Representative Mike Garcia (CA-25) spoke to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge during a Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on HUD’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget request. During the hearing, Garcia addressed his concerns regarding HUD’s inefficient spending of American taxpayer dollars. 
 
Garcia questioned Secretary Fudge over HUD’s $61 billion budget request for FY2023. He pointed out that the proposed budget could provide approximately $122,000 every year to every homeless person in America, thus illustrating HUD’s inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.    
 
“I’m a numbers guy and as an appropriator, especially right now, where our nation is seeing record inflation, 8.5 percent, and a debt of $30 trillion at the federal level. We’ve got to pay attention to these numbers a little closer than we have maybe historically. I think you’re operating woefully and inefficiently right now as an agency. $61 billion, rounding up $60.8 billion, would be sufficient if you assume 500,000 homeless people in our country right now, which is a rough estimate, plus or minus. That $61 billion is enough to give every homeless person in our nation a $122,000 every year…So when we talk about staffing and when we talk about efficiencies within our federal agencies, this is one of those agencies unfortunately that stands out as not necessarily getting the taxpayer dollars to the customers in this case,” said Garcia. 
 
He went on to urge Secretary Fudge to ensure that HUD is efficiently spending money towards providing the services the department was tasked with, rather than spending it on bureaucrats. 
 
“I don’t think it’s the lack of what you’re doing, I think you’re doing it inefficiently... we should service everyone that needs the money, but let’s service them and not necessarily bureaucrats who are making more money off of these programs in Washington, D.C. than the people who are benefiting from these programs,” said Garcia. 

Click here to watch Garcia’s remarks.