out in grants and loans can you just assure us that not 1 dollar will go to benefit either the president elect or his family . It will not be my intention to do anything to benefit any american. I understand that but do i take that to mean that you may manage programs that will significantly benefit the president elect . You can can take it to mean that i will manage things in a way that benefits the American People. You understand that. If there happens to be an extraordinarily good program thats working for millions of people and it turns out someone youre targeting is going to gain 10 from a, my going to say no the rest of you americans can have it . I think logic and common sense would be the best way. Although we do have a problem and i appreciate your good faith in this. The problem is you cant assure us that hud money, not of 10dollar varieties but multi milliondollar varieties not and up in the president elects pockets on the reason you cant assure us of that is at the president elect is hiding his familys business interests from you, for me, from the rest of america. And this just highlights the absurdity and danger of the president elects refusal to put his assets in a true blind trusts. He knows, he the president elect knows what will benefit him and his family financially. But the public doesnt. Which means he can divert taxpayer money into his own pockets without anyone knowing about it. The only way the American People can know that the president is working in their best interest and not in his own is if he puts in its assets in a true blind trust. Transferring holdings to his children does nothing. As the head of the nonpartisan Ethic Committee said just last night. Since the president elect refuses to address this voluntarily we need to pass the president ial conflicts of interest act that i introduced with more than 20 of my colleagues which would require him to do so. So, with the time i have left i want to follow up quickly on the letter that i sent to earlier this week and that we talked about in my office. And i appreciated that. And i appreciated it to. As you know, more, more than 7 million children rely on hud for housing. 7 Million People, many are children and veterans of people with disabilities. For many of these people hud is the difference between a stable home and life on the streets. One major problem that we talked about his blood exposure. According to the most recent hud study, 62000 Public Housing units, nearly 6 of our total Public Housing are in need of lead abatement. Youre highly accomplished dr. , we spoke at length about the implications of lead and lead poisoning on her children. Can i ask you to commit today that you will make sure that hud resources are dedicated to dramatically reducing the number of Public Housing units were let is a problem. I can assure you that i will very much be working with you on that. 310,000 cases right now of children, each of which cost us enormous amounts of money people money. I dont think people calculate that. So ill be very vigorous in that area. I very much appreciated. This is a particular problem for us in the northeast m the particular problem in boston for the Housing Stock is old. It is absolutely critical that we get the lead out of these Housing Units and that our children have a chance to grow up without being injured by our own negligence. Thank you for your leadership in that area. Senator heller. Thank you and congratulations before working with you its good to see you and i welcome you and congratulations on the nominee. And your family. I think thats wonderful. I finally remembered ben junior in carson city, nevada prayed we had when he came over to chilly fee. I dont know how much chilly he a but his presence was appreciated. Thank you very much for taking the time. I would reiterate something i said in our conversation and that is, if you are the designated survivor, would you call my office and let me know . Absolutely. Have a couple questions. Actually have a lot of questions but a couple of basic questions that i think every hud secretary should be asked. Do you believe everybody should own a home . Everybody should have an opportunity to own a home. Do you believe that we should preserve and protect the 30 your home loan . I believe the 30 your home loan mortgage has enabled millions of americans to achieve the American Dream. I think theyre probably a number of ways to preserve the dream. To support a federal government backstop like fannie, freddie or any entity similar to that of the u. S. Housing Financial Markets . I support some type of backstop, but im im also very much in favor of introducing more private entities into the market. Youll be willing to work with this committee on what alternatives those may be . I look for to doing that. I may go to another topic and mets the fact that we have over 300,000 veterans thousand veterans in the state of nevada. Las vegas and reno. Veteran homelessness remains a serious problem. Things have gotten a little better and thankfully the privatesector people getting of all it still remains an issue. We have 200 veterans in reno that are qualified for vouchers to help pay for rent. Theres about 50 vouchers available. My question is how will you continue to help the homeless veteran and howell had better coordinate the efforts with nonprofits and Community Organizations to help veterans in the . It people who go out and risk life and live for us are people should never want for any basic thing. We should be willing to do it. The veterans Supportive Housing program