House votes to end housing program

The U.S. House voted to end a 35-year-old housing program that wasn’t funded until last year.

The Urban Development’s Emergency Homeowner Relief Program was created in 1975. But, it was not until the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act last July that the program was funded.

“Our country currently has an almost 9 percent unemployment rate and more than $14 trillion in debt,” U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., said in a news release. “Rather than spending $1 billion in taxpayer money on a program that is clearly wasteful and only increases our national debt, we should be focused on job creation and reigning in federal spending. That’s what the American people want.”

The measure now heads to the U.S. Senate for consideration.

“Whenever you have a federally funded government program that’s been in effect for almost eight months without a single dime being spent, you know you have an ineffective program,” Westmoreland said. “This program was just a continuation of President Obama’s failed housing programs; and on a broader scale, a continuation of their overall failed bailout policy. It needed to be terminated and the funds returned to pay down the national debt.  I hope the Senate follows our lead and passes this legislation as well.”