I suppressed a surge of panic upon reading Republican freshman Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul introduced a bill that would eliminate the Housing Urban Development agency.
HUD’s Section 8 housing rental assistance voucher program subsidizes about 75% of rental costs for 2.1 million Americans, mostly seniors, with incomes under $ 13,000, according to the agency’s website.
I’m one of those Americans.
In terms of what the end of the rental voucher program means, I can only attest to my personal dilemma which would be closely aligned to the mentally disturbed section of the military code with the same subtitle: Section 8.
To appreciate the scope of Sen. Paul’s austerity ax, I suggest a reading of this hud.gov recent assessment of the program which is one part of HUD’s $ 47 billion 2010 budget.
Paul’s assessment in a press release Jan. 25:
“By removing programs that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as education and housing, we are cutting nearly 40% of our projected deficit and removing the big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government.”
Paul’s bill would transfer to the Veterans Administration military vets who are on the HUD voucher program.
But the question arises for the rest of us facing eviction. The possibilities and cost in human toil are endless: homeless, charity shelters, pushing family ties to the breaking point, crowded freeway underpasses and suicide.
I am fortunate. I won’t go homeless. My family will help financially to see I have shelter. I will feel like a beggar. I suspect the bubble of my internal optimism will burst beyond redemption. But, I will survive.
One might ask why remorse if my family gets involved and not the feds. Because I paid my share of taxes to pay for it, fools.
Damn it, Sen. Paul. We are people. Some of us in Kentucky may have voted for you. But for my entire life I have fought against bureaucrats you seem to despise and now you are pulling the same callous deed they tried by turning me into a number on a ledger sheet.
Sir, how dare you erase us.
Sorry. I seldom rant.
Now the politics. Paul said his aim is removing the “big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency in our federal government.”
Speaking only for the bureaucrats who run the HUD program in Riverside County, Calif., my experience is they are courteous, and efficient to a degree of finding any excuse not to approve you and if they did, enforce the litany of expulsion rules to the letter. They send a compliance officer once a year for inspection but lack the manpower to respond to complaints unless a landowner and the unlikely prospects of anyone else files a complaint against the tenants. Of all the fed, state, county and city bureaucracies I have encountered, HUD tops the list as best at administering their responsibilities.
I include myself in the phalanx of critics of conservatives, especially the new Tea Party contingent, that their thirst to limit government and cut spending is shallow and devoid of human consequences.
It’s what Newt Gingrich said about Sarah Palin: She ought to think it through before opening her mouth and spout those adorable soundbites the media rushes into the print and air spaces.
That includes their hypocrisy. Unlike Sen. Paul, most of the newly elected group is evasive on specific spending program cuts. They prefer not to ax the very programs favored by their constituents. They crank up the chainsaw for those they perceive do them no harm such as unions and trial lawyers and other do-gooders who have milked our entitlement programs for years. In their minds.
I also am a realist. A pragmatist. Basically a fiscal conservative at heart. I recognize the necessity to limit government spending, especially the built-in waste that always manifests.
I’m also honest to admit I do not want a government program totally obliterated because I’m a personal beneficiary. Tweak or reduce it, yes. Killing it is inhumane.
I also recognize the political dynamics of Congress. Sen. Paul’s bill, before amendments assuming it gets a hearing, is too Draconian and stands virtually no chance of traveling further than the closest dumpster.
Our nation cannot afford to sustain the massive debt we now face and it will get only worse as interest rates on our borrowing will double this year and multiply the following years taking us over the financial global cliff as it almost has done in Greece and Ireland.
I could say the Bush administration were the bad guys by borrowing to pay for senior drugs in the Medicare program, two wars and god knows what else. But that trend preceded Bush by about 10 previous administrations and climbed to a $ 14 trillion debt with programs now enacted by the Obama regime.
We cut spending. The issue is where so it doesn’t spread from a financial crises to one of humanitarian disasters as we see in Haiti for different reasons.
Forgive me for this painful reminder to those who still worship at the feet of Ronald Reagan. Among his fiscal legacy, he did raise taxes and the moribund economy eventually rebounded.
Taxes? Perish the thought, my conservative friends decree.
The gospel according to Sen. Paul and his band of merry followers is to render a couple of million Americans homeless so we can pay China.
It reminds me of the movie “The Candidate” in which Robert Redford’s campaign slogan was “There Has To Be A Better Way.” The problem for his character asked after winning the election was “what do we do now?”
Our spending spree has ebbed and flowed since the FDR administration nearly a century ago. A rush to judgment to fix it in two years might leave a contrail worse than already exists or even forecast.
(Photo courtesy AOL)

The Moderate Voice