Reply #66: unfortunately, I find a major problem with this

[hfojvt]

"In 1978, HUD’s budget was over $83 billion.

In 1983, HUD’s budget was only $18 billion."

That quote does not seem to be true, instead I found that HUD's budget was 2.6 billion in 1970, 7.48 billion in 1975, and 12.6 billion in 1980 and then 20.2 billion in 1990 and 30.8 billion in 2000. So the $83 billion was not the budget of HUD in 1978 unless somebody is confusing two numbers. The 1978 budget in 2006 dollars compared to the 1983 budget in 1983 dollars or something.

There probably have been cuts, but they do not seem to have been as drastic as suggested here, unless transfer to states was cut in some other part of the budget. My source is here:
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab1951-1994.htm