has been very successful in reducing homelessness. But we we have more to go. This is another area we must take a holistic view point. What i have advocated is that when a person joins the military they be associated with this worker about that time. That support Group Follows them to the entire military career particularly when theyre in combat and after their discharge. That way you discover early on what problems are incurred and are able to intervene at that point which is cheaper than waiting to see the results of posttraumatic set stress disorder. Like the Program Giving people appropriate information before they get into mortgage trouble. I believe one of the things we can do is have a teaching mechanism and it can be done on several Different Levels as in elementary level and more sophisticated level so that people do not wind up in those situations but the ones that are there already, i think there is a possibility of working with members in the private sector and it is an area that we have neglected quite substantially. There are groups that are very magnanimous and i will be working hard on developing those because in many cases the reason they havent gotten involved if there is a lack of trust and if we can create that, there is goodwill that we dont have to continue to go to the government for everything. Thank you for your time. Congratulations. Congratulations on your chairmanship. Congratulations on being here today. We may have a little bit different recipe. I talked about the chicago border and we have a situation where the housing complex was built on an old company. More than 300 families lives have been upended. Hud is part of the relocation effort and you will be coming into this. It will be handed off to you. Roughly half the residents are still on site. Can i have your commitment that we will be able to be part of the leadership to dictate the resources necessary to get this right for the residents and local officials . Whenever we are in a situation and lives are in danger and our children are in danger, that becomes an emergency and so we will push hard to complete that process. Of the children appreciate it and the families do as well. When i was in the house i served on the Veterans Affairs committee and one of the biggest housing challenges we face many are homeless. The question among some day number one what we found was 29 wasnt enough. There were veterans putting their heads down on concrete and whether its the economic situations or ptsd or some other challenge that they have, i would like hud to be part of this. They are deeply involved in this. But the first is housing, and we owe it to the men and women that serve the country to make sure they have a decent bed to sleep at night. If you make sure you have people dedicated it would go a long way towards meeting the commitments we have made and the promises we have made. Im very proud of the progr program. I believe it needs more enhancement and what you are saying reflects very well the sentiments. Another challenge we have in this country, the opioid drug epidemic. I discussed with you where we wound up in the city of 4200. 197 contracted hiv and im very proud of the people in that town. You had the opportunity to assist individuals suffering chronic illness through housing and combating homelessness. As we look at this, can you tell me a little that we have a tremendous medical background as well. To leverage the agency to combat the opioid abuse in the some of the situations that we see. Its great between healthcare and housing and its not just a contamination that was led by other agents and its not just the things that cause chronic asthma which is a huge medical costs across the country each year, but its also the safety issue. The psychological wellbeing. Sitting in her living room studying and a bullet came through the window. That becomes very difficult to concentrate under those circumstances and so, we need to be looking at safety as a component of that as well. Some of the choice programs try to come in and ameliorate the environment. My time is up. At the last thing i will say is that has been very helpful to not only my state but many others. Thank you, senator scott. I would also ask for unanimous consent to add to the record support on behalf of doctor carson. Thank you for being able to serve and if confirmed, your entire family will feel the impact. Theres no doubt if there is a person in this country that has no reason to offer your soul to Public Service after all that youve already done it its a gt example for many of us. There is so much potential inside the human heart and head anand brain that we ought to lok for ways to expose the potential, for people to experience their full potential. That is such an important part of the equation and like you, i believe that the greatest thing we can do is help them find the path to their own. Its not tthats not to suggeste government doesnt have any role but its that the government doesnt have the role and i think your life demonstrates that as well as your answers to some of the questions. Its been very important. I also want to thank you for your desire to do a listening tour. We have had many issues around housing for many decades when i was on the county level and the chairman of the council we have housing concerns and issues listening to the very people that lived in the housing is such an important part of the formula that we should produce to benefit the American People and specifically the American People live in Public Housing and i know that