Eminentoes: Andy At It Again
Bovard, James
EMINENTOES by James Bovard Andy At It Again H ousing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo may be the Clinton administration's most megalomaniacal cabinet secretary. So fixated is he on...
...Martin's Press...
...One HUD official told the Washington Times: "It became apparent that Cuomo's main objective was not housing, but to make a grand gesture that would provide a photo opportunity showing him 'pounding nails' on an Indian reservation...
...One HUD official declared that the Community Builders were seen as "Democratic ward-heelers who act as a pipeline between Democratic city officials, party How to keep reinventing HUD to advance yourself...
...With people like Cuomo in charge, we're in for a long wait...
...A 1998 National Journal profile of the program noted that Community Builders were to be "handed...state-of-the-art laptops, which HUD officials believe will move the agency light-years ahead' in its abilJAMES BOVARD is the author of Freedom in Chains (St...
...Next time, Rudy, pick on someone your own size...
...The HUD anti-gun lawsuit is raising groans from public housing authorities around the country...
...An audit had found that the group was unable to account for $500,000 in government grants it received in 1997...
...Spreading the word about how Republicans want to destroy urban America...
...If only a few more people would accept subsidized loans and make accusations against landlords, all of HUD's problems would be solved...
...Most of the Community Builders the IG interviewed said they spent their time mainly on "public relations activities...
...ity to respond to communities effectively...
...Cuomo promised that the program would start in more than 3o cities and would quickly buy up 300,000 guns...
...A 1999 IG report concluded that "most of the Community Builders' goals are activities rather than actual accomplishments...
...Cuomo is an informal adviser to Mrs...
...As part of his "shared visions" plan, Cuomo announced during a visit to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation last July that HUD would provide 300 new homes for impoverished Native Americans...
...Since most journalists don't keep track of anything more complex than their own lunch appointments, he has largely gotten away with the scam...
...Cuomo also has a starring role in the Clinton administration's latest campaign against the Second Amendment...
...By his accounts, the HUD public relations campaign appears to have worked...
...Clinton's Senate campaign...
...Cuomo created this "urban Peace Corps" with no authorization or appropriation from Congress...
...The number of HUD programs increased from 240 in 1994 to 328 in 1997—and is much higher today, resulting in lavish press coverage for many of the new program launches...
...As of last count, there were only six new homes, plus 1444 What have these costly employees been up to...
...So fixated is he on generating favorable publicity for himself and his agency he makes other Clinton appointees almost seem honest...
...New laptops for a few hundred favored employees were supposed to counterweigh the thousands of collapsing public housing apartment buildings HUD was bankrolling around the nation...
...Last December, the White House announced that HUD would bankroll lawsuits by local public housing authorities against gun manufacturers...
...As Newsday reported, "Local Community Builders were then expected to fill in blank spaces in the form letter, inserting the number of local jobs that would be lost and the number of housing units that would not be built in case of a tax cut...
...Sen...
...HUD violated federal regulations in its hiring processes—but that never stopped Cuomo in the past...
...Supposedly Cuomo was outraged that Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused to deliver HUD money to the program...
...Cuomo declared in 1999: "The PR is the most important thing I do...
...In one of the first cities in which the buyback program took place, Washington, D.C., it turned out that most of the gun sellers were senior citizens, not criminals...
...I'm trying to get out a message that people need to hear, and I'm fighting 30 years of negative stereotypes about this agency...
...Ofti The American Spectator • April 2 0 0 0 53...
...The housing authorities hardly have enough for operating expenses...
...Congress has questioned the value of the Community Builders program, and HUD's inspector general launched an audit which HUD sought to derail...
...Kit Bond derided the program as "Cuomo's personal army...
...HUD is trying to rev up the anti-gun bandwagon just at a time when judges are throwing out local governments' lawsuits against gun makers...
...Meanwhile, all this program reshuffling has left HUD management a shambles...
...HUD released a study in February which announced: "Fear of gun violence and other crime can lead to neighborhood decline...
...Some of the new cadre's activities make HUD appear as wasteful as ever: "As a result of the Community Builder interference, HUD spent more than $4.7 million in holding costs or lost sales proceeds...
...The IG concluded: "The one clear effect of the Community Builders is the dramatic increase in the number of people at HUD not part of a specific program, engaged in customer relations, and owing their jobs to the Department's political management...
...His former HUD regional director for New York, Bill de Blasio, is Mrs...
...Cuomo was warned ahead of time by HUD officials that there was little or no chance that the agency could fulfill such a promise, but was not deterred...
