{"id":15630,"date":"2021-02-23T11:55:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T16:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=15630"},"modified":"2021-02-23T11:55:12","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T16:55:12","slug":"cuomos-forgotten-racketeering-at-hud-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/23\/cuomos-forgotten-racketeering-at-hud-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuomo’s Forgotten Racketeering at HUD (2000)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-one years ago, I scoffed that Andrew Cuomo was “the Clinton administration’s most megalomaniacal cabinet secretary.”\u00a0 <\/strong>Cuomo said in 1998, “Ultimately, the vindication of progressive politics will come only when people believe the government is competent.”<\/p>\n

Cuomo is now the embattled governor of New York. His state’s lucky residents haven’t quite had their faith in government competence restored.<\/p>\n

The American Spectator, April, 2000<\/p>\n

HEADLINE: Andy At It Again
\nHow to keep reinventing HUD to advance yourself.<\/p>\n

BYLINE: by James Bovard; James Bovard is the author of Freedom in Chains (St.
\nMartin’s Press).<\/p>\n

BODY:<\/p>\n

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo may be the Clinton
\nadministration’s most megalomaniacal cabinet secretary. So<\/strong> fixated is he on
\ngenerating favorable publicity for himself and his agency he makes other Clinton
\nappointees almost seem honest. Cuomo declared in 1999: “The PR is the most
\nimportant thing I do. I’m trying to get out a message that people need to
\nhear, and I’m fighting 30 years of negative stereotypes about this agency….
\nEighty percent of this battle is communications.”<\/p>\n

By his accounts, the HUD public relations campaign appears to have worked. On
\nFebruary 7, Cuomo huffed: “Just a few years ago, our critics were calling for
\nthe elimination of HUD. Today, HUD is held up as a model of successful
\ngovernment reinvention.” Cuomo bragged that President Clinton’s recent request
\nfor a big budget hike for HUD “shows that HUD is back in business, and has
\nachieved a new level of public trust and confidence by proving it can create and
\nrun quality programs.”<\/p>\n

Cuomo’s devotion to PR is evident in his championing of the Community
\nBuilders program–a new cadre of 800 HUD employees specially recruited and paid
\nup to $100,000 a year to spread the word about HUD’s achievements. A 1998
\nNational Journal profile of the program noted that Community Builders were to be
\n“handed…state-of-the-art laptops, which HUD officials believe will move the
\nagency ‘light-years ahead’ in its ability to respond to communities
\neffectively.” New laptops for a few hundred favored employees were supposed to
\ncounterweigh the thousands of collapsing public housing apartment buildings HUD
\nwas bankrolling around the nation. National Journal also noted that HUD
\n“unveiled the prototype for its new local field offices where Community Builders
\nwill set up shop. These offices, equipped with stylish furniture and
\nThe American Spectator, April, 2000 April, 2000<\/p>\n

workstations, will feature touch-screen electronic kiosks for information on
\nhome improvement loans and how to file housing complaint forms.” If only a few
\nmore people would accept subsidized loans and make accusations against
\nlandlords, all of HUD’s problems would be solved. Cuomo created this “urban
\nPeace Corps” with no authorization or appropriation from Congress; instead, he
\nmerely shuffled HUD’s books and used money “saved” from laying off other HUD
\nemployees. HUD violated federal regulations in its hiring processes–but that
\nnever stopped Cuomo in the past.<\/p>\n

What have the costly employees of Cuomo’s pet program been up to? Spreading
\nthe word about how Republicans want to destroy urban America. In August 1999,
\nCommunity Builders distributed a form letter to local community groups to spark
\nopposition to a proposed Republican tax cut. As Newsday reported, ” Local
\nCommunity Builders were then expected to fill in blank spaces in the form
\nletter, inserting the number of local jobs that would be lost and the number of
\nhousing units that would not be built in case of a tax cut…. For Manchester,
\nN.H.–that’s in the big presidential primary state, by the way– builders were
\ninstructed to inform local groups that $1.437 million would be lost because of
\nthe tax cuts, there would be 50 fewer local jobs, 158 fewer housing units and
\nfive fewer homeless or AIDS persons served.”
\nThe American Spectator, April, 2000 April, 2000<\/p>\n

