Shady HUD Secretary to resign Update: Stepping down April 18; “must attend more diligently to personal and family matters.”
Scroll down for updates…
Bush’s HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson is expected to resign this morning. The WSJ says the resignation “will deal a blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to tackle the housing crisis.” Two quick points on that.
1) To the extent that it will stop the administration from pandering on the subprime crisis and increasing government meddling to make it worse, I’m all for “dealing a blow” to those efforts.
Regarding the newly announced Bush administration mortgage bailout plans today, I’m with Hans Bader and Right Truth, who say these plans turn the Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper on its head
2) Jackson’s alleged cronyism sounds like past Bush administration cronyism I’ve criticized sharply before (see my blogging on Michael Brown, Julie Myers, and DHS). If half of what’s alleged is true, how would his resignation “deal a blow” to the administration?
Some details:
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is expected to announce his resignation Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, a decision that will deal a blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to tackle the housing crisis.
The exact reasons for Mr. Jackson’s decision couldn’t be learned. Earlier this month, two Democratic senators, Patty Murray of Washington and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, sent a letter to President Bush urging him to request Mr. Jackson’s resignation, arguing that accusations of wrongdoing had made him ineffective.
The department has scheduled an announcement for 10 a.m. Asked if Mr. Jackson was planning to resign, HUD spokeswoman DJ Nordquist said she was “not at liberty to say what the announcement is.”
Mr. Jackson, a former top housing official in Texas, Washington, D.C., and Missouri, has consistently denied any improper behavior while leading HUD. Still, his poor relationship with Democrats has hurt the White House’s efforts to broker deals in response to the housing crisis. For example, Democrats have criticized the way he handled public housing after Hurricane Katrina, an issue that has dogged him ever since.
More:
HUD runs the Federal Housing Administration, a big government division that insures mortgages for low-income homeowners and first-time home buyers. Many Democrats and Republicans have envisioned expanding the FHA to play a bigger role in stabilizing the mortgage market. The FHA would also be at the center of a HUD plan to provide partial insurance to homeowners who owe more money on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
Mr. Jackson’s most-recent problems stem from a Philadelphia redevelopment deal. The city’s housing authority has filed a lawsuit charging that Mr. Jackson tried to punish the agency for blocking a deal involving a friend of his. The allegations came up during congressional hearings this month. Mr. Jackson declined to answer questions, saying the judge in the lawsuit had instructed the department not to talk.
HUD has argued it wants to change the housing authority’s special funding status because it lacks enough housing for the disabled.
In 2006, HUD’s inspector general investigated remarks made by Mr. Jackson that some interpreted to mean that contracts were awarded in some cases based on political affiliation. The report didn’t find any wrongdoing at the agency.
“Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president?” Mr. Jackson was quoted as saying in the Dallas Business Journal. “Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”
Mr. Jackson’s remarks elicited a firestorm of controversy on Capitol Hill. Afterward, in a statement from HUD, Mr. Jackson said, “I deeply regret the anecdotal remarks I made at a recent Texas small-business forum and would like to reassure the public that all HUD contracts are awarded solely on a stringent merit-based process.”
From a September 2006 probe:
An inspector general’s report charges that top U.S. housing official Alphonso Jackson urged staff members to favor friends of President Bush when awarding Department of Housing and Urban Development contracts. But investigators so far have found no direct proof that Jackson’s staff obeyed.
His chief of staff told investigators that Jackson, the HUD secretary, “personally intervened with contractors whom he did not like . . . these contractors had Democratic political affiliations,” says the report, a copy of which was made available to The Washington Post.
The investigation “did not disclose any pattern or practice of issuing contracts based on political affiliation . . . however, there were some limited instances where political affiliation may have been a factor in contract issues involving Jackson,” the report says.
Awarding contracts on the basis of party affiliation violates federal law.
The 340-page report by the Criminal Investigations Division of HUD’s Office of Inspector General has been released to Jackson for a response and given to members of Congress who requested it. A spokesman for the office declined to say whether the report would be released publicly.
Calls for an inquiry came after Jackson, Bush’s onetime neighbor in Dallas and former housing authority chief in that city, told attendees at a public forum in Dallas on April 28 that he had killed a contract award to a firm after its chief told Jackson he disliked Bush. Jackson later took back his remarks and told investigators from the inspector general’s office that he had “lied, and I regret having done that.”
***
Bush loyalists will complain about the Democrat “witch hunt” against Jackson. Well, you know what they say about broken clocks. And yes, the sanctimony of the likes of Hillary Clinton is hard to stomach. But this guy was trouble. Trouble the administration didn’t need:
Clinton’s campaign released the former first lady’s statement before the resignation, which was reported Monday morning by the Associated Press, was made official. The New York senator has sought to make her plan to help the struggling housing market a centerpiece of her presidential campaign.
