Posted on 12/05/2016 3:53:06 AM PST by usafa92
Dr. Ben Carson will be Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the president-elect’s transition team confirmed Monday morning.
“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities,” Mr. Trump said in a statement released by his team.”We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a Presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.”
Carson heavily hinted at the HUD position in a Facebook post days earlier, writing, “After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone.”
“I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration,” Carson was quoted as saying in the statement released Monday. “I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need. We have much work to do in enhancing every aspect of our nation and ensuring that our nation’s housing needs are met.”
Carson, who has never held elected office and failed earlier this year in a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, speculated to Fox News before Thanksgiving that Mr. Trump’s consideration for the HUD position was in part due to Carson’s upbringing.
“I grew up in the inner city and have spent a lot of time there, and have dealt with a lot of patients from that area and recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities,” he said Tuesday.
The 65-year-old has no previous policy experience in the field of urban development.
Carson, who was raised in an impoverished area of Detroit, later rose to prominence as a renowned neurosurgeon who drew national political attention this year when he ran in the Republican primary race earlier this year.
While his presidential campaign was short-lived, Carson has continued to make headlines with his early endorsement of Mr. Trump, and his advisory role with the president-elect.
In September, Mr. Trump toured Carson’s boyhood neighborhood in Detroit with the retired doctor by his side. During that trip, the then-GOP nominee pitched African Americans on his plans for inner cities and promised a “civil rights agenda for our time.”
Carson’s role in the coming administration was unclear as late as last week. Even the neurosurgeon’s longtime friend and adviser, Armstrong Williams, told The Hill that Carson wasn’t interested in running a government agency because he’d never served in a federal capacity.
“Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency,” Armstrong said Tuesday. “The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”
Give them FEMA trailers.
Perhaps there is not a person on this earth who is better at picking the right man or woman for the job than one Donald J. Trump. But in addition to this HUD position, I hope to God that Dr. Carson will also be a close and trusted confidant of Trump. He is good man.
Pollster1: I don’t approve of that mission statement as written. HUD’s mission (for as long as they exist) should be to move communities away from their dependence on federal money to a point where people in those communities can live productive independent lives.
Mission
HUD's mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.
Just pointing out the fact that a real leader does not require specific experience. Carson was the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland from 1984 until his retirement in 2013. That is no small job. He is very smart and a man of values. I would hire him for almost any leadership position.
You may think a policy wonk with 20 years experience managing section 8 housing in Baltimore would be a better head of HUD, but that is what a true leftist would do.
I have now, once PEOTUS tweets it it is official not before.
“Never mistake quietness for weakness.”
You are exactly right.
An accomplished neuro-surgeon, faith filled, metered in response. Pretty good guy.
He will surround himself with great advisors just as Trump will. It’ll be great.
Agreed. Functions of HUD: “it runs or participates in many programs intended to support homeownership, increase safe and affordable rental housing, reduce homelessness and fight housing discrimination”.
One of the best things that can be done is to get people OUT of public housing, and who better to do that than a black man who has risen from that very humble origin to become tops in his field and a Presidential candidate?
People need to stop pissing their pants with every person Trump picks and realize these are huge federal bureaucracies with large staffs of skilled workers who run them, day in and day out, Republican or Democrat in the White House. We can argue that the bureaucracy needs to be downsized but Congress passed the laws that put it there and Congress is going to need to act to reduce it.
Meanwhile the person at the top, the Cabinet officer, has to be a person who can translate the President’s vision and expectations down to the bureaucracy. The Executive branch oversees HUD but it’s money comes from Congress, so a person who can and will work hand-in-glove with the legislative agenda is the best way to achieve the outcomes we all hope to see (smaller government, lower taxes, less dependency on gov’t programs). Dr. Carson is a good choice.
Excellent choice! Dr. Carson rose to chief of pediatric neurosurgery in one of the world’s best hospitals from a home in a poor neighborhood with a hard-working but illiterate mother. Read his book “Gifted Hamds.” When she noticed that the homes where she cleaned all had lots of reading material, she cut off TV for her sons every week until they had each read two books, written book reports and read them to her. They did not know that she could not read. Dr. Carson is the perfect person to help turn the tide of hopelessness in many parts of our country.
My dad, a decorated WWII veteran, was not a reader, but someone gave him a copy of Dr. Carsons book and he read it cover to cover while he was ill in the final months of life. I know it impressed him greatly, and that he would have been proud to see Carson as President even though he grew up in an era where people like him were referred to as “colored”. Dr. Carson is a good man who will serve President Trump well.