Congress has questioned the value of the Community Builders program, and
\nHUD’s inspector general launched an audit which HUD sought to derail. A 1999 IG
\nreport concluded that “most of the Community Builders’ goals are activities
\nrather than actual accomplishments. HUD classifies 15 of the Community Builders’
\n19 goals as activities performed, rather than outcomes measured.” Most of the
\nCommunity Builders the IG interviewed said they spent their time mainly on
\n“public relations activities.” Some of the new cadre’s activities make HUD
\nappear as wasteful as ever: “As a result of the Community Builder interference,
\nHUD spent more than $4.7 million in holding costs or lost sales proceeds. In one
\ninstance, HUD sold a property that it had invested $17 million in to a nonprofit
\nfor $10.”<\/p>\n

The IG received many complaints about ethical misconduct by Community
\nBuilders. Community Builders repeatedly violate a federal law prohibiting ”
\npublicity or propaganda designed to support or defeat legislation pending before
\nCongress.” The IG concluded: “The one clear effect of the Community Builders is
\nthe dramatic increase in the number of people at HUD not part of a specific
\nprogram, engaged in customer relations, and owing their jobs to the Department’s
\npolitical management.” Sen. Kit Bond derided the program as ” Cuomo’s personal
\narmy.” One HUD official declared that the Community Builders were seen as
\n“Democratic ward-heelers who act as a pipeline between Democratic city
\nofficials, party leaders, and the administration and the Democratic National<\/p>\n

Last October Congress barred HUD from spending any additional funds on
\nCommunity Builders, though it did allow current “Builders” to serve out their
\ntwo-year terms.<\/p>\n

Cuomo has numerous other weapons in his public relations arsenal. Following the
\nlead of Henry Cisneros, his predecessor at HUD, Cuomo became a prodigious
\ncreator of new programs. The number of HUD programs increased from 240 in 1994
\nto 328 in 1997–and is much higher today, resulting in lavish press coverage for
\nmany of the new program launches. As a master of ” Reinventing Government”
\nscams, he knows that it’s far easier to start two new programs than to fix an
\nexisting one. Since most journalists don’t keep track of anything more complex
\nthan their own lunch appointments, he has largely gotten away with the scam.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, all this program reshuffling has left HUD management a shambles.
\nIn February 1999, HUD Inspector General Susan Gaffney testified before Congress
\nthat “there is evidence that the (HUD) downsizing that started in 1995 has
\nincreased costs as well as program abuse.” In a December report she concluded
\nthat Cuomo’s constant reform initiatives have “had a crippling effect on many of
\nHUD’s ongoing operations.” In one misstep, HUD laid off employees who handled
\ndefaulted FHA homes and hired an incompetent contractor to do the same thing.<\/p>\n

As a result, the number of homes sitting vacant around the nation because of HUD
\nrose sharply. As Gaffney noted, “Vacant, boarded up HUD-owned homes have a
\nnegative effect on neighborhoods, and the negative effect magnifies the longer
\nthe properties remain in HUD’s inventory.”<\/p>\n

Fiascoes abound. As part of his “shared visions” plan, Cuomo announced during
\na visit to South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation last July that HUD would
\nprovide 300 new homes for impoverished Native Americans. Cuomo specifically
\npromised that 50 new homes would be built by early this year. As of last count,
\nthere were only six new homes, plus 14 trailer homes that had been put on
\nconcrete blocks. Cuomo was warned ahead of time by HUD officials that there was
\nlittle or no chance that the agency could fulfill such a promise, but was not
\ndeterred. One HUD official told the Washington Times: ” It became apparent that
\nCuomo’s main objective was not housing, but to make a grand gesture that would
\nprovide a photo opportunity showing him ‘pounding nails’ on an Indian
\nreservation.”<\/p>\n

