MP3 Audio from Late Payments Hearing: Chris Shays to HUD Chief Financial Officer,“You Have Made a Fool of Yourself”.

[Time Correction]

One of the reasons I take the time to create .MP3 audio files from congressional hearings is that they provide a unique way of hearing the personal interaction between committee members and those testifying, and between the members themselves. (To avoid wasting time, I try to fit the listening into my existing daily routine. I listen to the MP3 files on my IPOD when I am out getting my daily exercise, or while driving in the car).

The latest hearing on HUD late rental assistance payments provides a good example of the value added by the .MP3 files. After minutes of exasperating and evasive testimony from HUD’s Chief Financial Officer the long serving Connecticut Representative Chris Shay (R) reaches a boiling point telling the CFO [at 1:12:05] “ You have made a fool of yourself”.

Listening to the testimony one also learns that the CFO relied on a verbal legal opinion forbidding use of prior year funds to make rental payments, even with an existing rental assistance contract in place. A representative from the HUD Office of Legal Counsel testified that they had not been asked to write a legal opinion, and the CFO testified that it might taken until the end of the year to have such a legal opinion written and available to Congress.

The hearing .MP3 audio is HERE.