is important. I wish that the Outgoing Administration had the same objective of listening even to senators would be interesting. I would encourage you to listen to the senators and folks to the point you to the position whether it is democrats or republicans, its important to remain responsive. There was a housing tragedy in florida where marco rubio and senator nelson spent an enormous amount of time uncovering the challenges and the inspections in the housing. We invited hud to participate in the hearings and no one showed up. Thousands of employees in washington, d. C. And we couldnt find anyone to listen. Listen to the elected officials that ha have concerns about the Living Conditions of people in Public Housing. Not a single employee could find their way into the chambers. I cant imagine how that made them feel about their government and opportunities, about the opportunities to find the next rung of the ladder. Under your leadership the experience will be different. One of the things i found interesting is the notion of the refreshing start and housing. Someone that understands and appreciates the necessity of affordable and clean and stable housing as a part of the journey to the American Dream. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you incorporate the holistic approach to the new opportunity presented to you. The reason i concentrate on the approaches because when we look back historically there have been a lot of good programs and one program after another has been targeted at specific programs and its good that the progress perhaps hasnt been as great as one would like to see. One of the things i discovered as a neurosurgeon is that you are much more effective when you bring in a Bigger Picture of things. Dont just look at the tumor that someone has pu to look at e whole person and how can you bring health to this entire individual and then put them into an environment where they can thrive. Thats the same principle im looking at here. In and of themselves, they are not bringing about the elevation of large numbers of people. We dont want it to be a way of life. We want it to be a bandaid in a springboard to move forward thats why i place so much emphasis on education, and why i place so much emphasis on healthcare. That will prevent you from having stage five reynold renal disease. Fresh start. Thank you very much. Thank you for the visit earlier this week. In your personal views about poverty i appreciate that and that you seem to understand you are possibly entering into a new role, and that is different. Lets talk about where the rubber hits the road when it comes to leadin leading and aged that is an advocacy for the budget. In the en the end coming in the president ial budget process and the appropriations process, this authorizing level, i need to know that you are going to advocate for the budget. And for me that as a threshold questiois a thresholdquestion ye able to. I dont hear that from you but id like to hear the words to you would like to advocate in the budget. In the process of doing a listening tour and talking to people that are there already, i want to put together a worldclass plan on housing in this country and then i want to come to you with that worldclass plan and convince you all for this is what we need to do. I dont know what that number is going to be quite frankly. Its left, right and center. There are very difficult circumstances and we want the government to help you do that. We understand all that. There is abundant evidence now that specifically when you think about assisting people in transcending the circumstances when you need that hand up rather than a handout it does start with housing and even though we have great difficulties and the Section Eight Program is in perfect, there is no data that demonstrates families do get rental assistance are better than families that dont and im not talking about doing better in the period of time in terms of moving up the economic ladder that if you square away from the housing situations, that is the best way to situate them to deal with their health and education and whatever family problems they need to contend with. The things we have been doing in the programs, they are lifesaving safetynet. Do i think we can do better, absolutely and do i think we should be spending a little more time and effort concentrating on developing the potential we have so many fewer people than competitive. I used to run a social Service Agency in honolulu. Somebody that has a program or is contending with Mental Health challenges whereas employment issues they have no fighting chance to contend with any of those issues unless you deal with the housing. For many notforprofit organizations that provide services were housing is a prerequisite to get clean and have all of them squared away in order to receive housing assistance. Others have figured out that as attractive as that may be for the Service Provider and as neat as the logic appears to be, the truth is it just doesnt work. Thats why Salt Lake City and many others have adopted and eventually hud adopted this idea of Housing First. I would like your assurance that you are going to look at everything with new eyes but the new appreciate the basic premise which is unless you put a roof over somebodys head, they are not going to be able to get up the economic ladder. The Housing First program is certainly one of the ones that says i want to study and look at the data. I know of one individual that is chronically homeless having a difficult time who through that program