Latest Federal Mandate On 'Fair Housing' Is Anything But
Posted 12/05/2014 06:53 PM ET
Patrick Henry, an ardent
supporter of a smaller, local government, once said: "I like the dreams
of the future better than the history of the past." Something tells me
that he would not utter such a statement were he alive in 2014.
Henry and many other Founding Fathers are likely rolling over in their graves as a result of the incessant intrusion into local affairs by our current president and the federal government.
In the eyes of the Obama administration, Americans are not the best judges of where they should live and raise their families. At least that's the message coming from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Just when you thought the administration's Orwellian sovereignty had reached its limits, HUD has declared that our nation's suburbs aren't diverse enough and that local governments may not be the best arbiters of housing and zoning regulations.
To remedy this perceived cultural malaise, the administration has issued a new proposed regulation that mandates a barrier for individuals and families on where they can choose to live.
In so doing, the president and his administration are encroaching on the rights of local governments and again needlessly injecting race into public policy issues, setting the stage for even further division and animosity.
To accomplishing this goal, the president has proposed a rule known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), which according to Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, will "push Americans into living how and where the federal government wants.
"It promises to gut the ability of suburbs to set their own zoning codes. It will press future population growth into tiny, densely packed high-rise zones around public transportation, urbanizing suburbs and Manhattanizing cities."
The administration fails to appreciate a unique American value: mobility. We practically invented the modern open road, symbolizing our freedom to choose where we live. The president's rule would restrict that freedom.
Washington bureaucrats would tell us where we can live and whom we can live next to, all in the name of social justice and ideological utopianism. Nothing could be more wrong and un-American.
Just like we don't need the government choosing our doctors, neither do we need it choosing our neighbors.
The 1968 Fair Housing Act already makes discrimination illegal in the "sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin." The act was amended in 1988 to add disability and familial status as covered conditions.
But apparently that's not enough to provide everyone with equal opportunity in housing. What the administration wants is equal outcomes, and the only way to achieve that is for the federal leviathan to force itself on local jurisdictions.
No one should ever be targeted for exclusion from a neighborhood because of their ethnicity or any other protected category. But neither should there be quotas for neighborhoods to achieve some sort of racial balance that would not happen naturally. A level playing field that lets Americans choose where they live gives zoning authority to local governments is the wisest policy.
To curb this federal overreach, I sponsored an amendment in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act that would block funding for the president's rule on AFFH.
Some colleagues and I have issued a new call to action, asking appropriators to include the same defunding language that passed the House of Representatives in any appropriations package we vote on and send it to the president. If the rule is implemented and municipalities do not comply with AFFH, community development grant money will be withheld.
The sad truth about this Obama social engineering proposal is that HUD conducted its own study in 2011 that concluded that moving people living in poor neighborhoods into suburban neighborhoods neither helps children do better in school nor decreases their family's dependence on welfare — the goal of the proposed AFFH rule.
A compelling reason to defund this regulation is that it will have the opposite impact on the people it is intended to assist, increasing their likelihood of government dependency.
This is an encroachment into the domain of local governments, even bypassing state governments, and violates the basic intent of our Founders. So if you hear reports of a minor earthquake near Patrick Henry's resting place in Charlotte County, Va., it should be easy to locate its epicenter.
• Gosar, a Republican, represents Arizona's 4th congressional district.
Henry and many other Founding Fathers are likely rolling over in their graves as a result of the incessant intrusion into local affairs by our current president and the federal government.
In the eyes of the Obama administration, Americans are not the best judges of where they should live and raise their families. At least that's the message coming from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Just when you thought the administration's Orwellian sovereignty had reached its limits, HUD has declared that our nation's suburbs aren't diverse enough and that local governments may not be the best arbiters of housing and zoning regulations.
To remedy this perceived cultural malaise, the administration has issued a new proposed regulation that mandates a barrier for individuals and families on where they can choose to live.
In so doing, the president and his administration are encroaching on the rights of local governments and again needlessly injecting race into public policy issues, setting the stage for even further division and animosity.
To accomplishing this goal, the president has proposed a rule known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), which according to Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, will "push Americans into living how and where the federal government wants.
"It promises to gut the ability of suburbs to set their own zoning codes. It will press future population growth into tiny, densely packed high-rise zones around public transportation, urbanizing suburbs and Manhattanizing cities."
The administration fails to appreciate a unique American value: mobility. We practically invented the modern open road, symbolizing our freedom to choose where we live. The president's rule would restrict that freedom.
Washington bureaucrats would tell us where we can live and whom we can live next to, all in the name of social justice and ideological utopianism. Nothing could be more wrong and un-American.
Just like we don't need the government choosing our doctors, neither do we need it choosing our neighbors.
The 1968 Fair Housing Act already makes discrimination illegal in the "sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin." The act was amended in 1988 to add disability and familial status as covered conditions.
But apparently that's not enough to provide everyone with equal opportunity in housing. What the administration wants is equal outcomes, and the only way to achieve that is for the federal leviathan to force itself on local jurisdictions.
No one should ever be targeted for exclusion from a neighborhood because of their ethnicity or any other protected category. But neither should there be quotas for neighborhoods to achieve some sort of racial balance that would not happen naturally. A level playing field that lets Americans choose where they live gives zoning authority to local governments is the wisest policy.
To curb this federal overreach, I sponsored an amendment in the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act that would block funding for the president's rule on AFFH.
Some colleagues and I have issued a new call to action, asking appropriators to include the same defunding language that passed the House of Representatives in any appropriations package we vote on and send it to the president. If the rule is implemented and municipalities do not comply with AFFH, community development grant money will be withheld.
The sad truth about this Obama social engineering proposal is that HUD conducted its own study in 2011 that concluded that moving people living in poor neighborhoods into suburban neighborhoods neither helps children do better in school nor decreases their family's dependence on welfare — the goal of the proposed AFFH rule.
A compelling reason to defund this regulation is that it will have the opposite impact on the people it is intended to assist, increasing their likelihood of government dependency.
This is an encroachment into the domain of local governments, even bypassing state governments, and violates the basic intent of our Founders. So if you hear reports of a minor earthquake near Patrick Henry's resting place in Charlotte County, Va., it should be easy to locate its epicenter.
• Gosar, a Republican, represents Arizona's 4th congressional district.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/120514-729371-obama-administration-tells-americans-where-they-can-live.htm#ixzz3LQkWjtMt
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