“Secretary Jackson’s resignation ends a tenure at HUD marked by an indifference to Congressional oversight powers, cronyism, and corrupt contracting practices that have no place in our government,” Clinton stated.
She really does have gall, doesn’t she?
***
Update: Well, that’s one way to put it…
Jackson, 62, has been fending off allegations of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD contractors for the past two years. The FBI has been examining the ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson’s department as a construction manager in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The HUD chief made no direct mention of that in his resignation statement. Explaining his move, he said: “There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters. Now is such a time for me.”
He did not take questions or elaborate on the family reasons he cited for the decision. The group assembled to hear Jackson’s statement applauded and he left the room.
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YEESH!
HOUSE CLEANING TIME!
Pardon the pun.
Wish those two Senators could write a letter to the White House suggesting McVain step down, too!
hehehehehe
The other day I read an article about this man in the Washington Times and he said something about being a lawyer and not having read all of the pages to his mortgage contract on his house. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on tv but I and my husband both sat there and read every stinking word on every stinking page to the consternation of the loan guy and the real estate agents.
I don’t know why people have to lie, generally that gets one in trouble unless your name is Clinton.
Another heckuvajob well done. Tell me, which Bush appointee has brought honor to his/her office through stellar performance? State? Defense? Attorney General (please!)? Interior? ? ?
Actually, Spellman (Education) has been OK.
Now that McCain has embraced Bush, do you think he will do any better?
Troll, what democraps have done any better? The Clinton admin was corrupt and so isn’t the dim controlled Congress. But that’s okay with you, as long as they support abortion on demand right?
Haven’t you asked this question before, lgm? Hasn’t every administration experienced its share of scandals, cronyism, and corruption? There is generally mediocrity in the performance of many cabinet holders of all different political stripes.
Tell me, lgm, how long will you beat the drum of the BDSers? At least no office holder has commited “suicide” yet as happened in the Clinton administration.
Wise up, troll… and get help for your selective amnesia. Oh, and by the way, I make no excuses for mediocrity but I’m sure any person in a tenured position (you wouldn’t know anything about that, right?) wouldn’t know anything about favoritism and nepotism, now would you?
If this happens to work, I say we begin a writing campaign to clean out the Senate and House.
I find the allegations of meddling in the contract award process troubling and if true shows once again another Bush crony unfit to lead a group of men to a whore house with $50,000 dollars in his pocket (I used to say $5K but in light of recent stories one the world’s oldest profession I understand prices have gone up). What the heck is the head of a Government agency doing micro-managing his contracting staff. In DOD we are stuck with the lowest bidder. Although any vendor bidding is also allowed to file a protest if they think they were unjustly excluded from proper consideration, which normally only results in delaying what ever project was being contracted.
I am happy this will throw a wrench in the plans to bailout those that made poor decisions with our tax dollars. The market will work itself out it always does. Rather suffer pain now than to let it linger like the meddling of the FDR administration in the 1930s.
The Bush administration could do with a few more blows. Maybe they would wake up.
I case you missed Jimmy Carter I, we are about to get the Jimmy Carter re-runs so you can watch that.
Jackson was foolish enough to say “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president?” And this is what “as opposed to democrats in congress that make sure contracts go ‘to people they like”.
A really good politician would have said ” we attempt to award contracts to companies that demonstrate value and competence and which show a desire to accomplish the goals of the administration and the needs of the American people”. A good democrat could have spun this stuff into the next decade.
emjem24 (#5)
Every administration has some. Bush (and the future McCain) has more. Barely a straight arrow in the quiver.
The Bush cabinet has 1 OK (Spellman, Education), the rest bad or corrupt or both. Clinton had some good (Rubin, Treasury), some OK, one bad (Education), and one resignation for ethics.
As for Vince Foster…
This is fantastic. To give everyone a little more detail on the Philly case, which impacts me directly, the issue was that Jackson wanted a land deal to go to a developer, Universal Companies, which hasn’t fulfilled it’s previous obligations (The link is to a message board involving me and another poster).
Essentially, HUD was trying to give Kenny Gamble, the head of Universal, a person who is heavily responsible for the redevelopment of the neighborhoods south of Center City and a sucessful music producer,a sweetheart land deal. The problem is, they’ve gotten several of these deals in the past and have not started the construction on these old projects. Thus, Jackson wanted to give Gamble more land for projects that wouldn’t be starting anytime soon. PHA didn’t want to give away this land, and Jackson tried to force their hand by withholding the funds based on a bous claim that PHA was providing enough disabled housing.
