It was revealed yesterday that the Department of Housing and Urban Development spent $31,561 on a conference table set so that Ben Carson could better entertain guests at work. It was also revealed that then-Acting Secretary Craig Clemmensen had pushed a request from Ben Carson’s wife for a major upgrade of her husband’s office space. When told that the department would need congressional approval for any expense beyond $5,000, Clemmensen reportedly responded that they couldn’t even buy a decent chair for $5,000. This prompted the Washington Post to research the typical prices for conference tables and chairs.
They did find a couple of office chairs that cost more than $5,000. And they found this excellent option that came in just under budget:
Then there’s the Osaki OS-3D Pro Cyber Zero Gravity Heated Massage Chair, in firetruck red, on Amazon. For a measly $4,795.00, you can enjoy a 3-D Roller and “features that will allow for a very vigorous massage, or even a gentle massage.” These include, of course, “next generation airbags, computer body scan, Zero Gravity, lumbar heat, MP3 music system, Foot Rollers, chromo therapy, and more.”
As for conference tables, they asked Deb Longua-Zamero, an interior designer who worked on “the post-presidential office space for President George H.W. Bush.”
Longua-Zamero said high-end conference table sets can run upward of $20,000, so the $31,561 price tag is “not unreasonable” — at least not for corporate executives.
When it’s funded with taxpayer money, she said, “that’s a whole different ballgame.”
“I do think that anybody in a political office should be more conscientious about their choices because it’s coming from the taxpayers’ money,” she said.
It sounds like $31,561 is more than $10,000 or 50 percent more than what even high-end conference tables cost at the upper margin, so I am not sure why that would be a reasonable price even for a corporate executive. But there is something unseemly about a department dedicated to housing for the poor spending this much money on office furniture.
Of course, it had to be done. After all, HUD spokesman Raffi Williams explained yesterday that “the previous table was old and beyond repair.” I’d like to see this old table so I can discover how it it could be possibly be beyond repair. Had termites eaten away at the legs or did someone put their soft drink down without a coaster and absolutely ruin the finish?
When President Trump asked Ben Carson to serve as his HUD Secretary, Carson sensibly declined because he considered himself wholly unqualified for the position. It’s too bad he was talked out of that. But if you visit him for lunch, don’t take your eating surface for granted. It cost a fortune.
Senator Sherrod Brown has called for the internal watchdog at Ben Carson’s housing and urban development department (Hud) to investigate allegations that a senior official was demoted for refusing to break a spending limit for redecoration.
Sherrod Brown, the senior Democrat on the Senate committee for banking, housing, and urban affairs, wants Helen Albert, Hud’s acting inspector general, to add the allegations to a request made earlier this month for an inquiry into Ben Carson, the Hud secretary.
So, how many Trump officials so far have exposed for treating federals dollars like their own piggy banks? Given Trump’s excessive (and outlandish) time-off travel costs and the security costs for Melania in NYC and the Trumpkins traveling the globe that seem not to bother anyone other than penny-wise liberals, not surprising that so many like Carson believes the rules don’t apply to them.
In some countries, unqualified and entitled appointees is synonymous with corruption. As is nepotism. Both of which Americans don’t like anymore than people in other countries. Good on Sen Brown for referring this one to the HUD investigation of this one, but as he’s up for re-election this year, he might want to push harder on being an anti-corruption Senator.
We know Trump hires only the best, the bestest. That aside, is anyone really shocked by Carson’s actions? Does anyone remember what he became internet famous for a while back? Sorry in advance for The Daily Fail link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3310771/Inside-Ben-Carson-s-home-look-Republican-presidentia
l-candidate-s-Maryland-mansion-complete-huge-shrine-portrait-Jesus.html
Haters gonna hate.
grifters gonna grift.
How is he any different from anybody else this f*ked administration … including Kelly and Mattis.
I’m sorry. I so fucking wrong on Kelly it is past not being funny to being hilarious. The only thing I have in my defense is that I was depending on people that I know and trust who served with the sonofabitch.
There were a lot of grifters in the C- Augustus administration. It’s the GOP way. People remember Armstrong Williams, right?
I’ll bet someone could refinish it for say $1000. When I lived in Nova, there were lots of fine woodworking craftsmen.
He doesn’t want a Cadillac table. He wants a Ferrari table. Someone should look into his private practice insurance and medicare billing too.
I’m sure this is all excused somewhere in the Book of Poverbs.
That table expense could house five individuals for a year!
This is my worst nightmare. I am going to defend Ben Carson.
The current HUD budget is $39B. The Der Trumpfuhrer 2018 budget is $41B.
Has anyone on this site ever dealt with these type of numbers?
Neither have I. However I have dealt and do deal with 8 and 9 figure projects in both the private and public sector.
$31,561 – As we say is “mice nuts”. How does anyone here know if Dr Carson has not implemented savings measures that would allow him to afford this sort of upgrade? Given the slash and burn agenda of the GOP is this really far-fetched?