and not only became employed but to purchase their own home. So there is some tremendous Success Stories and again, these are political so we will see whawhat we can derive from those and take those lessons and multiply them across the nation. Without objection, im going to allo allow the senators the multiple conflicts to take a few moments. I look forward to working with you in this important position. I wouldnt have been in the United States senate if it hadnt been for a young businessman leading a nonprofit to help people in Affordable Housing. This is an Outstanding Committee and leadership you will enjoy working with everyone here and i look forward to helping you in any way i can. Thank you, senator. We only get five minutes in which we are supposed to supposedly interrogate you. [laughter] after the first meeting i shared with a number of people how much i enjoyed the discussion of the interests and desire to be actively involved. I got to thinking back that there was a concern you are not a housing expert and you dont have a background in construction and so forth. It seems to me that running this department isnt brain surgery and if you can handle that, you would have the capability to step in and look at this with fresh eyes. Im not sure you had the chance to look at any of the materials we shared with you but there was a strong concern in the rural areas the current formula in which the funds are being distributed wasnt following that that had been recommended by senior staff. Would you please look at and agree that you will get a fair consideration. We should get the folks the resources they need to get a chance of housing as well. Thank you for advocating for them. This is a situation that has weighed heavily on my mind. The home of the housing selfdetermination act has been waiting to be react so im looking forward to the senate going into and reauthorizing back and the amount of red tape on the reservation is astonishing. If you want to put a driveway on it you have to get permission from the department of transportation. This is crazy so we need to bring back common sense and half the People Associated with the tribes involved in the decisionmaking. Is there a possibility we could coordinate efforts on the housing as well as reservations . This is the case where last year i found out that the minneapolis region led the nation. This is a system that is broken and has lots of Different Things they do. Its getting the results for people that live in poverty today. They shouldnt be looking for a handout. We should be providing the service they are entitled to. I think we can all agree on that. We receive the funds as a block grant and they are often used in the low and moderate income communities. We looked forward and they extended the amount of money that was available. Just your basic thoughts on the program. Its one of the major programs in the developing position very important. At the same time to have a better control of the financing. One of the reasons they havent been carefully controlled and the Inspector General has been critical i think lies in the fact that we are so far behind. The Computer Systems were outdated and its much easier for people to do things under the table. Thats one of the things i would be looking to fix right away. Thank you mr. Chairman for welcoming remarks. Its great to see you for the good work you did as a search at Johns Hopkins and the work youve done at east baltimore. They try to break down some of the silos among the different federal agencies and i asked you then whether he would urge the incoming president to continue the task force. Taking holistic views of virtually anything the synergy that we derived from that would be great. And continuing the task force i hope we can Work Together to continue that. This brings up the issue that has been discussing. You made remarks about regulations hindering progress in certain ways and i can tell you in maryland we had a lot of absentee landlords fighting our efforts to put in place regulations to stop lead poisoning so i would assume those are good regulations. Im worried about overregulating. There is a regulation that has been serving its purpose. We should be getting rid of it. My colleagues asked about the previous comments and i just wanted to do the same thing. We use the programs to create opportunitieopportunities that n lift themselves up you did make some disparaging comments about housing subsidies. Saying there are people that say that im compassionate and theyve had people have said therthey are you are, poor litte thing im going to take care of your needs and you mentioned housing subsidies as one of those. As i understand the testimony today youve seen an important positive role in housing subsidies as part of an effort to help families get on their feet as a safety net. We also had this conversation in my office about the fact you said just having a roof over your head doesnt necessarily find so much promise. You want to expand Educational Opportunities and i couldnt agree more greater synergy would be important. If you look at the rental assistance figures 4. 