Saturday, June 21, 2014

Close HUD


Defund HUD's Affirmative-Action Zoning (IBD)

Federalism: Using its power of the purse, Congress can stop what might be the most disturbing social-engineering project ever undertaken by the federal government. Will it?

Last week, House Republicans pushed through an amendment to a HUD spending bill that defunds enforcement of the agency's new "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" rule.

The Orwellian-sounding regulation, set for final OK in October, would force some 1,200 municipalities to redraw zoning maps to racially diversify suburban neighborhoods. Now it's up to Senate Republicans to tie up this local power grab by the Obama administration.

Under the scheme, HUD plans to map every U.S. neighborhood by race and publish "geospatial data" pinpointing racial imbalances. Areas deemed overly segregated will be forced to change their zoning laws to allow construction of subsidized and other affordable housing to bring more low-income minorities into "white suburbs." HUD's maps will be used to select affordable housing sites.

It's part of an ambitious agenda to eliminate "racial segregation," ZIP code by ZIP code, block by block, through the systematic dismantling of allegedly "exclusionary" building ordinances. In effect, federal bureaucrats will have the power to rezone your neighborhood.

The crusade has already started in New York's Westchester County, where HUD is withholding millions of dollars in community development block grants until the area relaxes zoning rules and builds 750 affordable housing units. Aurora, Ill., is under order to build 100 such units. Suburban counties in California, Texas and Iowa are under similar HUD order.

And they're just the tip of the iceberg. Once HUD creates a national discrimination database and supplies "nationally uniform data" of what it thinks 1,200 communities should look like, it threatens to reshape the demographics of every neighborhood in America. By showing statistical "disparities," the database would render charges and findings of actual discrimination unnecessary.

This has zero to do with housing discrimination, which has been illegal since 1968. This is about redistribution of resources. It's also about political redistricting, a backdoor attempt by Democrats to gerrymander voting districts in their favor.

Who will derail this wicked project? Hopefully, a champion of the 10th Amendment — Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? — will step up in the Senate to protect this basic federalist principle of local self-determination.




Comments

HUD is using block grants of borrowed and newly printed money in an extortion scheme.  They want to usurp local zoning authorities to manipulate voter districts and create chaos.  Targeted cities and counties and their homeowners will lose property value.  It’s time to close HUD and send it to the States to die and attack the Obama administration with everything we’ve got.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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