It's Strategic: Social Security, HUD, & Bush's Plan to Dismantle Government

Mikaela says:

Marjorie and I had an interesting conversation Friday night about the extent to which Bush's agenda is a strategy to dismantle government on all levels. She mentioned something I didn't know -- that Bush is looking at "reorganizing" HUD to become part of two other agencies, Commerce and Labor (read: hack it apart and bury the pieces) and slashing Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) funds by as much as half.

I'm not anywhere near an expert on these funds, but I do have a strong sense of how pivotal they have been in reinvesting money in our country's poorest inner-city neighborhoods and rural communities. These funds have allowed local governments to direct federal funds to the projects they deem most necessary, including public works projects, affordable housing developments, social programs (clinics, recreation centers, day-care facilities, literacy programs) and economic development (including community credit unions and business incubators). Sounds like just the thing to cut if you want to disenfranchise poor, minority, and largely-democratic voters, doesn't it?

Why else would the administration gut a successful department? Friday's article in the Washington Post makes this pretty clear: "HUD has evolved into an agency designed to support urban interests and low-income citizens, while Commerce and Labor are more receptive to business needs. " Could it be any less subtle?

Indeed, community development programs at HUD are far larger than those at Commerce and Labor, said Saul Ramirez Jr., executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and a former deputy secretary of housing. The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration has a $320 million budget, a fraction of CDBG's allocation.

"If there are any programs in Commerce that encourage direct economic development to some of the most disadvantaged and blighted areas, those programs are dwarfed by these programs," he said. "If [consolidation] is what they want, the reverse should be proposed."

One White House official agreed that HUD programs have more of a community focus, while the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is more interested in economic growth. But, he said, "they're funding a lot of the same things."

HUD's city focus may be why the White House is dismantling the HUD programs, Frank charged. "HUD is the place where mayors and urban interests can put up the strongest fight," he said.

I guess outdated voting machines and scrubbed voter rolls don't do enough to disenfranchise our city folk according to our fair President.

Social Security is yet another battlefront for this war on social programs.

Democracy Now had a great interview on Friday with Roger Hickey, Co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, part of a coalition to protect Social Security, who laid out how the privatization of Social Security is but one critical piece in Bush's strategy to dismantle government:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you talk a little bit about why this is happening, why Bush and the Republican party are so hell-bent on pressing this campaign forward? I know in the Wall Street Journal in the days after the election in November said that one of the -- one of the industries most expecting to benefit from the new administration was going to be the Wall Street firms that would be in essence managing all of these private -- private retirement accounts that the President hopes to be able to get for the American people. Are there any estimates of how much of a boon this would be to Wall Street?

ROGER HICKEY: Well, it would mean trillions of dollars in terms of management fees that would erode small accounts that would be set up under this plan. So, yes, Wall Street has a motivation, but I think that really, it's broader than that.

The Bush administration and the people around them really are out on an ideological mission to dismantle affirmative government. And therefore, they know that if they can get away with dismantling the Social Security system, the very, very popular retirement social insurance system that Americans have supported for decades, if they can dismantle that and privatize it as part of their “ownership society,” the slogan of which ought to be: “You're on your own, buddy,” that means that they can get away with practically anything. They can dismantle regulation. They can really go about the -- their whole agenda of dismantling government. It's an ideological fixation with them, and it's going to be an epic test with the very wealthy corporate America and Bush supporters on one side, and on the other side, the organizations that represent the American people. Labor, women's organizations, retiree groups around the country, AARP has just gotten into this battle. We have got a sizable coalition on the other side which is going to be very, very active at the grassroots level talking to members of Congress, and there are a lot of Republican members of Congress who are caught in the middle. They are very, very worried about the fiscal irresponsibility of this plan, about the idea of cutting benefits for their constituents, and I think that this is a battle that Americans, not the Bush administration, are going to win.

AMY GOODMAN: The other day we called the Social Security hotline to get some information. When you're put on hold, this is what you hear:

SOCIAL SECURITY HOTLINE: Thanks for holding. A representative will be with you shortly. Did you know that the 76 million strong baby boom generation will begin to retire in about 10 years? When that happens, changes will be need to be made to Social Security, changes to make sure there's enough money to continue paying full benefits, and most experts agree, the sooner those changes are made, the less they are going to cost.

They went on to point out that this is yet another example of the kind of manipulation of the bureacracy to propogandize for the current policy push that Bush's Administration showed in buying-off the minority support for No Child Left Behind with personal payments to the conservative commentator.

So my question is, now that we get their agenda -- it's out there big and bold for anyone to see -- what will we be willing to do to stop it?