July 23, 2019
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Is the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development about to double down on the 2015 federal takeover of local zoning regulations?
The Department
of Housing and Urban Development is getting set to finalize a regulation
modifying the 2015 rule from the Obama administration, Affirmatively Furthering
Fair Housing, that conditioned $3.3 billion of annual community development
block grants on rezoning local municipalities along income and racial
guidelines. More than 1,200 cities and counties accept those block grants
nationwide affecting populations of tens of millions of people. Now sources
familiar with the final regulation currently being considered by the White
House Office of Management and Budget suggest that it will still condition
funds on making changes to local zoning, just with a different rationale, to
reduce regulatory burdens that contribute to higher housing costs particularly
in urban areas such as San Francisco. There’s only one problem. Congress prohibited
anything to do with zoning and this rule.
Cartoon: Feel the Bern
Do as I say not
as I do.
Video: 1.4 million more job openings than unemployed as Trump economy keeps booming
The Trump
economy has more job opening than unemployed for the fifteenth straight month.
What is the East-West Center and why are taxpayers giving it $16.7 million a year?
With the
national debt now over $22 billion, Congress simply must find places in the
budget to cut. Some necessary cuts are tough; others are easy. Defunding the
East-West Center (EWC), a think tank in Honolulu, Hawaii focused on relations
between the US, Asia, and the Pacific, is an easy cut. Currently, the EWC
receives $16.7 million a year from federal taxpayers.
Paul Sperry: Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Evidence Comey Probed Trump, on the Sly
“Sources tell
RealClearInvestigations that Justice Department Inspector General Michael
Horowitz will soon file a report with evidence indicating that Comey was
misleading the president. Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a
target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case
against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent. Two
U.S. officials briefed on the inspector general’s investigation of possible FBI
misconduct said Comey was essentially ‘running a covert operation against’ the
president, starting with a private ‘defensive briefing’ he gave Trump just
weeks before his inauguration. They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI
text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting
a “counterintelligence assessment” of Trump during that January 2017 meeting in
New York.”
Is the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development about to double down on the 2015 federal takeover of local zoning regulations?
By Robert Romano
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is getting set to finalize a regulation modifying the 2015 rule from the Obama administration, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, that conditioned $3.3 billion of annual community development block grants on rezoning local municipalities along income and racial guidelines.
More than 1,200 cities and counties accept those block grants nationwide affecting populations of tens of millions of people. Suffice to say that the potential impact of the regulations would be vast if ever implemented. This was always a vast overreach, where the federal government could come in and tell communities what must be built and where.
And the current changes being considered may not be much better. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson in an Aug. 13 interview with the Wall Street Journal said, “I would incentivize people who really would like to get a nice juicy government grant [to look at their zoning codes].” That’s exactly what the prior rule did.
Now, sources familiar with the final regulation currently being considered by the White House Office of Management and Budget suggest that it will still condition funds on making changes to local zoning, just with a different rationale, to reduce regulatory burdens that contribute to higher housing costs particularly in urban areas such as San Francisco.
The new rule would favor multifamily properties over single family dwelling, just like the Obama era regulation did.
While reducing regulations at the local level is certainly a laudable goal, it is also one that the federal government has no business attending to, let alone having bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. decide what amounts to one of the most important decisions that local governments make.
It’s also illegal. Under Division F, Title II of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2019, Section 232, Congress expressly forbid HUD from doing anything with local zoning and this regulation: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’…”
That identical provision, sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) passed the Senate overwhelmingly 87 to 9 in 2016.
As a result, the terms of the Fair Housing Act have been changed by Congress in an affirmative act to say there shall be no more changes to local zoning by Washington, D.C. If HUD were to continue implementing the regulation as it is currently written, particularly to make changes to local zoning, it would not be acting in accordance with the law.
It’s not final yet, though, so there are alternatives for the federal government to consider. Instead, HUD could help the 1.1 million households living in public housing units the way Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania did in the late 1980s when the Soviet Union was falling apart: by privatizing public housing and turning ownership directly over to the tenants.
By transferring public housing ownership directly to current tenants, they would be the direct beneficiaries by becoming the owners of billions of dollars of prime urban real estate, with the plan generating new income necessary to jumpstart the redevelopment of these neighborhoods.
In addition, HUD might consider transferring properties owned by Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration obtained via foreclosures to local housing authorities specifically to combat the homelessness crisis and for other fair housing needs.
All of these could help HUD fulfill its obligations under the Fair Housing Act without obliterating local governance and the decisions made about zoning. Fortunately, there is still time for OMB to engage in a course correction before the government overreach that began with the regulation in 2015 becomes cemented. Leaving the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rezoning regulation in place would be a big mistake for the Trump administration, and is one the nation will eventually come to regret.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Cartoon: Feel the Bern
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
Video: 1.4 million more job openings than unemployed as Trump economy keeps booming
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ6W-mnloSI
What is the East-West Center and why are taxpayers giving it $16.7 million a year?
By Richard McCarty
What is the East-West Center and why are taxpayers giving it $16.7 million a year?
With the national debt now over $22 billion, Congress simply must find places in the budget to cut. Some necessary cuts are tough; others are easy. Defunding the East-West Center (EWC), a think tank in Honolulu, Hawaii focused on relations between the US, Asia, and the Pacific, is an easy cut. Currently, the EWC receives $16.7 million a year from federal taxpayers.
The EWC is just another of Lyndon Johnson’s wasteful Big Government programs. During his tenure as Senate Majority Leader, Johnson sponsored legislation to establish the EWC; Congress passed the bill without even holding any hearings. Interestingly, the State Department opposed the EWC’s creation. For decades afterward, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) managed to keep federal support for the think tank in place. With Inouye gone, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) now fights to keep the federal tax dollars flowing to the EWC.
