Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, spurious statistics don't help us get anywhere. The fact is, yes, section 8 is a higher percentage of the HUD budget because this Congress has cut down other programs. We have cut down CDBG by $500 million. So what does that prove?

And the fact is that all this amendment seeks to do is to say not that more people should get more section 8 vouchers; I wish we could do that, and not that more people should get affordable housing, but simply to maintain our previous policy, that if you are demolishing low income housing you replace it with the same number of units. QED. And if the administration is so incompetent that we are wasting a lot of money because we are not administering the program properly, there is money slipping through its fingers because they are not administering the section 8 program properly, let them clean up their act. But the fact is the number of units should remain the same or go up.

This amendment says, and the gentlewoman says we are all in agreement, that as many people as possible should be helped. Well, if as many people as possible should be helped, at least let's agree, and this amendment is the only way to do that, not to cut down the number of section 8 units, not to cut down the number of units available whenever we demolish existing housing. That is all this amendment does. Nothing else. And anybody who says that this amendment increases the availability of housing above the policy of one for one is not telling the truth.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I understand that you must have a speaker that wishes to speak at this moment?

Mr. NADLER. No. The other cosponsor had to go back to the committee.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that one thing I don't quite understand about what is taking place here, but I want to get to the bottom of it. Having to provide a subsidy for empty units, and that is what you are doing, with a budget that only assumes least unit cost or least unit risks being unable to assist real families, this will, I think, unfairly, shift section 8 dollars to certain regions of the country for what are now vacant units. And this would be to the detriment of the distribution of those funds.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I must correct the gentleman. That is not what it does at all. There are always, in any housing stock, there are always some vacant units because someone moves out on Monday, it takes a month to prepare the apartment for someone else to move in. It has always been the policy that you replace the number of units that you are tearing down. If you are tearing down 1,000 units, you get 1,000 section 8 vouchers. If you change the policy, such as HUD is now seeking to do, such as the bill is seeking to do and which this amendment opposes doing, then you are saying that if 10 percent are vacant because someone has moved out and someone else hasn't moved in yet, they are cleaning it up, that you replace 90 percent instead of the 100 percent.

All this says is continue the policy we have always had of replacing units, not units occupied, because units occupied is always 80, 90 percent of total units because there are always people moving in and out. Someone died last week and so forth. There is no housing stock on earth 100 percent occupied 100 percent of the time. And if you look at 5 percent or 10 percent that are unoccupied now because three people died and five people moved and no one has moved in again, you are reducing the number of units. And all we are saying is don't do that. If you tear down low income housing, replace it one for one on the basis of the number of units. That has always been our policy. That has always been the law and all this amendment seeks to do is to keep it that way and not change it as the bill would do.

I yield back.

Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Chairman, at the end of the day, this creates an entitlement for vacant units. These funds are for tenant protection, not unit protection.

I yield back the balance of my time.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

The question was taken; and the Acting Chairman announced that the noes appeared to have it.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts will be postponed.