mr. chairman , i yield myself 1 minute .  in response to my friend from massachusetts , he is right and i agree with him .  let us get that in the record right now .  there are those moments in time .  in fact , he was not here for our colloquy earlier ; so let me just report to him .  i am sure i am not going to get his vote , but i will report to him anyway .  we agree with the local control aspects of cdbg .  there are so many on our side , including myself and so many others , who agree that this is local control , local decision-making , getting this back to communities .  in the budget that we have , we did not take the president 's assumption with regard to cdbg .  we do not necessarily foreclose the ability to look at the program and make improvements .  but we plussed-up the function for cdbg by $ 1.1 billion , and we increased it for that purpose ; and we also did not make any assumption with regard to the president 's new proposal of the strengthening america 's communities block grant or transferring the program from hud , housing and urban development , to the committee on energy and commerce .  the bottom line is there are many things that we will disagree with on budgets , and like i said , i doubt i am going to get the gentleman 's vote , but i do think we have a bipartisan commitment to this .  it is one area that i know we will continue to work on .  and there may be other disagreements , but this is an area that we have worked on together .  i commend the gentleman for his leadership , and we are providing that leadership as well .  and we hope the president can come forward with a little better rationale as to why this program , in particular , needed the changes that he proposed in his budget .  if there are reforms that are needed , then let us reform the program .  we will work together .  if there are bad apples spoiling it for the rest of the bunch , then let us get rid of those bad apples .  let us figure that out .  but let us not throw the baby out with the bath water .  i agree with the gentleman .  mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time .  