Thursday afternoon, Gretchen took an urgent call from Ben Carson, requesting an immediate consultation.
“The name sounds familiar,” she remarked, “Wasn’t he one of those sixteen other bozos besides Trump who ran for president as Republicans last year?”
“That’s correct,” I confirmed. “Dr. Ben Carson is a famous pediatric neurosurgeon who came up the hard way on the wrong side of the tracks in Detroit, struggling with a terrible temper and valiantly overcoming a tendency toward violent behavior and assault with deadly weapons, at last finding Christian faith and using it to humbly rise to the top of the medical profession, later to become a darling of the American conservative movement.”
“Oh, now, I think I remember him,” Gretchen remarked. “Isn’t he that fat black guy who mumbles a lot and gives speeches with his eyes closed?”
“That’s the distinguished Dr. Carson,” I confirmed.
“You want to talk to this Carson guy?” she sought to confirm. “The Bolivian economics envoy called to cancel – says he has a nose bleed. That gives you an open slot of about twenty-five minutes an hour from now before the Thai foreign policy expert I booked to replace him will get here.”
“Sure,” I responded. “Let’s go with that.”
Carson: Hello, Tom Collins?
Tom: This is he.
Carson: Good afternoon, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Thank you, doctor. How may I help you?
Carson: Well, first, I need to check – Rand Paul told me you don’t bill for the first time, is that right?
Tom: That’s true, doctor.
Carson: Okay, good, ’cause wow, your rates are unbelievable.
Tom: As your medical colleagues will no doubt affirm, one gets what one pays for, doctor, does one not?
Carson: So you charge whatever the traffic will bear, huh?
Tom: That’s how free markets function.
Carson: Uh… I wouldn’t know.
Tom: Wouldn’t know about what?
Carson: About markets and stuff. I’m a pediatric neurosurgeon.
Tom: A noble profession, to be sure.
Carson: But it’s also my problem, see?
Tom: Um… not exactly. Care to elaborate?
Carson: Because I had to learn so much in order to become a pediatric neurosurgeon, I didn’t have time to study all that stuff the other candidates were arguing about.
Tom: Well, because he was so busy being excellent, outstanding, awesome, wonderful and extremely rich, Donald Trump didn’t have any time to study that stuff, either, and it didn’t seem to be a problem for him.
Carson: He was also too busy insulting the other candidates.
Tom: True. That’s more or less how he won. So?
Carson: So, I couldn’t do that.
Tom: Why not?
Carson: Because if I got into playing the dozens with one of them, I might… well, I might lose control and hit one of them in the stomach with my lectern or break his neck with my chair or crack his head open with my microphone or rip his guts out with my bare hands.
Tom: Oh, I see – it’s that legendary temper of yours.
Caron: Right. I have to maintain control of it at all times, or who knows what could happen.
Tom: Understood. So how did you address your problem?
Carson: Which one?
Tom: The one about not being informed on the subjects the other candidates were arguing about, on account of you having spent all your time learning what it takes to be a pediatric neurosurgeon.
Carson: Oh, yeah, right. Um, I relied on God.
Tom: God?
Carson: Yeah, I’d pray a lot, and God would tell me what to say.
Tom: And how did that work out for you?
Carson: Worked out pretty good, generally. But today, see, I got confirmed as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Tom: Yes, I heard about that.
Carson: And I’ve been praying like crazy, but it doesn’t look like God has anything to say about it.
Tom: So you decided to call me instead?
Carson: Yeah… but don’t go getting a swelled head about you being my next best choice after the Lord, okay?
Tom: Oh, no, take my word for it – I would never contend with a doctor over who should play second fiddle to God Almighty. But tell me please, for what kind of advice, specifically, have you been beseeching Him?
Carson: Well, uh… it’s just that… ah… can you tell me about HUD and stuff?
Tom: HUD and stuff?
Carson: Yeah, you know, what it’s for, how it works and all.
