Secretary of Housing & Urban Development: Ben Carson

Summary 

Dr. Ben Carson is completely unqualified to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Additionally, he has criticized HUD several times and made outlandish accusations about the department’s work. Now he will head the department. Carson is another example of a Trump appointee with little experience and/or an adversarial relationship with the department they will be responsible for running if confirmed. Conservatives defend Carson’s nomination by highlighting his medical brilliance and leadership position at Johns Hopkins. However, Carson’s complete lack of experience is easy to demonstrate and difficult to argue against.

Background

The Department of Housing & Urban Development

1. President Lyndon Johnson created HUD in 1965 in order to improve the economic conditions of the poor and to facilitate governmental action to implement provisions of civil rights legislation related to housing and growing cities.
2. Currently, HUD’s responsibilities include the following: helping families buy and rent homes, fighting homelessness, enforcing federal housing laws, preventing housing discrimination, arranging mortgage insurance for homeowners, planning for affordable housing in larger urban environments, and strengthening communities.
3. HUD has been tasked with the immense jobs of stopping racial and economic discrimination in housing and solving homelessness. HUD has had some success in reducing homelessness and winning housing discrimination lawsuits but hasn’t, and probably cannot alone, solve the greater issues it’s been put in charge of solving.

Dr. Ben Carson

1. Carson’s success as a neurosurgeon cannot be overstated. He is a medical genius and was the chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins for almost 30 years.
2. Carson has zero requisite governmental experience. It was not until 2013 when he gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast criticizing Obama that he gained fame amongst conservatives.
3. As knowledgeable and brilliant a surgeon as he is, Carson’s genius does not extend into government, history, or politics. He has made several false comments and outlandish claims (see below for more details).
4. Carson’s criticisms of HUD, including comparing HUD’s implementation of the Fair Housing Act to “failed socialist experiments,” reveal both his ignorance of and disdain for the very department he is being asked to run.

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the best defenses: Ben Carson

Response 1: Being a medical genius and running a medical school department don’t qualify Carson to run a federal department, especially one completely unrelated to health and medicine.

• Carson admitted he was unqualified to run a federal department. In response to rumors that Carson was in the running for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Education, an adviser to Carson said and later reiterated:
  • “He’s never run an agency and it’s a lot to ask. He’s a neophyte and that’s not his strength.”
  • “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was to take a position that would cripple the presidency.”
• Carson has already shown that his medical genius does not translate well to a political sphere. He’s demonstrated his own ignorance when it comes to government, history, and politics on numerous occasions. His false or outlandish claims include the following:
  • China intervened in Syria.
  • Pyramids were built to store grain.
  • Satan encouraged the creation of the theory of evolution.
  • The Big Bang never happened.
  • Gun control contributed to the Nazi takeover of Germany.
  • Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery.
  • Vaccines are excessively administered.
  • And many others.
• Being a genius in one discipline doesn’t make you qualified to run any team or business.
  • Mozart, a genius who died in poverty, would not have been a good secretary of commerce.
  • Einstein, the quintessential genius, would not be a good choice to manage the Cleveland Cavaliers.
  • Certain leadership skills are transferrable but you wouldn’t say that being the superintendent of a school district qualifies you to be the editor of a major newspaper.
  • Successful leaders or managers almost always have at least some experience in the field in which they manage. Carson has none.
• HUD is a department with over 8000 employees. The entire Johns Hopkins medical school (of which Carson only lead a small department) has only around 5500 people counting both employees and students. The number of people Carson managed at Johns Hopkins is a small fraction of the people he will now be supervising.

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Response 1: Carson didn’t actually spend much time in public housing.

• According to his biography, Carson only lived in public housing from around kindergarten until 8th grade. His personal experience, therefore, is limited to a decade at the very most in the 1950s and 60s. He has little experience of how housing worked then and no personal experience of how it’s worked since 1965.

Response 2: Simply living in public housing doesn’t make you qualified to run public housing.

• Under that logic, anyone who is living or has lived in public housing would be qualified to run public housing. That includes millions of people with varying degrees of ability and experience.

Response 3: Overseeing public housing is not HUD’s only job.

• Even if Carson’s experience perfectly suited him to run public housing (which it clearly doesn’t), he would still be unqualified to fight homelessness, fight housing discrimination, etc.

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Response 1: If Trump wants to reform HUD, that’s all the more reason why he should put someone with real experience in charge who believes in the purpose of HUD and can reform it to be more successful. Carson is not only unqualified, he also opposes the responsibilities of the department.

• Carson actively opposes essential components of HUD’s work. One of the central pieces of legislation HUD works with is the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The act not only bans housing discrimination but also asks communities to further the goal of integration. Carson disagrees with the second part of the Fair Housing Act. He has said of it:
  • “These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse.”
  • “There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.”
• He has argued that attempts to achieve the goal of integration are “what you see in communist countries.”
• If the responsibilities of the job run counter to the person’s deeply held beliefs, it doesn't make sense to appoint them to that position. If Carson feels so strongly about one of the HUD’s responsibilities, he shouldn’t run it. No one should hire a pacifist as an Army General. 

Response 2: If HUD has been unsuccessful, an unqualified leader will only make it more unsuccessful, harming those who rely on its services.

• Combating poverty and structural discrimination is a lot for one government department with strict legal guidelines governing what it is allowed to do.
  • The task of combating segregation within cities, however, is one it has largely handled alone.
  • Appointing a secretary who is against one of the department’s mandates will only make it harder for HUD to succeed.
• With a leader who disagrees with the integral goals of the department, Carson will likely not do much and in doing so, waste taxpayers money.
• If Carson doesn’t enforce HUD’s mandate to further the goal of integration, the department can be sued for failure to enforce the law, wasting more money.

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Warnings

Avoid getting into a conversation about HUD’s track record. Center your discussion around Ben Carson’s complete lack of qualifications and his own comments about his inability to run a department.

Don’t argue about Carson’s medical record. He’s saved hundreds of lives and is an honest-to-god medical genius. We are all fortunate that Ben Carson chose to practice medicine. Unfortunately, he’s not a great politician or public servant and shouldn’t be put in charge of anything related to government or politics.

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