Day 405: HUD spent $200K on new furniture amid huge budget cut proposals
Ben Carson’s personal office splurged well beyond $5,000 limit.
Donald Trump has proposed budget cuts almost everywhere in the government in the wake of a large deficit stemming from a $1.5 trillion tax cut passed at the end of 2017.
He called for a $6.8 billion cut, or 14 percent, to the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but also called to slash HUD’s budget in 2017.
In the wake of cuts affecting millions of Americans, perhaps there would be an expectation that HUD, headed by Ben Carson — a former physician with no experience in the public sector and someone who admitted he was unqualified for a Cabinet post — would cut back on internal spending. The opposite appears to be true.
Despite a $5,000 limitation on office upgrades, Carson pressured a career HUD staffer to go well above that limit early last year. When the staffer reported that such expenditures were possible, she was demoted and someone else brought in who could find the money to cede to Carson’s demands.
The result? A $31,000 dining room set, paid for by John Q. Taxpayer, despite the chairs being repaired in 2017 too.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent $31,000 last year to replace a dining room set in the office of Secretary Ben Carson, according to federal records and a whistleblower.
The department showed CNN a receipt for $1,100 worth of repairs to the dining set dated May 2017. The work included “repair[ing] loose joints on 9 chairs” and the back of a 10th chair. “Justification: Secretary’s Dining room chairs are badly in need of repair,” the paperwork reads.
The spending wasn’t done, however, as HUD dropped another $165,000 for more furniture.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) has agreed to spend $165,000 on “lounge furniture” for its Washington headquarters, in addition to a $31,000 dining set purchased for housing secretary Ben Carson’s office.
While Trump campaigned on the idea of draining the swamp and finding individuals more in touch with reality, that idea has woefully failed. The Cabinet alone has seen spending scandal after spending scandal:
- EPA chief Scott Pruitt routinely flies around in first class and stays in luxury hotels;
- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin flew on the taxpayer’s dime to Kentucky to watch an eclipse;
- Former HHS Secretary Tom Price resigned after it was revealed he was flying on private aircraft;
- An audit showed VA Secretary David Shulkin lied so taxpayers would pay for his wife to accompany him to Europe; and
- Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has faced questions regarding his own private air travel, as well as his connection to a company that received a $300 million contract related to providing aid in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
The good news is all of these members can now sit at a very expensive table in Ben Carson’s office to discuss these issues.
405 days in, 1057 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