Tom: Is this perhaps because you are a savant who only understands pediatric neurosurgery?
Carson: Huh? Are you saying I have savant syndrome? Because I don’t. And before you get started on that kind of thing, I don’t have Asperger syndrome, either. Or Todd’s syndrome, or Jerusalem syndrome, or Stendhal syndrome, or Joubert syndrome, or Diogenes syndrome, or Gasner’s syndrome, or Munchausen syndrome, or Korsakoff’s syndrome, or Tourette’s syndrome or Ekborn’s syndrome. I’m normal. I know because I’ve been checked out for all that stuff, and nobody found anything like that.
Tom: Not to worry, doctor. It was just a figure of speech. All right then, let’s get started: The Department of Housing and Urban Development was founded in 1965 as part of president Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program. It’s mission is to formulate, draft, promulgate and execute urban and metropolitan housing policies.
Carson: Formulate, draft, promulgate and execute urban and metropolitan housing policies?
Tom: Correct.
Carson: Sounds like a bunch of bureaucratic goobbledygook to me.
Tom: I’m sure it does. I would suggest you get used to it, however, because, as Secretary of HUD, you’re going to hear a ship load of it.
Carson: Excuse me, what did you say?
Tom: I said, you’re going to hear a ship load of that kind of thing working at HUD.
Carson: A… ship... load?
Tom: Another figure of speech, doctor.
Carson: Yeah, okay, just thought maybe you were saying… something else.
Tom: Which other thing did you have in mind, doctor?
Carson: Uh… well, just something I’ve heard folks say, you know, that isn’t nice.
Tom: Oh, in that case, doctor, please accept my apologies for saying something that sounds to you as if it were something else which is generally regarded as profane.
Carson: Right, uh, sure. No offense. Can you… um… give some examples?
Tom: Sure – “bat spit crazy” comes to mind, as well as…
Carson: No, no, I meant, examples of formulating and promulgating and all that stuff.
Tom: Oh, of course. For starters, as I’m sure you know, old El BJ was himself from a poor background and..
Carson: Who?
Tom: President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The man they called El BJ.
Carson: I thought the called him L… B… J, after his initials.
Tom: Yeah, they called him that, too. Whatever you call him, he came from humble circumstances. And he knew what it was like to live in ramshackle, substandard housing, because that’s the kind of place where he, himself grew up. So, for example, the first thing HUD did was to formulate a policy to eliminate the ramshackle, substandard housing generally occupied by the poor.
Carson: And what did that involve?
Tom: It involved paying a lot of federal bureaucrats, consultants and subject matter experts big money to analyze the problem of ramshackle, substandard housing and compile a detailed roadmap to do something about it.
Carson: Okay, then what?
Tom: Then HUD bureaucrats had their consultants and subject matter experts draft a statement of that policy and promulgate it through press releases, white papers and notices in the Federal Register.
Carson: And then?
Tom: And then HUD executed that policy.
Carson: And how did they do that?
Tom: Well, first thing, naturally, HUD built itself a huge, impressively magnificent headquarters in Washington DC.
Carson: That was part of the policy?
Tom: You bet it was – and you will be glad it was, too, when you see your huge, impressively magnificent office in that headquarters building, Mr. Secretary.
Carson: Uh, I think that should be “Dr. Secretary,” shouldn’t it?
Tom: Oh, definitely, Dr. Secretary. My apologies.
Carson: Apology accepted. So then what?
Tom: So then, Dr. Secretary, HUD had all of its highly paid bureaucrats, consultants and subject matter experts go into cities, towns, villages, hamlets and rural areas across the United States and identify all the places with ramshackle, substandard housing. Then it spent billions of dollars setting up field offices everywhere in America, contracting architects, civil engineers, skilled craft union labor and equipment. And, I should note, that was back in the nineteen sixties, when a billion dollars was still a lot of money.
Carson: Gee whiz. What did they do with all those people and all that stuff?
