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Housing Secretary Ben Carson is fine with President Trump’s massive cuts to his agency’s budget — whatever those are.
In Senate committee testimony on Wednesday, the neurosurgeon with no government experience seemed either unconcerned with, or unaware of, the extent of cuts Trump has ordered for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Carson praised one agency, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, as “effective” — with no mention of how Trump’s budget proposal calls to eliminate it.
He also defended a $3 billion slashing to the Community Development Block Grant program, which funds local housing projects nationwide. Carson said it was not among his agency’s “primary goals.” The HUD website, though, still features a page praising the program, noting that it has created thousands of jobs and helped more than 200,000 seniors and families.
Carson made no attempts to push back on the $7.4 billion in HUD losses — a 15% reduction — ordered by Trump’s budget proposal, which asks for massive cuts across nearly every facet of the federal government except for the military and immigration enforcement. The HUD cuts could leave more than 250,000 people without housing assistance, according to an analysis by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Carson seemingly shrugged off the cuts, telling senators, “We have to stop the bleeding if we’re going to get healing.”
“It would be much nicer if we just had an infinite pot of money, but we don’t,” he said.
Senators on the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development panel seemed more concerned about the cuts than Carson did.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) worried about the elimination of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, calling it a “huge mistake.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) spoke up in favor of the Community Development Block Grant program.
“I could spend the rest of the afternoon giving you concrete and specific examples of how CDBG been used in my home county, home state and across this country,” he said.
Carson, a failed GOP presidential candidate in 2016, was appointed to lead the agency with no prior experience in government or housing. Before his appointment, he famously referred to fair housing initiatives as a “communist” policy.