...Cuomo bragged that President Clinton's recent request for a big budget hike for HUD "shows that HUD is back in business, and has achieved a new level of public trust and confidence by proving it can create and run quality programs...
...Following the lead of Henry Cisneros, his predecessor at HUD, Cuomo became a prodigious creator of new programs...
...Cuomo's devotion to PR is evident in his championing of the Community Builders program— a new cadre of 800 HUD employees specially recruited and paid up to $100,000 a year to spread the word about HUD's achievements...
...Fiascoes abound...
...As Gaffney noted, "Vacant, boarded up HUD-owned homes have a negative effect on neighborhoods, and the negative effect magnifies the longer the properties remain in HUD's inventory...
...Spreading the word about how Republicans want to destroy urban America...
...What have the costly employees of Cuomo's pet program been up to...
...On the same day Cuomo made the decision, his wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, announced at a Manhattan fund-raising event for Senate candidate Hillary Clinton: "Just a few hours ago, my husband pulled up the gauntlet...
...Last December 21, Cuomo made headlines by announcing that HUD was seizing control of a program awarding grants to homeless advocacy organizations in New York City...
...The Wall Street Journal noted, "Mr...
...trailer homes that had been put on concrete blocks...
...In one misstep, HUD laid off employees who handled defaulted FHA homes and hired an incompetent contractor to do the same thing...
...Cuomo declared in 1998: "Ultimately, the vindication of progressive politics will come only when people believe the government is competent...
...In a December report she concluded that Cuomo's constant reform initiatives have "had a crippling effect on many of HUD's ongoing operations...
...instead, he merely shuffled HUD's books and used money "saved" from laying off other HUD employees...
...As a master of "Reinventing Government" scams, he knows that it's far easier to start two new programs than to fix an existing one...
...National journal also noted that HUD "unveiled the prototype for its new local field offices where Community Builders will set up shop...
...In August 1999, Community Builders distributed a form letter to local community groups to spark opposition to a proposed Republican tax cut...
...C uomo has numerous other weapons in his public relations arsenal...
...On February 7, Cuomo huffed: "Just a few years ago, our critics were calling for the elimination of HUD...
...Today, HUD is held up as a model of successful government reinvention...
...Community Builders repeatedly violate a federal law prohibiting "publicity or propaganda designed to support or defeat legislation pending before Congress...
...In February 1999, HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney testified before Congress that "there is evidence that the [HUD] downsizing that started in 1995 has increased costs as well as program abuse...
...One public housing official complained to Housing Affairs Newsletter: "This whole thing is absurd...
...These programs have no demonstrable impact on crime...
...For Manchester, N.H.—that's in the big presidential primary state, by the waybuilders were instructed to inform local groups that $1.437 million would be lost because of the tax cuts, there would be 50 fewer local jobs, 158 fewer housing units and five fewer homeless or AIDS persons served...
...Cuomo specifically promised that 5o new homes would be built by early this year...
...Clinton announced last September that HUD would be allocating $15 million for a fund to buy up private guns...
...Last October Congress barred HUD from spending any additional funds on Community Builders, though it did allow current "Builders" to serve out their two-year terms...
...Despite the possibility that the group was guilty of massive fraud, Cuomo exploited the situation to try to make Giuliani look heartless...
...This is not news for the millions of low-income and working-class Americans unfortunate enough to live near public housing projects...
...These offices, equipped with stylish furniture and workstations, will feature touch-screen electronic kiosks for information on home improvement loans and how to file housing complaint forms...
...The IG received many complaints about ethical misconduct by Community Builders...
...HUD classifies 15 of the Community Builders' 19 goals as activities performed, rather than outcomes measured...
...As a result, the number of homes sitting vacant around the nation because of HUD rose sharply...
...Eighty percent of this battle is communications...
...The Justice Department reportedly advised HUD that there was no legal basis for HUD's involvement in the lawsuits—but to no avail...
...In one instance, HUD sold a property that it had invested $17 million in to a nonprofit for $ID...
...Cuomo acts as if the more money HUD spends on political fixes, the more indisputable it becomes that the agency and its boss love the poor —as if maximizing the number of slush funds was the secret of salvation for urban America...
...52 April 2000 • The American Spectator leaders, and the administration and the Democratic National Committee...
...Clinton's campaign chief...
...Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck observed, "Support for turn-in programs among government officials yields real political benefits, in the form of favorable press coverage and positive feedback from gun control supporters...
...It's preposterous to ask them to file a suit and fund the expenses with their revenue...
Vol. 33 • April 2000 • No. 3
