Poverty, to a large extent, is a state of mind, Ben Carson, the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said last May during an interview with Armstrong Williams on SiriusXM Radio.
Because poverty is largely a state of mind, Carson was suggesting that cutting poor people’s housing assistance would help them develop a state of mind that would help pull them out of poverty. If we gave people less financial assistance and required them to go to work before giving them any assistance we could break the cycle of poverty, the Secretary was saying. Tough love was what he was proposing.
A few weeks ago Secretary Carson put some details to his Tough Love for America’s Poor (TLAP) program. On April 24th he unveiled a legislative plan that would triple the rent for Americans on housing assistance, as well as impose work requirements for them, according to the online political newspaper The Hill.
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| Ben Carson - from Wikipedia |
Carson’s basic idea is the same as it was when Bill Clinton was president. That is to say, there are a certain number of people out there who are welfare cheats. Clinton, who was a cheating, lying and sex crazed Democrat, had no time for cheats. He wanted to reform welfare and put the cheaters to work.
The same is true for this new batch of Trumpian Republicans. They just hate cheats. They also say they believe in protecting and carefully using our taxpayer dollars.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a spokesperson for the White House, said that Secretary Carson’s TLAP proposal to put the cheating poor to work was an “option that is much more responsible with taxpayer dollars.”
Under TLAP poor people will begin to adjust their state of mind and begin to see themselves as not poor, according to Secretary Carson. I believe that Secretary Carson deeply believes what he says.
I say that I believe in Secretary Carson because he showed us that poverty is a state of mind when he and his wife chose the dining room furniture in his posh government office.
Secretary Carson and his Lady chose their government furniture with the state of mind of the very wealthy. For example, their beautiful dish cabinet cost $7,091 in taxpayer treasure, according to the British Daily Mail. It’s a piece of furniture truly fitting a prince. Their magnificent sideboard cost $6,488 and their ever so lovely chairs look priceless. The Carson's whole furniture order cost $31,000.
The trouble is that the furniture purchase was supposed to be limited to no more than $5,000. But when Helen Foster, a career HUD employee, told Carson’s assistant Craig Clemensen about the $5,000 limit Clemenson said you can’t buy a decent chair for under $5,000. I’ve purchased a number of chairs for less than that but Clemenson also told Foster that there were ways around the furniture spending cap. Then he demoted her for her audacity.
So Clemensen is a cheat. Did the cheat hating Carson send his assistant out to work at Walmart and raise his rent? Nope! The Secretary, his wife, and their chiseling assistant started paging through catalogues for high priced furniture. Then they placed their princely order. Indeed! If you’re The Secretary there is a way around spending caps. You just have to adjust your thinking. Rules are for poor people. I’m not poor. Rules aren’t for me. Simple.
But the thing about Secretary Carson is that he is a coward. When word first leaked about his rule-busting furniture purchase he said he didn’t know anything about it. Staff at HUD had authorized the exorbitant purchase, he said. Bosses are cowards when they try and cover up their cheating by blaming their workers.
But it’s ok if you cheat, lie and abuse your workers if you’re a good Christian, Ben Carson thinks. That’s why he sent out a line from the Bible when the heat was getting intense a while back.
“Under His Wings You Will Find Refuge,” Carson tweeted from the Psalms at the end of February.
Then, when CNN got documents proving that Carson had broken the rules and lied about it, the Secretary said he would be glad to cancel the furniture order.
Now think about it! This cheating, hypocritical, lying, back stabbing guy gets to be taken seriously when he proposes a policy that sticks it to poor people. My opinion is that we should find a baggy orange jump suit for him and that he should spend some time adjusting his attitude in the County Jail.
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