5 million they were headed by persons with disabilities and for those individuals a wraparound help they need to be selfsufficient relates many times to healthca healthcare. During the campaign the incoming president said ben carson wants to abolish medicare. I want to save it into social security. You also indicated he want to get rid of medicaid which is an Important Health safety net so given the importance of the wraparound support and the fact so many millions of people that receive mental subsidies are you going to advocate in the government abolishing medicare and medicaid . Replacing that with Something Else obviously you wont get rid of the major safety nets. If i recall youre going to replace both with savings accounts. Thank you mr. Chair and thanks to you and the Ranking Member i lookorward to serving on the committee. Doctor carson welcome to your sons and a beautiful family and especially your wife. Thank you for the amount of time you spend in my office i thought it was interesting at least one person spent close to four minutes talking about the hypothetical of the Incoming Administration benefiting from business as family members that seems absurd. You said what matters most and tells me you are a very honest person you could have been attacked for that i dont know if it was just nuanced. As a practical matter before the news cycles start im kind of tired of the hypotheticals and want to get to the specifics. I was criticized for the means but not the end. I will give you an example im the only speaker of the house in the nation that ratified a bill that didnt extend benefits. We were the fourth highest in the nation over five quarters we dropped from 10. 4 to 6. 4 . To the National Average while the other states didnt think that action remained the same what is the best thing we can do for somebody in government assistance . Get them a job. I think we agree we want every child grows up to be able to realize the American Dream this has to do with the means and in my opinion the past couple of decades theyve failed as a bipartisan failure more recently. When you go into housing and urban developed and can i get your commitment to determine which ones are providing and eliminate every single obstacle in the way . Ive been studying carefully. Do you think weve gone from providing housing to providing warehousing for an unacceptable number of people who are supportesupportive and the fedel government lacks do you believe the other agencies could be someone that actually says some other Organization Needs to be smaller so the people that provide a safety net, the agency can do it and you would take the lead on others . We need to be more efficient and that involves being able to Work Together to stop duplicating services. Do you believe the things we can do to improve education outcomes to go from criminal Justice Reform and rehabilitate the recidivism. Absolutely. Should the following t policy mt the various agencies whose primary goal is that segment of the community. If you identify anything that seems duplicative to any other agency that would come before the committee to say we want to move and have someone else on it i appreciate your fourth right this. Senator cortez. I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you, welcome and congratulations and welcome to tour wonderful family sitting next to you. Thereve been a lot of questio questions. My colleagues have a number of questions. In the role as the leader as we know what you continue to aggressively enforce access free of discrimination including expeditiously and thoroughly sharing for homeowners and carrying out strategies . They said no one could possibly question this. In the income segregation to make the plans to address them. I will be working with local officials to make sure fairness is carried out. I appreciate you taking the time to come to my office. Its how the department would or would not intervene but specifically these comments were concerning to me. It was her 950 per month. A household has to earn 38,000 annually. A minimum wage worker earns am hourly wage of 8. 25 which is about 15,000 annually. To cover the department, that individual making minimum wage would have to work 88 hours per week. It doesnt sound like somebody that is in Public Housing. Additional housing funding assistance is essential but when we talked you said there were limits. Do you believe they should have a one minute can you further defined that for me . We have to be cognizant of the fiscal and social responsibilities. What we wan love to put every se person in a beautiful unit forever, absolutely. That would be ideal. The safety net programs are an important and i would never advocate abolishing them without having an alternative. How would you help them other than the Public Housing than they have to leave . Working hard to create the right atmosphere when that happens people have more options and people have to raise the salaries. One of my biggest partners was fewer agency and we worked together. I create created the whole backd program to provide Financial Literacy is that a program you can support in the state of nevada . I will work to make sure the goals of the program are carried forward. Thank you, senator kennedy. Were you concerned primarily with how much the operation costs and how much money it would be fixing the patients. Im not muci am not much intn taking away Affordable Housing from people in need. I am interested in seeing fewer people need Affordable Housing. It goes back to the conversation that we were just having. Weve got to give people a springboard to get out of the situation of stagnation and develop their godgiven talent. Weve got to create an environment we can do through tax reform and Regulatory Reform in the trade reform. Continuing to feed the system. Weve got to get the bang for the buck. At the northern part of the state received about 25 inches of rain. Thats more reined in th rain if los angeles got in three years. Then the south louisiana flooded and we got about 27 inches of rain. Most of the people didnt live in a floodplain or need Flood Insurance and the truth is if you get 27 inches of rain in three days you can live on Mount Everest so we get a lot of people hurt. The american taxpayer has been very generous for the members of congress appropriated about 1. 