It’s also worth noting that this scandal is a bipartisan affair. The person who wrote the contracts that gave Universal the land is the head of the electrical union and is now running for state senate as a democrat. The city councilwoman, also a democrat, rubber stamped the bill. What’s different about this contract is that it took away the boilerplate provision which says construction must begin within one year of the transfer of the property to the developer, otherwise ownership reverts back to the city. With this clause gone Gamble/Universal has been able to sit on the land it was given adversly impacted the continuing development of the neigborhood.
It’s also worth noting that Kenny Gamble has stated that he wants the nieghborhood to be a black community. His basis for such social engineering is that since Philly has a Chinatown, it ought to have an Africa town as well. One can only suspect that he’s holding on to this land to achieve his social goals.
The future McCain has more? HAHAHA
So, the AG under Clinton was a good choice? Waco?
You, sir, need to keep teaching math because you sure do NOT know history.
Surely there’s more to choose from for Cabinet officers than political hacks, college professors, and businessmen/women. On yeah, add lawyers and professional bureaucrats (who can also be hacks). Geeesh!
We need David Walkers (just retired Comptroller, head of the GAO).
Anyone who believes that Vince Foster committed suicide on his own is clouded by dimocrap love syndrome,the manic opposite of BDS.
Their should be no HUD.
Our schools are beyond repair and the resident troll credits Bush’s education secratary as “good job brownie”. Give me a friggin break, No Child Left Behind was another Kennedy fiasco.
Everyday this troll defines the dictionary meaning of moron.
Just typical sHillary.
I’m with 30. Break out the pens and paper or keyboards and printers!
You really should try some other sources, beside Wikipedia, lgm. Give something like this or this a try for a little more analysis.
Nor, Political Science, Soap.
The US Government’s involvement in public housing (and NY State’s decision to release the institutionalized onto the streets) destroyed NY City. I have seen no positive results in the standard of US public education since President Carter initiated the costly Department of Education. The Federal ponzi scheme concerning social security and subsidized medicine will eventually end up harming our Nation.
These are all liberal policies which ignored basic human psychology and economic law.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Alphonso Jackson or Andrew Cuomo. The institution and its policies are the bigger problem.
Photo caption:
Shine your head for a nickel
Bush looks like he’s making a wish in that photo.
So, you are saying that the government will be perfectly capable of handling healthcare on a national scale. Yep, that’s what I am reading.
/sarc
The scariest words in the English language. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete idiot. No one has ever accused the government of being “effective.” (Except the military)
Just another example of TWP not understanding Subculture business practices.
Michelle, funny you should mention the Ant and the Grasshopper. I couldn’t being to guess how many times that fable has come to me over the years in connection with thinking about things political, in particular with issues having to do with entitlement versus personal responsibility.
I was shown a film of that fable in elementary school, roughly 40 years ago. I can still see images of it in my memory. It apparently made an indelible impression on me. And yet today it’s almost astonishing to think that my public school system taught me a life-long lesson in conservative morality. But then that was a generation ago.
I have no idea if they still show that particlur film in schools, but how I wish they would.
cushy position where you don’t have to do much, the machine is already rolling and out of control, and there is not much chance you will ever be found corrupt (and even if someone tries – you will get a pass)?
Barry F. (#19):
Wikipedia is not always right, but it is a place where people on both sides can argue and have the conflicts resolved through debate. About conspiracy theories of Foster’s death, wikipedia writes:
Ken Starr has access to all the information on your web sites. Even he, a man not dedicated to helping the Clintons, had to reject it.
Evidence? How has Pres. Bush had more “failures?” And a future McCain (what does that mean)? For all your wisdom, you only demonstrate hystical liberal blindness with this comment.
And gosh, some Clinton officials got into some legal hot water, too, didn’t they? How many investigations occured during the Clinton presidency? How many Clinton friends/officials went to prison? Since this is common knowlege, lgm, I’m surprised this didn’t occur to you.
Gosh, why was Foster so stressed? What brought him to his “clinically depressed state?” Since you seem to have an active imagination, lgm, I’m sure you can figure it out.
#29 said:
True, but my interpretation was that Starr had way too much on his plate than to reverse an existing investigation and autopsy finding.
I also remember reviewing the facts of the Park Police investigation and autopsy and thinking, “if this investigation received an IRS audit, it would fail right out of the gates.”
No x-ray of a corpse involved in a gun homocide…because the x-ray machine wasn’t working? C’mon!