07-02-2018, 05:17 PM
Quote:HUD has become a front for an almost religious assault on the social safety net—under the first president ever accused of personally violating the Fair Housing Act (by refusing to rent to black tenants in the 1960s and ’70s). When he appointed Carson, a bureaucratic novice with no background in housing policy, Trump signaled his apathy toward a $50 billion agency. HUD quickly become a punchline, a magnet for hangers-on—Eric Trump’s wedding planner now oversees all public housing authorities in New York and New Jersey—whose blundering was encapsulated by the botched cover-up of Carson’s request to purchase a $31,000 dining-room set for his office.Donald Trump Asked, “What Do You Have to Lose?” This Illinois Town Found Out. – Mother Jones
But the agency is also in the middle of a major reorientation. Carson may not know what he’s doing, but he knows what he wants. He once told an interviewer that poverty is “more of a choice than anything else”; by proposing to raise rents in subsidized buildings, slash budgets, and tear down homes, Carson and the Trump administration are forcing the working poor to choose something else.