6 million to our people and its going to come in the form of Community Development block grants. Theres somthere is some confusr governor has a plan to spend part of that money. He doesnt have a plan to spend at the other part and hes blamed as the states problem but i dont care whose fault it is. Congress has acted and taxpayers have been extraordinarily generous i just want to figure out how to get that 1. 6 billion to folks so they can start rebuilding their lives. What you commit to me that as the secretary, and i believe you will be secretary, that you will ask folks not to break any rules or break any laws but demonstrates some of the flexibility that you were talking about, to keep their eye on the ball and get money into the hands of the folks for whom it was appropriated as opposed to discussing how many lawyers can dance on the head of a pin. I enjoyed the conversation. Ive been talking to millions across the country in housing authorities and they all say what you just said. They appreciate the grant money but they havthat they have to jh too many hoops. I appreciate all the work of people at hard but figuring out how to streamline the procedure and utilizing the ip technology. We can get a lot of bang for the buck. You will be a great hud secretary. Youve been here before and did a great job and i have no doubt he will do a great job in the future. Doctor carson, thanks for putting yourself up for this. You havent grown up in the same similarities i have. I can tell you i wouldnt be in the same position without the homestead act we would have been off and gone. Even today im not particularly proud of this. If the government plays an Important Role in whatever we do and i can also tell you from a regulatory standpoint we dont enforce things like this talkback. Why the blind trust is so important is we elect people to the office like president of the United States not for personal gain but the betterment of the country. If that is put just like Jay Rockefeller when he was in the senate. By the way, thanks for coming to the office the Affordable Housing is critically important and i can give you plenty of examples. Plenty of examples where there is an Affordable Housing. They cant get the business is to come in because they dont have a workforce to be housed if they are going to increase the middle class they will be a big part of that. Its pretty special to the United States. It has billions of people that wouldnt otherwise be there so my question to you is do you believe it is possible to have a 30 year mortgage without a government guarantee . The private sector. But you cant do it overnight. It has to be a gradual change and that is something i would want to work with this committee on because i think we cant do it in a haphazard way or an ideological way. We have to make sure that we preserve the dream for the American People. I dont see how it can happen. I know canada doesnt have it. I can tell you if it is going to be difficult we talked about reducing red tape. Theres an outfit on the council homelessness. Its to make sure that can happen. Its very important. I can really understand that. Housing is a problem and we hope you can to north dakota or montana when you do the discussion to look at the landbased tribes and challenges that they have but one of the biggest is block grants. Do you have any idea on how they can focus on the countries because theres a lot of regulation but theres also just unbelievable, youve seen it in poverty. If you want to talk about atrisk kids they are all in montana for the most part. Do you have any ideas how we could improve housing because it is critically important in a holistic puzzle you talk about . Going back to the holistic model, its not just a matter of putting people in houses and understanding whats going on. Why is there such a drug problem for instance, what is facilitating that. Can we go further down the road to see if there is a way we can stop some of the Drug Trafficking and then at the same time simultaneously work on the housing as they mentioned before getting rid of the Regulatory Burden for creating housing is absolutely absurd working with some of the tribal leaders themselves rather than imposing thing. Thank you, senator for your lifetime of service and a willingness to serve again. Please dont take any disrespect in the Armed Service Committee Going at the same time it strikes me. I learned early to put people around me and i thin think president elect trump did a great job in the nomination for this. I am amazed with your quotes. We dont need to help people achieve the position that we feel good about. Would you elaborate on that, please . We took care of this problem when in fact they are living in squalor and dilapidated places and theres danger and go outside and youre worried about whether your kid is going to come back safe. So we need to be looking at the end product rather than the beginning of the process. One of the great successes we put 8 billion in u. S. Taxpayers money and attractetaxpayers mod over 40 billion in private money to cover a significant portion over the next decade. Talk to us about your vision of how you can get the private sector involved in the