Three decades after the founding of the EWC, another powerful legislator, Rep. Dante Fascell (D-FL), procured funding for the North-South Center, which was a think tank in Miami, Florida focused on relations between North and South America and the Caribbean. After Fascell left Congress, financial support for the North-South Center dwindled until all federal support was removed. The think tank closed shortly thereafter. Of course, there has been no discernable difference in North-South relations as a result of the think tank’s closure.
“A legacy of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, the EWC think tank has been receiving federal taxpayer dollars for almost six decades – more than $160 million over the past two decades alone,” Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning said.
Manning added, “It is time for this Vietnam War era project to be set free from the shackles of federal support ($16.7 million projected this year) and fully enter the competitive world of private donor fundraising. This would not be a death knell for this group as the East-West Center currently raises millions of dollars from private sources each year to achieve its Cold War mission.”
Not only is the EWC a needless expense for taxpayers, but it also pushes the liberal agenda. Like so many left-wing organizations, the EWC is obsessed with global warming. There is no reason that taxpayers should be subsidizing climate alarmism, which often leads to proposals for higher taxes and costly regulations as well as expensive energy projects that drive up costs for consumers. If the EWC wants to continue to scaremonger over global warming, then climate alarmists, such as billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer, should make the EWC a pet project.
Looking for fat in the budget to trim, the Trump Administration has proposed zeroing out funding for the think tank. Nor is this administration the first to suggest the EWC should receive fewer federal tax dollars. Even the Obama Administration proposed cutting the think tank’s budget by $9 million — even though Obama’s mother had once studied at the EWC. (Subsequently, the EWC hired President Obama’s half-sister.) While saving $16.7 million might not sound like much, the appropriations for the think tank do add up. Since FY 1997, over $160 million has been appropriated for the EWC.
Taxpayers have funded the EWC for well over 50 years, and it is long past time to cut off the welfare checks. The EWC already generates significant non-federal revenues; in fact, the EWC brought in over $9 million in donations and non-federal grants and contracts last year according to its financial summary. There are dozens of foreign policy think tanks in this country, and it is doubtful that many people would notice if the EWC were unable to replace the federal funds and were forced to scale back its budget. Finally, the US had diplomatic and trade relations with Asia long before the EWC, and those relationships would continue even if the think tank were to close.
Manning suggested that the center would operate just fine on its own, concluding, “Taxpayers launched the East-West Center, but it is time for them to launch into adulthood before they become eligible for Medicare.”
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured report from Real Clear Investigations’ Paul Sperry, Inspector General Michael Horowitz’ upcoming report will show former FBI Director James Comey was lying to President Donald Trump when he said he wasn’t investigating him:
Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Evidence Comey Probed Trump, on the Sly
By Paul Sperry
It is one of the most enduring and consequential mysteries of the Trump-Russia investigation: Why did former FBI Director James Comey refuse to say publicly what he was telling President Trump in private -- that Trump was not the target of an ongoing probe?
That refusal ignited a chain of events that has consumed Washington for more than two years – including Comey’s firing by Trump, the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and ongoing claims that Trump obstructed justice.
Now an answer is emerging. Sources tell RealClearInvestigations that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will soon file a report with evidence indicating that Comey was misleading the president. Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent.
Two U.S. officials briefed on the inspector general’s investigation of possible FBI misconduct said Comey was essentially “running a covert operation against” the president, starting with a private “defensive briefing” he gave Trump just weeks before his inauguration. They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting a “counterintelligence assessment” of Trump during that January 2017 meeting in New York.
In addition to adding notes of his meetings and phone calls with Trump to the official FBI case file, Comey had an agent inside the White House who reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to other officials familiar with the matter.
Although Comey took many actions on his own, he was not working in isolation. One focus of Horowitz’s inquiry is the private Jan. 6, 2017, briefing Comey gave the president-elect in New York about material in the Democratic-commissioned dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Reports of that meeting were used days later by BuzzFeed, CNN and other outlets as a news hook for reporting on the dossier’s lascivious and unsubstantiated claims.
Comey’s meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump — a meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN.
In his recently published memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” Comey denied having "a counterintelligence case file open on [Trump],” though he qualified the denial by adding this was true only in the “literal” sense. He also twice denied investigating Trump, under oath, in congressional testimony.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who has written extensively on the Trump-Russia probe as a columnist for National Review, said that just because the president’s name was not put on a file or a surveillance warrant does not mean the Comey FBI was not investigating him. “They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him,” McCarthy said. “The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading. The FBI strung Trump along, telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the reality that Trump was the main subject."
But, former FBI counterintelligence agent and lawyer Mark Wauck said, the FBI lacked legal grounds to treat Trump as a suspect. “They had no probable cause against Trump himself for ‘collusion’ or espionage,” he said. “They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing.”
What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting president. The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that were the road map of collusion theories – which he dismissed as “salacious and unverified.”
Republicans including House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes believe that Comey, like his top counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, was attempting to “stop” the Trump presidency for political reasons.
“You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information” to anti-Trump media, Nunes said in a recent interview. His panel is one of two House committees scheduled to hear testimony from Mueller on Wednesday.
The IG’s report, which is expected to be released in early September, will shine new light on the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, given that Horowitz and his team have examined more than 1 million records and conducted more than 100 interviews, including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI and Justice Department personnel. The period covering Comey’s activities is believed to run from early January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the acting FBI director, formally opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president.
Although Horowitz has focused primarily on whether the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in its applications for surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, he has pursued other related angles, including whether Comey personally misled the president and leaked classified FBI information about him, the officials said.
An attorney for Comey declined to answer emailed questions regarding the Horowitz investigation. The following account, drawn from officials briefed on the IG’s work and other sources, provides details of Comey’s actions between Trump’s election and his dismissal by the president.
