Ben Carson's HUD: Political loyalty required, no experience necessary

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Ben Carson’s HUD: Political loyalty required, no experience necessary

By Tracy Jan
September 20 at 10:42 AM

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded promotions and pay increases to five political operatives with no housing policy experience within their first months on the job, demonstrating what government watchdogs and career staff describe as a premium put on loyalty over expertise.

The raises, documented in a Washington Post analysis of HUD political hires, resulted in annual salaries between $98,000 and $155,000 for the five appointees, all of whom had worked on Donald Trump’s or Ben Carson’s presidential campaigns. Three of them did not list bachelor’s degrees on their résumés.

The political hires were among at least 24 people without evident housing policy experience who were appointed to the best-paying political positions at HUD, an agency charged with serving the poorest Americans. They account for a third of the 70 HUD appointees at the upper ranks of the federal government, with salaries above $94,000, according to the Post review of agency records.

The limited experience at the upper reaches of the agency — HUD Secretary Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, has no prior housing, executive or government background — injected confusion into the rollout of policy initiatives and brought delays to even routine functions, according to interviews with 16 current and former career staff members.

“This administration is different, because the people coming in really don’t know housing at all,” said Ron Ashford, who retired as director of HUD’s public-housing supportive-service programs in January after 22 years at the agency. “As a result, they’re pursuing initiatives that aren’t grounded in reality.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ben-carsons-hud-political-loyalty-required-no-experience-necessary/2018/09/20/addb8e74-9b0c-11e8-b60b-1c897f17e185_story.html

[Freethinker65]

1. The administration did this in all departments they want to set up to fail. The GOP is pleased.

They get to reward unqualified loyalists and their spawn and friends. They get incompetent people to run departments they wish never existed (education, housing, environment, labor, consumer protection, etc.) into the ground with their mismanagement. Then they can turn around and say what a disaster the departments are and how they are a waste of taxpayer dollars. Then they can privatize the aspects of the departments most profitable and shut down the rest. That was always the plan.