government to help heal the cities and develop . You spen spent more time talking about the development and i would like you to elaborate on that. That has an enormous number of places to be renovated and theres plenty more where that comes from in detroit, i was talking to a developer recently about the work they were doing. That was a way of using the private sector and in a very positive way to clear the alerts and the amounts of the city. Those are the kind of things we need to look for in that theres a lot of money and goodwill in the private sector and i want to work on those programs into study those programs so that we can multiply them across the country. Thank you for the answers and god bless you for your willingness. Welcome to the new members. Doctor carson, theres a lot of people that scratch their heads when you were nominated. We are not in the housing business but more in the people business. I grew up completely different as a seasonal construction worker and my mom was a school cook. I was blessed with parents that believed in me unfortunately in america, there are so many children that dont have our blessing and they suffered traumatic events in their life and its limited their ability to grow emotionally and to resell emc and its created problems they carried with them the rest of their life. I thought about you as a neurosurgeon that understands brain function and thought you might be the right guy if you focus on why people are in poverty. We all agree it can provide opportunity into ability to come out of poverty its without poverty and judgment and that is a critical piece for me. We had a great chance to talk about the housing shortage. One is transitional housing and the other is runaway and Homeless Youth and they are on the other end of the spectrum im talking about in terms of Early Intervention but they are Critical Services for what we hope to do as a country when we look at judicial reform and the opportunity to change. Transitional housing is something that i believe is essential to reentry for so many of the people whose human b. Are wasting every day and i want a commitment for you that you wont make transitional housing as a major priority in terms of housing and in terms of helping in that cycle. Its very important as you know we have the program in the homeless emergency. Im not really talking about that. Im talking about longterm transition so that when people are taken out of situations whether it is disability or homeless they are provided Wraparound Services in the location where they feel and have the ability to transition and so we have an Opioid Crisis in this country it cant be dealt with without feeling with transitioning people. I very much look forward to working with you. I want to talk about another issue that we deal with a lot and that is Human Trafficking and the abuse of children. They sometimes see this for a Ingalls Wilder through the prairie. I was all you who these children are. Theyve been thrown away, theyve been given away and they are abused every day. If we dont get them off the street and do everything we can to protect them at that point when they are leaving their families, they will be the most serious victims of crime in the country so we need to reauthorize the program and do everything we can to provide a better environment, the shelter environment senator, you dont have to convince me. [laughter] i look forward to working with you and examining the work that we have been doing and seeing that as an entrylevel opportunity for change in the early stages in the programs you run because housing is foundational. This is going to be a Great Committee to work with. I want to apologize for my delayed arrival. Youve already discussed this is close to my heart and i think theres Something Like 40,000 Homeless Veterans in america today. I think it is appalling in our society that we have veterans willing to risk their lives in the country and they currently live in worse conditions than they did in iraq or the mountains in afghanistan. I just want to give you the opportunity on what you think about the problem and what we can do better to solve this disturbing problem of homelessness. Thank you for your service in the military. One of the things that helped us get where we needed to get in the Civil Rights Movement was the service from black americans in the military. If sparks something in the american psyche. Those that are not receiving appropriate medical care will have the same effect. I look forward as i know so many members of the committee and the congress does and i know you will be working closely on the confirmation as the secretary. It could be a challenge for individuals but im glad the president elect has selected you and i look forward to working together with you and seeing your timyoutime to time in the. Thank you, senator. We have one that may show up for his first round of questions. Who is interested in the second round . I will probably jump in with some questions. A little more specific on the issue yesterday the president elect announced the intention to not put them into a blind trust and i appreciated the specific admonition about that and this creates particular problems since he is intereste has invest know the tax return so there may be others. If you discussed this with the president. What i would hope would happen with this committehappens we could come up with a suggestion. We dont necessarily know if there are others. What you commit to report back on the property owned by mr. Trump or his family or the white house