By Eugene T. Lowe
March 20, 2006

Last Thursday, March 15, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment to S. Con. Res. 83, the fiscal year 2007 Budget Resolution, to increase funding of the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program by $1.3 billion. This would make total funding for the program at the FY 2004 level of $4.3 billion The amendment, offered by Senator Rick Santorum (PA) and Senator Norm Coleman (MN), passed by a bipartisan vote of 60 – 38.

As the Senate prepared to adjourn for the week-long St. Patrick’s Day recess, another amendment offered by Senators Patty Murray (WA), Paul Sarbanes (MD), and Patrick Leahy (VT) that preceded the Santorum-Coleman on the senate floor also proposed to restore more than a billion dollars to CDBG. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 45 – 53.

Both amendments were offered to counter the administration’s proposed billion cut to CDBG in the FY 2007 budget. The amendments also sought to provide enough money to get CDBG formula grants back to the FY 2004 funding level. Last year, CDBG formula grants were cut by 10 percent.

But each amendment had to provide an offset to pay for its proposed increased of the CDBG program. Murray proposed tax loopholes, while Santorum proposed function 920 funds. Murray contended that the Santorum-Coleman amendment would not provide “actual money to the CDBG program.” She argued that her amendment would provide more money by raising the budget cap while the Santorum amendment would require across the board cuts of other program to fund CDBG. In a press release, Murray said of the Santorum-Coleman amendment, “This amendment does nothing to help our country’s mayors and community development organizations expand affordable housing or bring new economic opportunities to their communities.”

After defeat of the Murray amendment, Santorum asked for support of his amendment. “I hope my colleagues will support this amendment which does not raise the cap but, in fact, expresses a strong sentiment, a strong bipartisan sentiment that the CDBG Program should be funded more robustly. It is at $1.3 billion. It is offset by the 920 account. But it does express a very important sentiment that this is a high-priority program and that the appropriators should allocate more resources than the President did in his budget recommendation,” he said.