President Donald Trump’s suggested budget’s elimination of the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBGP) is a deplorable denial of basic services to old people and children, according to the mainstream media’s coverage of the president’s proposal.
In defense of the cuts, the proposal explains the excesses and failures of the multi-billion-dollar scheme:
The Federal Government has spent over $150 billion on this block grant since its inception in 1974, but the program is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results. The Budget devolves community and economic development activities to the State and local level, and redirects Federal resources to other activities.
A CNBC story about the budget reports that Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Ben Carson “has been highly critical of public assistance, suggesting that too many Americans have become dependent upon it.”
The article goes on to chronicle a similar opinion voiced by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney, who stated, “The president said he was going to go after wasteful and duplicative programs — programs that simply don’t work. A lot of those are in HUD. We’ve spent a lot of money on Housing and Urban Development over the last decade without a lot to show for it. Certainly, there are some successes but there are a lot of programs that simply cannot justify their existence and that’s where we zeroed in.”
Jake Tapper, a reporter at CNN, responded to the president’s budget plan by tweeting the terrifying claim that doing away with the CDBG would cut funds for Meals on Wheels.
Libertarian outlet reason.com responded to Tapper’s tweeted tragedy and the real story of the CDBG Program:
The big problem here is that “We help fund Meals on Wheels” is how the government sells the CDBG program, but how it actually operates in the cities and communities that get the money is far different. The CDBG program is chock full of cronyism and corruption and should be eliminated. Much like the corrupt city redevelopment agencies, what actually ends up happening is that this money gets funneled by politicians to friends with connections for various projects that aren’t really about helping the poor at all.
Beyond the waste — and there is always waste when budgets run into the billions — there is something more sinister behind the billions and beyond the crony capitalism and corruption: sustainability.
As is so often the case with federal programs aimed at the environment and housing, the underlying policy is the promotion of “sustainability,” which is globalist newspeak for totalitarianism under one world government.
Here’s the connection as uncovered in an article published by Property Values Defense, a grassroots organization that “unites attorneys, public officials and activists nationwide to stop federal agency overreach”:
HUD, DOT and the EPA have been instrumental in fostering regionalism since 1993. In 2009, the three agencies formed a “Partnership for Sustainable Development” for the express purpose of merging their unique authorities toward the common goal of advancing sustainable regions.
In June 2016, the agency also teamed with the Department of Education to promote regional Equity Assistance Centers to advance income integration in elementary and secondary classrooms.
These agencies are working feverishly to infill suburbs by transplanting urban families into the outlying communities, which then merge with nearby counties and towns into larger regions managed by unelected councils.
Even HUD’s new Assessment of Fair Housing, the document applicants must complete to receive AFFH related grants, requires grant recipients to align their local plan with a regional plan.
Collectivism is being forced on Americans under the guise of protecting the environment and providing “affordable housing” to the less advantaged.
The true purpose, of course, is to collect all mankind into urban mega-centers in order to facilitate the imposition of top-down, strong central government rule, otherwise known as global fascism.
The New American’s Alex Newman is a recognized expert on sustainability and the use by its advocates of the principle to abolish national sovereignty and to deprive men of their right to property.
In 2013, Newman revealed the assault on liberty hiding within the Trojan Horse of HUD and its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) program:
Under the new HUD policy, dubbed “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” the federal government will gather and track data on “segregation” and “discrimination” across America before deploying a wide range of social-engineering schemes to ensure more “diversity” in U.S. neighborhoods. Some analysts say there is an even broader agenda at work.
While details about the latest anti-constitutional plot remain scarce, news reports and official documents suggest the administration will use a combination of federal bribes and coercion to achieve its aims. The goal, in essence, is to force state and local governments into submission using a “carrot and stick” approach. Among the many federal targets in enforcing centrally planned diversity: local zoning regulations, public transportation, land-use policies, government housing agencies, and more.
To achieve its utopian vision, HUD, specifically this particular block grant, since 1974, has gathered vast amounts of data on American housing patterns. The information was provided to “participants”: virtually every entity receiving federal taxpayer money via HUD, including state and local governments. Armed with the data, authorities cooperated — knowingly or not — to accomplish the globalists’ agenda by changing policies as required.
Across the four decades of its existence, Housing and Urban Development has been particularly successful at accelerating the drive toward sustainability and at making their money irresistible to states and cities, most of which are cash strapped.
The favors of the federal government always come at a cost.
The familiar “carrot and stick” gambit is the coin of the realm in D.C. From police to highways, from environmental standards to labor policies, the federal government has stomped its heavy jackboot into all aspects of life — areas that were once the bailiwick of states, cities, or the people themselves.
Upon its ratification, the states, as principals, gave limited power to the central government to act as their agent in certain matters of common concern: defense, taxation, interstate commerce, etc.
The authority of the agent — in this case the federal government — is derived from the agreement that created the principal/agent relationship. Whether the agent is lawfully acting on behalf of the principal is a question of fact. The agent may legally bind the principal only insofar as its actions lie within the contractual boundaries of its power.
Should the agent exceed the scope of its authority, not only is the principal not held accountable for those acts, but the breaching agent is legally liable to the principal (and any affected third parties who acted in reliance on the agent’s authority) for that breach.
Under the law of agency, the principal may revoke the agent’s authority at will. It would be unreasonable to oblige the principals to honor promises of an agent acting outside the boundaries of its authority as set out in the document that created the agency in the first place.
Imagine the chaos that would be created if principals were legally bound by the acts of an agent that “went rogue” and acted prejudicially to the interests of the principals from whom he derived any power in the first place. It is a fundamental tenet of the law of agency that the agent may lawfully act only for the benefit of the principal.
It’s the agent — and the friends of the agent — that benefit from the billions of Federal Reserve notes circulating as part of these block grants. Reason provided the following rundown of recipients of the Community Development Block Grant Program money, none of whom is elderly, hungry, or in need of housing subsidies. The list, according to the article, was originally compiled by Tad DeHaven:
• $588,000 for a marina in Alexandria, Louisiana
• $245,000 for the expansion of an art museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania
• $147,000 for a canopy walk at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Georgia
• $196,000 for expanding the Calvin Coolidge State historic site in Vermont
• $294,000 for a community recreational facility in New Haven, Connecticut
• $196,000 for the construction of an auditorium in Casper, Wyoming
• $441,000 to replace a county exposition center in Umatilla, Oregon
• $98,000 for the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts in Spring, Texas
• $245,000 for renovations to awnings at a historical market in Roanoke, Virginia
• $294,000 for the development of an educational program at the Houston Zoo in Texas
From the globalist property grab branded “sustainability” to the crony capitalism branded as “community development,” the billions spent by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of these block grants are unconstitutional, and they should ultimately be eliminated from the titanic tax burden borne by Americans. President Trump is to be commended.