or any other source other than the normal back and forth between a project or did you commit to reporting to this committee anytime that arises . I would be more than delighted. What you set up a process on the conflicts . I will work with you to set that up. That in a nutshell says so much else in the senator van hollen said it you dont have a home, so many other things go wrong obviously so even if you are successful at promoting healthier housing will it be more than a drop in the bucket compared to as many as 40 million americans but has admonished dont repeal the Affordable Care act unless you replace it immediately because what do i do with 700,000 people so my question is do you respond to him that you seem less than enthusiastic about the way they operate so you said you would be willing to eliminate them but only if something replaces them immediately so does that mean that you would oppose the elimination of the Affordable Care act without something replacing it immediately . I dont think its reasonable to pull the rug out under anybody. Regardless of the political situation. If youd than the senator and thought marco rubio then it might have been different [laughter] think you. Also you remind me of colombo. Ive heard that before. I think i heard it from somebody in youngstown. I want to thank you for what youre saying both in Public Housing and the market that is an important discussion we had about the percentage of toxic lead in almost every single home built before 1978. In the city i live it is probably 85 to 90 . We had a senator on the republican side who wanted to get here tha but was held up ate Services Committee that is going on right now. Senator warren who is here indicated that if necessary she could submit further questions for the record so at this point we do not have any further questioning and we will wrap up hearing. I will say to all senators and doctor carson we have a practice of submitting questions following the hearing for the record. One thing of interest to me that youve talked about is i this ie Publicprivate Partnership and the financing when it comes to Publicprivate Partnerships i havent had a conversation with you and what your thoughts are on how that would be addressed when it comes to housing and mortgages. When i talk about that private partnership, im talking about having people in the private sector invested their own resources either building or renovating or refurbishing housing that is then used by hud to house people, so they have to be incentivized to do that. But the big stumbling block is the initial capital to be able to get it done as long as they can realize the return on the Capital Investment. The country was built on entrepreneurial risktaking so that will always be a part of who we are. Are you envisioning this in the future of housing growth and mortgages and housing for individuals in the Home Ownership i will be engaging in a number of conversations with the administrator and this committee and the finance experts to figure out the best ways so we can have a winwin situation. So because of the fact it was a foreclosure crisis and a lot of that is money that we saw coming in from wall street, Big Investments coming in for these mortgages, and individuals at the end of the day lost their homes. So im curious if you could elaborate that. At the bithe big banks become in the rate. I dont want those predators swooping in either. To all of the senators we ask that you get your questions in by the close of business on tuesday and we would ask that you promptly respond to those as promptly as we can. I want to thank you mr. Chairman, mr. Vice chairman and all of the Committee Members for what was actually kind of fun. Thank you for coming here and being well prepared in t hearing we are now adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] there are more confirmation hearings scheduled for this week for the incoming donald trump administration. Ryan think he appears before the Senate Energy committee to testify on his nomination to be the next interior secretary. P. M. Will be live at 2 15 eastern on cspan. And education secretary nominee will testify before the labor and pensions committee. That will be tuesday at 5 00 p. M. On cspan. The president ial inauguration. F donald trump is friday cspan will have live coverage of all of the events and ceremonies. Cspan andon cspan. Org and listen live on the free cspan radio app. Here on cspan, washington journal is next. At 10 00, newsmakers with House Minority whip steny hoyer. Later, we will show you Senate Confirmation hearings for the nominees picked to serve as attorney general and secretary of state. On todays washington journal, a look at the legacy of president obama and first Lady Michelle obama. We are joined by a New York Times correspondent jodi kantor whose book was a 2012 bestseller. About thethor talks rise of economic populism and how it relates to Donald Trumps proposallater, american conserve union chair talked about the agenda that president elect trump plans to pursue when he takes office. Host good morning. Todays New York Times, the optimism of barack obama. The National Review is writing about obamas failed presidency. Perspectives on our 44th president as he appears for his final week at the white house. On friday, barack obama will welcome donald trump for a theitional talking marking peaceful transition of power. The inauguration will take place on the u. S. Capitol beginning at noon eastern time followed by th
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.