Tom: HUD spent billions of taxpayer dollars in mob-controlled demolition, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption to tear down all that ramshackle, substandard housing.
Carson: Wow, that’s pretty dramatic. What happened next?
Tom: In the cities and towns, HUD built huge, plain, grimly functional high-rise concrete buildings filled with cramped, drab apartments resembling high-security prison cells, spending billions of taxpayer dollars on slipshod mob-controlled construction, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption. Then, HUD saw to it that all the poor people who used to live in filthy, substandard ramshackle inner-city tenements were moved into brand-new huge, plain, grimly functional concrete high-rise apartment buildings, accompanied by more billions of taxpayer dollars in mob-controlled real estate management services, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption.
Carson: And that was what HUD did in the cities?
Tom: Yes. And the towns.
Carson: What about in the villages, hamlets and rural areas?
Tom: In most of those cases, HUD spent billions of taxpayer dollars in mob-controlled demolition, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption, but didn’t build anything.
Carson: Really? What happened instead?
Tom: Usually, the land was sold – either for agribusiness, industrial parks, commercial real estate or suburban development for the middle and upper classes.
Carson: And the people from those rural areas, villages and hamlets?
Tom: They were encouraged to move to the cities, where HUD provided them with their very own cramped, drab apartments resembling high-security prison cells in huge, badly constructed concrete towers, as well as numerous opportunities to participate in urban culture which would not have been available to them in their villages, hamlets or rural settings.
Carson: Such as?
Tom: Such as welfare payments, food stamp and WIC program participation, Medicaid clinics, pawnbrokers, corner liquor stores, payday loans, crack cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, hand guns and assault weapons.
Carson: Holly smokes! In my opinion, all that sounds like nothing more or less than a recipe for complete disaster!
Tom: It was. In a relatively short time, as far as urban planning goes, all the huge, plain, grimly functional, towering concrete buildings filled with cramped, drab apartments resembling high-security prison cells became pestilential hell-holes reeking of urine, covered with obscene graffiti and overrun by feral inner-city gangs.
Carson: Oh, my goodness gracious! Did HUD do anything to fix that mess?
Tom: Oh, certainly. First, HUD had all of its highly paid bureaucrats, consultants and subject matter experts go into cities and towns across America to survey all the “projects,” those huge, plain, grimly functional concrete skyscrapers filled with cramped, drab apartments resembling high-security prison cells, and write numerous studies describing what went wrong and recommending what should be done about it. Then HUD had its exquisitely paid federal bureaucrats, consultants and subject matter experts analyze the problem and compile a detailed roadmap to do something about it, subsequently drafting a statement of that policy and promulgating it through press releases, white papers and notices in the Federal Register. Then it executed that policy by spending billions of taxpayer dollars in mob-controlled demolition, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption to tear down all those huge, plain, grimly functional, concrete high-rise housing projects.
Carson: But… what happened to the poor people living in those projects?
Tom: HUD spent billions of taxpayer dollars on slipshod mob-controlled construction, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption to build cookie-cutter prefabricated planned urban garden apartment complexes resembling medium-security prison facilities with pretentious post-modern landscaping for them to move into.
Carson: And is that where we stand now?
Tom: Pretty much.
Carson: And what does HUD have to show for all those billions and billions of taxpayer dollars spent building those high-rise housing projects?
Tom: Well, videos of HUD high-rise projects being blown up are fairly popular on YouTube, but aside from that, I’d say nothing.
Carson: And how are things going with those urban garden apartment complexes HUD built to replace them?
Tom: Well, HUD is currently spending billions of taxpayer dollars on mob-controlled real estate management services, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption to maintain them, naturally. And they are rapidly, in urban planning terms, turning into pestilential hell-holes reeking of urine, covered with obscene graffiti and overrun by feral inner-city gangs – with pretentious post-modern landscaping, of course.
Carson: All right then, I think you have explained what HUD does – but what am I supposed to do?