Last December 21, Cuomo made headlines by announcing that HUD was seizing
\ncontrol of a program awarding grants to homeless advocacy organizations in New
\nYork City. Supposedly Cuomo was outraged that Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused to
\ndeliver HUD money to the program. An audit had found that the group was unable
\nto account for $500,000 in government grants it received in 1997. Despite the
\npossibility that the group was guilty of massive fraud, Cuomo exploited the
\nsituation to try to make Giuliani look heartless. On the same day Cuomo made the
\ndecision, his wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, announced at a Manhattan fund-raising
\nevent for Senate candidate Hillary Clinton: “Just a few hours ago, my husband
\npulled up the gauntlet. Next time, Rudy, pick on someone your own size!” The
\nWall Street Journal noted, “Mr. Cuomo is an informal adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s
\nSenate campaign. His former HUD regional director for New York, Bill de Blasio,
\nis Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chief.”<\/p>\n

Cuomo also has a starring role in the Clinton administration’s latest
\ncampaign against the Second Amendment. Clinton announced last September that HUD
\nwould be allocating $15 million for a fund to buy up private guns. Cuomo
\npromised that the program would start in more than 30 cities and would quickly
\nbuy up 300,000 guns.<\/p>\n

In one of the first cities in which the buyback program took place,
\nWashington, D.C., it turned out that most of the gun sellers were senior
\ncitizens, not criminals. Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck observed,
\n“Support for turn-in programs among government officials yields real political
\nbenefits, in the form of favorable press coverage and positive feedback from gun
\ncontrol supporters…. These programs have no demonstrable impact on crime.”<\/p>\n

Last December, the White House announced that HUD would bankroll lawsuits by
\nlocal public housing authorities against gun manufacturers. The Justice
\nDepartment reportedly advised HUD that there was no legal basis for HUD’s
\ninvolvement in the lawsuits–but to no avail. HUD released a study in February
\nwhich announced: “Fear of gun violence and other crime can lead to neighborhood
\ndecline.” This is not news for the millions of low-income and working-class
\nAmericans unfortunate enough to live near public housing projects.<\/p>\n

The HUD anti-gun lawsuit is raising groans from public housing authorities
\naround the country. One public housing official complained to Housing Affairs
\nNewsletter: “This whole thing is absurd. The housing authorities hardly have
\nenough for operating expenses. It’s preposterous to ask them to file a suit and
\nfund the expenses with their revenue.” HUD is trying to rev up the anti- gun
\nbandwagon just at a time when judges are throwing out local governments’
\nlawsuits against gun makers.<\/p>\n

Cuomo acts as if the more money HUD spends on political fixes, the more
\nindisputable it becomes that the agency and its boss love the poor–as if
\nmaximizing the number of slush funds was the secret of salvation for urban
\nAmerica. Cuomo declared in 1998: “Ultimately, the vindication of progressive<\/strong>
\npolitics will come only when people believe the government is competent.”<\/strong> With
\npeople like Cuomo in charge, we’re in for a long wait.
\nThe American Spectator, April, 2000 April, 2000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-one years ago, I scoffed that Andrew Cuomo was “the Clinton administration’s most megalomaniacal cabinet secretary.”\u00a0 Cuomo said in 1998, “Ultimately, the vindication of progressive politics will come only when people believe the government is competent.” Cuomo is now the embattled governor of New York. His state’s lucky residents haven’t quite had their faith in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2701,176,2699,51,2700,294,2329],"class_list":["post-15630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-spectator","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-bookndoggle","tag-clinton","tag-faith-in-government","tag-hud","tag-progressive"],"yoast_head":"\nCuomo's Forgotten Racketeering at HUD (2000) - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/23\/cuomos-forgotten-racketeering-at-hud-2000\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cuomo's Forgotten Racketeering at HUD (2000) - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Twenty-one years ago, I scoffed that Andrew Cuomo was “the Clinton administration’s most megalomaniacal cabinet secretary.”\u00a0 Cuomo said in 1998, “Ultimately, the vindication of progressive politics will come only when people believe the government is competent.” Cuomo is now the embattled governor of New York. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15631,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15630\/revisions\/15631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}