He attacked someone with a knife so hard, it broke on the buckle. If that is peaceable, I would not want to upset the good Dr. /half joking
“So your argument is that unqualified people have held the position before?”
My argument would be that people who are “qualified” by virtue of previous experience surviving in the swamp should not be elected, appointed, or hired.
Agreed. Also Carson is a excellent role model for all the people of this country. The black community will also see that they are not getting the same line of crap as the deems give them every election, then toss them to the curb right after. You don’t always need to be a expert, to supervise, you just need to surround yourself with the best people.
Agreed. Good appointment. The liberal/socialists will howl because Dr. Benson has no experience in such matters. THINK Obama who had no experience other than a short no-vote position in the Senate. Obama was basically absent from his Senator responsibilities and had to learn on-the-job for the Presidency. Does anyone think he thoroughly knew about domestic and foreign policy on his inauguration day? That's why assigning career people in the Cabinet is so crucial.
People don't realize that many secretaries/appointees require on-the-job training, unless an under-Secretary is move into the top position. It's all about setting policy and directing those below to carry out said policies.
Dr. Carson will learn fast and figure out how to change HUD for the better. I'm a GED graduate who owned/operated 3 small companies, I could run HUD.
“This dude has no construction experience, he’s a hoity toity surgeon for God’s sake.”
Shows your ignorance and bias since HUD Sec isn’t just about construction nor does the position require construction knowledge.
“these are huge federal bureaucracies with large staffs of skilled workers”
These are huge swamps with large staffs of Cankles-voting leftard scum.
“We can argue that the bureaucracy needs to be downsized”
Even more than that, the bureaucracy needs to be swept of the vermin that infest it.
“Congress passed the laws that put it there and Congress is going to need to act to reduce it.”
I’m hoping that President-elect Trump can find a legal and constitutional way of cutting that Gordian knot.
I think Carson’s interest lies in education. His mother forcing them to read is what saved him and his brother from life in the ghetto. I believe he’d like to help develop the inner cities and provide a decent education to all.
And he’s so damn smart he’ll catch on to everything in the first month.
Also, someone tell me why we need a Surgeon General who prances around in a military uniform and does nothing and has no power? The HHS department and the CDC agency are enough to cover housing and health issues. Now that I think of it, CDC could be incorporated into HHS.
What HUD ought to do is disband, close up shop, and vanish entirely.
We’ll see if he’s too peaceable.
The urban problem, in a nutshell, is decades of failed top down urban planning. Central planning which zoned small family businesses out of existence and left the residents there but eliminated their jobs.
A typical inner city economy prior to “urban development” was one of blocks and blocks of very small family shopkeeper enterprises, food markets, laundry, gifts, hardware, clothes, books, jewelry, you name it. The shopkeeper’s family lived in the third floor apartment above his shop, worked at the shop, and rented out the second floor apartment. Then blocks and blocks of small factories and plants, followed by blocks of larger plants, factories, refineries, and commodity producers.
The common theme in all of this industry was that it was unplanned and largely unregulated - it evolved over many decades, out of the natural human desire to ply a trade and make a living, and people found a niche regardless of all ethnicity, social class or education.
There were problems of course: income and education inequality, as some did better than others, filth and pollution, as there were not zoning laws and EPA regulation, there was crime - organized and other. There was racism as cultures clashed in the melting pot. These neighborhoods were often disheveled and messy, the markets smelled of rotting fish and garbage - an embarrassment to the government class and white collar commuter class who had to pass through them on the way to the train station.
So came the age of urban planning which outlawed street vendors in many cities, razed entire multipurpose buildings and replaced them with high rise apartment buildings in strictly residential zones. The problem was that the shops were gone so the unemployed shopkeeper families could not afford the new apartments.
Next came the EPA and health regulations which shut down thousands of factories and restaurants. Labor laws which finished off the rest.
Wealthier investors and residents who could afford the regulatory compliance and could commute to their white collar employment moved in and pushed the jobless and homeless into designated ghetto areas - but even these were “renovated” and the trash was cleared off the street.
This failed urban planning is what Dr Carson needs to find solutions for - and the solutions don’t require years of bureaucratic experience in failed leftist social planning.
Quite the contrary; what is needed is a conservative who understands the damage done by decades of leftist social planning and his to undo job killing regulation, zoning and planning and who understands the concept of liberty and the dignity of free enterprise.
Free enterprise and limited government may not provide equal wealth, but it provides equal opportunity and the dignity of self sufficiency.
I think Dr Carson will be perfect for this job.
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