Day -45: By Own Admission, New HUD Leader Unqualified For Job

Ben Carson has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. You may remember a Carson spokesperson last week stating the Carson had pulled himself from consideration from leading any federal agencies because he didn’t feel qualified to run any of them.

What a difference a week makes.

The retired neurosurgeon has no experience in this sector, other than living in public housing as a child. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan loved the nomination as an example of overcoming poverty.

But HUD has nothing to do with pulling one’s self by one’s bootstraps. Generally speaking, it helps ensure safe homes and neighborhoods for low-income families. HUD has its hands in many things, including the Federal Housing Administration and Section 8 housing.

Growing up relying on public assistance does not make one qualified for the head job in the department. Struggling to make ends meet and then being a successful doctor 30 years later similarly does not singularly allow someone to be prepared to lead a monster federal agency.

Donald Trump’s selection seems to have more ulterior motives: rewarding an individual who endorsed him. The reasoning he and Ryan have touted involve more shoehorning than a cobbler after a hoedown.

Plainly, it’s just more cronyism.

Why was he tapped to lead this entire department? The Department of Health and Human Services or Surgeon General would have at least made some sense for Carson considering his medical background, but HUD?

A retired neurosurgeon, who took time off while running for president to sell books, will now lead the national agency for low-income housing despite no policy experience in this realm and no experience of any kind in leading any type of large organization of any kind.

Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter shared his concerns to the New York Times:

“As brilliant as folks have said that Dr. Carson is from a neurosurgery standpoint, creating fair housing, promoting economic development and having people living in prospering communities is a little different than operating on somebody’s brain. I do not know how that translates into being HUD secretary.’’

We’ll give Carson some credit: he was right last week. He’s totally unqualified for this.

-45 days in, 1506 to go

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