Tom: Well, that depends entirely on what president Trump wants done. Has he given you any indication of that?
Carson: Uh, not really.
Tom: You mean, you haven’t met with him to discuss your appointment as Secretary of HUD?
Carson: Um, yeah… we did have a meeting, but to tell the truth, he was really busy with other things, like talking about how Obama had wiretapped him and how Arnold Schwarzenegger is ruining The Apprentice and stuff like that. So he didn’t really say very much about what he wants me to do.
Tom: Okay, in that case, we will have to extrapolate.
Carson: Extrapolate?
Tom: Correct – based on what we know about Donald Trump’s positions, we can infer what he wants HUD to do.
Carson: We can?
Tom: Sure, why not?
Carson: Because, uh, well, I’m only a brain surgeon, you know, but it looks to me like nobody really knows what president Trump’s position is on, well, on anything, actually. Probably not even him.
Tom: Oh, that? Don’t let that stop you. He certainly doesn’t let it stop him, now does he?
Carson: Uh… no, I guess not. So what’s our… extrapolation?
Tom: Okay, then, according to my analysis, there are three major possibilities. Possibility Number One is the most likely, and that is, president Trump is essentially unaware of poor people and doesn’t contribute an aerial fornication about them one way or the other. Consequently, he would expect you continue running HUD as it has been run in the past, which would mean continuing the current policy of destroying old high-rise HUD projects and replacing them with the new, garden apartment version. Possibility Number Two is also likely, but not quite as much as Number One, and that is, president Trump thinks he is so excellent and magnificent he will eliminate poverty and therefore make public housing unnecessary. In that case, Trump must figure that all those people who used to be poor won’t be poor anymore – they will all have awesome new high-paying jobs and be able to afford to move into nice houses of their own, anywhere they want. If that happens, then Trump will expect HUD to shut down altogether and turn over all its property to private real estate developers.
Carson: So then, my job would be really easy – I could just fire everyone and go home.
Tom: Well, it wouldn’t be quite that simple, but it would be pretty close. Finally, Possibility Number Three, slightly less likely than Number Two, is that president Trump is, in fact, aware of poor people, despises them, and wants to get rid of them. In that case, your mission as Secretary of HUD would be close down all the public housing in the United States and evict all the residents, thus saving lots of federal money which can be used to do other things Trump likes, such as revitalize the military, while simultaneously causing a huge increase in the US homeless population. That, of course, will lead to a corresponding increase in petty crimes related to vagrancy, creating a visible “homeless problem” which will be solved by mass arrests, similar to the mass detentions of illegal immigrants Trump is already implementing. In response, it will be HUD’s task to provide vagrant detention centers in remote locations, surrounded by twenty-foot walls.
Carson: With slipshod mob-controlled construction, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption?
Tom: Absolutely. After all, that’s how HUD has always done things. No need to change that.
Carson: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, huh?
Tom: I think you hit the nail on the head there, Dr. Secretary. Slipshod mob-controlled construction, demolition and property management, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption have been the essential operational elements of the Department of Housing and Urban Development since its very inception. If you give your subordinates at HUD any indication whatsoever that you intend to change the least iota of that venerable legacy, everyone on your staff will be seeking methods and searching for strategies to undermine, thwart, discredit and disgrace you, with the ultimate goal of replacing you with someone who will go along with HUD traditions and customs. That’s the way bureaucratic organizations operate, Dr. Secretary, regardless of their purpose or mission, and it is the legacy of El BJ which ensured that HUD’s fundamental value system has been based upon mob-controlled contracting, union featherbedding, no-show ghost jobs, kickbacks, graft, bribery and corruption for the last fifty one and a half years.
Carson: Oh, so that’s why you call him “El BJ.”
Tom: No, Dr. Secretary, that’s why he deserves to be called “El BJ.” Now, if you will excuse me, another client has arrived.
Carson: Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks.
Tom: You’re welcome, Dr. Secretary. Goodbye.