Housing: Bush's Plans to Cut CDBG, HOPE VI Draw Bipartisan Attacks.

(From The Bond Buyer)

Byline: Matthew Vadum

At an appropriations hearing yesterday, Senators from both parties blasted President Bush's $33.6 billion fiscal 2007 Department of Housing and Urban Development budget plan that would reduce Community Development Block Grant program funding by 27% and wipe out funding for a program that demolishes severely distressed public housing units.

The overall proposed funding level for HUD in fiscal 2007 would be $622 million less than the department's actual enacted $34.3 billion budget in fiscal 2006, according to the Bush administration.

"Unfortunately, this funding request does not reflect the true extent to which many important housing and community development programs are compromised," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's panel on housing.

Bond vowed to try to find more dollars for HUD programs. "We should not be trying to balance the cost of the deficit on the backs of …