Why Liberals Oppose Ben Carson
Trump’s HUD nominee grew up poor, and he knows public housing isn’t where people prefer to live.
The main objection to school reformer Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s pick for education secretary, is not that she’s never been a classroom teacher but rather that she wants to expand school choice, which threatens union control of public education... His upbringing doesn’t make him a housing expert, but like the general who knows war and is therefore less likely to venture recklessly into a new one, Dr. Carson’s background does make him better able to empathize with the plight of the poor... Besides, if the state of inner-cities is any indication, the last thing low-income residents need is more of the same so-called expertise that Dr. Carson lacks... HUD and other agencies equated racial disparities in loan approvals with racial discrimination, even if there were no actual complaints of racism from would-be borrowers. To keep the federal watchdogs happy, lenders came up with ways to meet the government’s numerical targets. All of this was of course done in the name of helping minorities. But when you make it possible for people to receive loans they can’t really afford, you also risk saddling them with foreclosed homes and bad credit ratings... There are few if any federal agencies in greater need of a makeover than HUD, and that makeover is unlikely to come from the type of “expert” at the helm who would appease Dr. Carson’s critics. It’s HUD’s view of housing that is warped, not Dr. Carson’s. Mr. Trump has tapped a nonpolitician to clean up a mess created by political pros and bureaucrats who have an agenda that often differs from the needs of the poor. Let’s see if Dr. Carson is up to the job.