Doctor Ben Carson emerged in the 2016 campaign as a favorite among a number of grassroots conservatives.
He also quickly endorsed Donald Trump once he dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday.
And now the President-elect made a major announcement about Carson’s future.
Shortly after his victory, the President-elect began to try and find a position in his administration for Carson.
Carson was a loyal supporter who developed his own following during the campaign due to his incredible life story, easy-going demeanor, and his honesty.
While at first Carson was resistant to the President-elect’s overtures, he eventually agreed to become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration.
Politico reports:
“Carson, who challenged Trump during the Republican primary, is the first African-American selected to serve in the president-elect’s Cabinet. The retired neurosurgeon has little experience in housing or management, but he has weighed in on the issue. In a 2015 op-ed for The Washington Times, he labeled a new fair housing rule a “social-engineering” scheme.
“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities,” Trump said Monday morning in the statement from his transition 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.”
HUD, with an annual budget of nearly $50 billion, is a sprawling agency that oversees most of the nation’s affordable housing programs and manages a $1.6 trillion mortgage portfolio. Its mission is dedicated to housing in the broadest sense–the agency also plays a role in education, transportation and community redevelopment across the country.
“I am honored to accept the opportunity to serve our country in the Trump administration,” Carson said. “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’s plate is full.
Conservatives blasted the Housing and Urban Development agency’s scheme to zone so-called “affordable housing” into upper income areas as a war to destroy the suburbs.
Writing in Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz describes Obama’s plot to socially engineer the suburbs into bastions of liberalism:
“The AFFH represents the worst form of social transformation without representation and is the capstone of Obama’s effort to fundamentally transform America. It is an ad hoc federal gerrymander to force local governments to impose low-income housing in areas HUD targets for social engineering while funneling funds to left-wing community organizing groups to transfer people from the inner city into suburban neighborhoods. It represents one of the worst violations of federalism, property rights and the true ideals of equal opportunity expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
Every American has the right and opportunity to purchase property, housing or rentals in any part of the country. However, the federal government has no constitutional power to mandate the breakdown of natural settlement and development for different neighborhoods and counties in order to enrich their favored NGOs. Under the AFFH, HUD unilaterally decides that not enough individuals from a given race or ethnicity live in a particular jurisdiction. Then, in order to leverage the local government to “identify significant determinants that influence or contribute to those issues, and set forth fair housing priorities and goals to address fair housing issues and determinants,” HUD threatens to withhold community development block grants.
Further, HUD uses their army of lawyers and groups like the NAACP and ACLU to threaten lawsuits against counties that fail to comply with this scheme. While the 5-4 activist court decision from last year (Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.) to codify “disparate impact” into housing laws doesn’t fully support HUD’s new rule, it is close enough to scare off cash-strapped counties from engaging in protracted legal battles to protect their interests.”
Conservatives will now be counting on Dr. Carson to unwind this attack on America’s suburbs.
