The Washington Re-Post

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson has apologized for the following remarks, which he called a made up story:

At the April 28 event, Jackson told of a minority contractor who had finally landed an advertising contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development after trying for 10 years, according to an article in the Dallas Business Journal.

Jackson said that when the man approached him to thank him for the contract, the contractor said he didn't like Bush.

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson told the group, according to the newspaper. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe." [1]

While those who are calling for him to resign are correct, they are not only missing the point but they are complicit in the real scandal.

In an abuse of his office, Jackson’s lie expressed that federal contracts were spoils to be distributed to loyalists.  Further, as the story reads, it was an implied threat against his audience.  His actions are inexcusable.

Meanwhile, the storyline that has been missed is that HUD is a department of loot to be redistributed to the politically favored based on statute and regulation instead of partisan loyalty.

So why isn’t HUD just called the Department of Loot?  Because such a designation would fail to distinguish it from the other Looter departments.

Yes, Secretary Jackson’s statements are reprehensible.  However, the target of our moral indignation should be the Looters in Congress that make it possible by failing to protect individual rights.


Image Source: Cox and Forkum

Further Reading

Michael J. Hurd, “Looters in ‘Public Good’ Suits,” Capitalism Magazine, 2/17/2002

Robert Tracinski, “An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State,” TIA Daily, 9/2/2005

[1] Associated Press, “HUD Chief Says He Made Up Story of Rejecting Bush Foe,” The Washington Post, 5/11/2006, A15.

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