CDBGs being linked to "earmark reform"

Run a quick text search for "CDBG" in last Monday's White House budget briefing transcript and you'll find Claude Allen, then Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (he has since resigned), associating the rhetoric of "earmark reform" with the "Strengthening America's Communities" budget proposal that would cut funding to community development block grants while loosening the current structures of the CDBG and other federal economic development programs. A thing for housing people to consider when reading anti-earmark rhetoric like this.