You want to deal with government efficiency? Listen to the GAO: https://www.gao.gov/duplication/overview
afdiplomat – please back me up.
Booman – this topic is beneath you – we look to you to set a righteous agenda – this isn’t it.
Bring it.
They broke the law and demoted the staffer that resisted their efforts to break the law in retaliation. Purely for their own personal benefit.
So nah, screw that. I don’t care what HUD’s overall budget is. None of it is intended to ensconce political appointees in the lap of luxury.
Any agency is bound to have waste. It’s the price of doing business with any large entity, particularly a bureaucracy as large as the US government. And yeah, the waste in most agencies is fairly benign. But this wasn’t just waste and the cost of doing business. They broke the law in order to do it, and conspired to break more laws in retaliation.
Hell, I defended Carson in a thread few weeks ago as “not as bad as I thought” because I figured he would be using the agency for personal profit and benefit and here he’s been relatively quiet. Welp, there goes that. There’s also evidence of relatives using Carson’s positions for grants and money.
Carson needs to go – now.
The saying goes that a fish rots from the head down. Trump set the example from the very start by of his Administration refusing to divest or put his assets in a blind trust. He then proceeded to hire a bunch of cynical “conservatives” who saw their mission as being not only to destroy the agencies they were meant to run, often in violation of the law but to turn them into their own little satrapies. The hardline GOP likes to pretend they are the party of Law and Order but what they mean is the party of minority oppression. They have absolutely no respect for the actual rule of law. Hence, it was a very easy slide for many of these “conservative” Cabinet secretaries to slide straight into both petty and large-scale corruption.
It’s a Republican thing. Harding’s administration was dominated by scandal. Reagan’s still has the record for the most criminal indictments. Then there’s W whose administration was so corrupt it led to the worst war we’ve ever entered and also the worst recession since the Great Depression, which was also a gift of the GOP.
They said that, unlike the liberals, Trump’s base took him seriously but not literally but when he said that he’d drain the swamp and then turned around and hired the worst Creatures, of the Black Lagoon have they still been totally happy with that? I wonder.
“$31,561 price tag is “not unreasonable” — at least not for corporate executives.”
Because when your a corporate executive, it’s the shareholders who are supposed to shut up and pay all your bills, like the good little invisible hands of the glorious free market that they are.
For our Party of Corruption, this sort of abuse is a feature, not a bug. One loses track of the stories (so far!) of the blithe wastage of taxpayer funds by the horrendous monsters and simple cretins/incompetents that the CEO of FailedNation, Inc. (and his Repub senate) have installed as guardians of the public trust. Since an abusive CEO circa 2016 runs his corporation as his own little fiefdom, then surely a member of Crackpot Cabinet can do the same. Run the gub’mint like a business indeed!
Carson’s (and wifey’s) clueless featherbedding is all the more hilarious when one considers that this waste of public funds is occurring in an environment of budget cuts for the programs and missions of these doomed agencies. But one does have to have a nice table on which to eviscerate evil Big Gub’mint over $150 (per jackal) lunches. Yes, somehow the HUD executive suite conference table became unusable upon Trumper’s (illegitimate) election. Spontaneous combustion, perhaps?
But the outrage here is not really with the professional “conservative” grifters like Carson, Zinke, Pruitt etc, etc, ad infinitum for the next 4 years. Nor is it with the feeble Dems, who can’t make hay out of this appallingly corrupt administration. It is with the vicious Repub base and The 46%, all of whom affected spittle-flecked outrage over such delicacies as the cost of Obama’s golf outings—but who remain blithely unconcerned about Der Trumper’s somewhat more, um,…extensive golfing life. No level of “elite” abuse registers on them at all now. Remarkable indeed.
And while the useless corporate media does indeed dutifully document each separate incident of Trumpian grifting before permanently consigning it to the memory hole, no attempt is made to connect the dots, create a comprehensive narrative of the ongoing abuse, or wonder about the spectacular hypocrisy of the American rightwing voter, whose most heartfelt complaint against lib’ruls is—wait for it—their hypocrisy!
I hope he spends a great deal of time in his office digs enjoying the furniture and keeps away from anything to do with policy for the duration of his stay.
In truth, in the scheme of things, it’s not a wholly outrageous amount for a conference table. Having just purchased one for our humble office, I can say that anything decent doesn’t come all that cheaply.
That said, it is too much to spend on a table in a gov’t office.
Is anyone surprised?
Of course, Trump voters, if they’re informed of this, will clap and cheer themselves hoarse. Can you imgaine the Dittoheads the outrage if Shaun Donovan had done something similar?
Eh? File under IOKIYAR. Always.
I agree with a prior comment – mabye Sleepy Ben’ll take long naps in his luxurious office space and stay the hell away from, you know, making any decisions ‘n stuff that actually affect the running of HUD.
One can only hope so.