As part of my “Question of the Week” series, I had to decide which department of the federal government was most deserving of abolition.
With a target-rich environment of waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington, that wasn’t an easy question to answer. But I decided to pick the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and I had some good reasons for that choice.
- HUD engages in racism and social engineering.
- Urban renewal projects destroy neighborhoods and foment corruption.
- HUD subsidies are grotesquely wasteful.
- There are epidemic levels of waste, fraud, and abuse at HUD.
Well, thanks to the sequester, we can say that we’ve achieved 1.9 percent of our goal. Here are some blurbs from a Reuters report.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday said it plans to shut its doors for a total of seven days between May and September due to budget cuts and will furlough more than 9,000 employees on those days. …The agency will determine the exact shutdown dates at a later time.
The motto of special interests
This is what I call a good start.
You won’t be surprised to learn, though, that the bureaucracy is whining that these tiny cutbacks will have horrible effects.
In cataloging the impact of sequestration to a Senate panel last month, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan warned lawmakers that the government spending cuts would have harsh consequences for housing programs and could threaten Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts in the U.S. Northeast. “The ripple effects are enormous because of how central housing is to our economy,” Donovan told lawmakers.
Well, I hope that the “cuts” will have “harsh consequences for housing programs.” I’ve read Article I, Section VIII, of the Constitution, and nowhere does it say that housing is a function of the federal government.
And I’ve also explained that disaster relief is not Washington’s responsibility.
Most worthless department in Washington?
Last but not least, I agree that housing is important to our economy. But that’s precisely why I don’t want the federal government involved.
Didn’t we learn from the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle that bad things happen when the federal government tries to subsidize that sector.
Heck, I don’t even want tax preferences for housing.
No wonder I picked the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the background for my video on bloated and wasteful bureaucracy.
International Liberty 
[…] there are plenty of bad housing policies in Washington (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Department of Housing and Urban Development, mortgage-interest deduction, etc), much of the problem is caused by state and local […]
[…] tax provisions (health benefits exclusion, ethanol credits) and spending programs (the entire HUD budget, OECD […]
[…] think that message applies to bureaucracies that are affected by the current shutdown (such as HUD and Transportation) as well as to some of the bureaucracies that are unaffected (Education, Energy, […]
[…] think that message applies to bureaucracies that are affected by the current shutdown (such as HUD and Transportation) as well as to some of the bureaucracies that are unaffected (Education, Energy, […]
[…] the worst cabinet-level department? If that’s the case, then bureaucracies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Education would be high on the […]
[…] tax provisions (health benefits exclusion, ethanol credits) and spending programs (the entire HUD budget, OECD […]
[…] do conservatives want to abolish the Department of Housing and Urban Development? Because the economy grows faster when markets rather than politicians determine where labor and […]
[…] If HUD is abolished, will there be a growth dividend? […]
[…] HUD is abolished, will there be a growth […]
[…] Housing. […]
[…] the Treasury Department. It was to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a department that shouldn’t even exist. And because Kemp was weak on spending issues, he predictably and unfortunately presided over an […]
[…] the Treasury Department. It was to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a department that shouldn’t even exist. And because Kemp was weak on spending issues, he predictably and unfortunately presided over an […]
[…] I hope his job at HUD is to shut down the department, raze the building, and get the federal government out of the housing […]
[…] I hope his job at HUD is to shut down the department, raze the building, and get the federal government out of the housing […]
[…] I hope his job at HUD is to shut down the department, raze the building, and get the federal government out of the housing […]
[…] most wonderful, conscientious, and hard-working people in the world, but we shouldn’t have a Department of Housing and Urban Development or a Department of Agriculture, so these folks – by definition – are getting […]
[…] down useless and counterproductive departments such as Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Education, Transportation, […]
[…] down useless and counterproductive departments such as Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Education, Transportation, […]
[…] down useless and counterproductive departments such as Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Education, Transportation, and […]
[…] HUD unquestionably is a cesspool of waste, so it certainly should be […]
[…] HUD unquestionably is a cesspool of waste, so it certainly should be […]
[…] HUD unquestionably is a cesspool of waste, so it certainly should be […]
[…] Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished […]
[…] Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished […]
HUD does good work for those of us that have disabilities. The subsidy keeps us out of institutions at 3X the cost of the HUD assistance per month or more. I disagree that the government should refrain from being involved in housing or other programs helping people who have legitimate needs. There is so much talk of independence from the government until health and financial crises due to unexpected events occurs. Then, everyone without exception wants the government to step in and help. Those of you who think differently have likely either not had health issues that prevent you from doing any work or you have never had significant difficulty finding a job.
[…] Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished […]
Steve – Obama was smoking weed and using cocaine while taking Econ 101!
Dan-
You are on the spot with this one. The HUD tries to make it sound like 9000 people losing their jobs would be a bad thing. What the public fails to understand is that for every ONE person in public employment, we probably lose 2X their pay from the economy. Considering that public employees have to justify their existence, it sometimes seems that their only goal in life is to find ways to levy fines and fees on Americans who would otherwise mind their own business. It’s a simple concept really that was learned in Econ 101. Every dollar put into the private econmy has a multiplier effect because it gets spent over and over and is used to produce a productive result from the person who receives it. On the other hand if that dollar is used to produce a negative effect- like taxes, fees, or fines, it then has a divider effect on the public flow of capital. Traffic police are my other favorite example.
Steve
It is worth also mentioning that the removal of free markets from the housing of course hurts the poorest of our Countrymen, which of course the idiots in Washington’s answer is to bring on more HUD, which accelerates the problem not fixes it.
It is a sad state of affairs when almost all of our country’s home closings first need to go through Washington to be approved. Are banks even private enterprises capable of determining risk and assessing capital appropriately anymore? I live out here in the middle of the country and there are many families with children (do I sound like a politican now?) that are trying to buy a house, they have jobs, pay bills, etc. and Fannie Mae is taking a big brother/sister approach to lending that doesn’t allow many if any loans to even close. These are buyers that are paying twice or more than what their mortgage would be in rent and struggling because the government has destroyed the free markets when it comes to housing.