1 Ground zero of the HUD scandal is the Secretary's 'discretionary fund,' a honey pot used to fund projects that weren't approved through normal HUD channels.
2 Jack Kemp wants to abolish it.
3 Instead, Congress's idea of reform is to increase this slush fund by $28.4 million.
4 And transfer control of much of it to Capitol Hill.
5 The HUD scandals will simply continue, but under new mismanagement.
6 After one of the most amazing debates we've ever seen on the cable channel C-SPAN, the House voted 250 to 170 on Wednesday to order $28.4 million in spending for a New Jersey arts center, a Michigan library and 38 other pet projects out of the same discretionary fund that was supposed to have been so abused during Sam Pierce's tenure.
7 HUD has no paper work whatsoever on 30 of the projects, none of the others has been approved and not a single congressional hearing has been held on any of them.
8 However, four are in the Michigan district of Rep. Bob Traxler, the chairman of the House subcommittee that writes the HUD spending bill.
9 Of course, this kind of blatant congressional pork-barreling is called 'constituent service' by Members, while the same kind of noncompetitive favoritism at HUD is labeled 'influence peddling.' Unlike those awful Republican consultants, Members don't profit directly from HUD projects.
10 They merely collect campaign contributions from developers that help keep them in office.
11 The 40 pet projects were discovered buried in the appropriations bill for HUD and some other agencies after it returned from a conference committee that was called to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions.
12 Conference committees are breeding grounds for mischief.
13 They are often closed to the public and no minutes are taken.
14 Members find it easy to doctor legislation by slipping in special provisions that could never survive in the cold light of day.
15 In this case, the Members outdid themselves.
16 They transferred some $28 million from the Community Development Block Grant program designated largely for low- and moderate-income projects and funneled it into such items as:
17 -- $1.2 million for a performing-arts center in Newark,
18 -- $1.3 million for 'job retention' in Hawaiian sugar mills.
19 -- $400,000 for a collapsing utility tunnel in Salisbury,
20 -- $500,000 for 'equipment and landscaping to deter crime and aid police surveillance' at a Michigan park.
21 -- $450,000 for 'integrated urban data based in seven cities.' No other details.
22 -- $390,000 for a library and recreation center at Mackinac Island, Mich.
23 Rep. Traxler recently purchased an unimproved building lot on the island.

Ground zero of the HUD scandal is the Secretary ' s " discretionary fund , " a honey pot used to fund projects that weren ' t approved through normal HUD channels .
channels
Who were involved in utilizing the discretionary fund?