February 11, 2003

Pay up, poverty-dwellers!

Bush to raise rent for public housing tenants: An assistant secretary of housing and urban development, Michael Liu, said today that the minimum rent proposal was "a reasonable way to promote work and responsibility." Full disclosure: Liu and I worked for the same company at the same time in the early 1980s.

Brian Eno weighs in on 21st century America. Unlike some other celebrity spoutings, Eno seems to have given this subject some thought.

It pains me to report (NOT!) that Tom Delay (R-TX), illustrious former exterminator and House Majority Leader, has opened his mouth once too often and gotten himself into trouble with the Teamsters, about the only union which tolerates the Bush Administration. He's essentially endorsed the view that unions are unpatriotic, allowing a letter espousing that idea to go to an anti-union organization over his signature. E.J. Dionne tells the tale. If you go look at the website of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the outfit on whose behalf Delay wrote the letter he's now apologizing for, it looks more like a hate site than a responsible business lobbying organization. There's some really nasty stuff there.

Here's a new spin on "my grandpa can lick your grandpa." Some 16 million men can probably claim descent from Genghis Khan.

Posted by Linkmeister at February 11, 2003 03:11 PM
Comments

Yeah, well, uhm... the whole public housing thing makes sense to me.

I mean... if the poor keep paying more taxes, and stuff... uhm, maybe they'll not want to be poor anymore, right?

These people are simply in a hole. They need to exert a little more effort and dig themselves out... that's all.

Posted by: -e-'s inner republican at February 11, 2003 10:24 PM

are there poor people in Hawaii?

Posted by: meg at February 12, 2003 04:41 AM

Eric, my gripe is that HUD is demanding payment from people who don't have jobs and can't find jobs in this economy; during boom times this might have been feasible. I'm afraid it will create more homeless kids.

Meg, you bet there are. They don't sleep on grates out here and they're not highly visible, but we have our share of the poor and homeless, just like any other urbanized place. The cost of living is usually estimated at 20% higher than on the mainland, so the number of people living paycheck-to-paycheck and one big hospital bill away from the street is higher, too.

Posted by: Linkmeister at February 12, 2003 07:51 AM