Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, talks with Mark Levin about the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule” (AFFH) added by former President Barack Obama to the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which purposes to expand federal influence over suburbia. (Watch full Interview Here)
Obama and his wing of the Democratic Party viewed suburbs as “fundamentally unjust” communities that prevent taxation from flowing into the urban cities they surround. ~ Stanley Kurtz
Transcript
Mark Levin: Let’s start at the beginning. What is it that the Federal Government did to ensure that the civil rights and equality would exist in housing all across the country?
Stanley Kurtz: Well, Mark, the Federal Government, during the Civil Rights era, passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and rightly, the Fair Housing Act prevents discrimination in housing so if people come to buy a home or to rent an apartment they should be treated in the same way regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, if they’re immigrants, regardless of national origin. That is the law and it should be the law and HUD under both Democrat and Republican administrations enforces that law.
Mark Levin: So, this seems morally correct under every circumstance. It seems like something that’s been in place a very long time. It seems to be working pretty well, but then Obama becomes President of the United States, and what does Obama do with that 1968 statue?
Stanley Kurtz: Well, Obama represents a segment of the Democratic Party, an increasingly influential segment that really doesn’t think well of the suburbs. Of course, as you mentioned, they want Suburban votes, but what they’re a little less say eager to have understood is that they they considered suburbs themselves in some ways fundamentally unjust. Why? Because when people move out to the suburbs they take their tax money with them and that is viewed by Obama and many other Democrats as a way of selfishly keeping your money from less well-off people in the cities. So the Obama Administration, riding on some language in the original Fair Housing Act that did not have all the meanings he gave to it, created a really massive rule called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. Now, there was a brief mention of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in the original fair housing, but all it really meant, at the time, was that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development should take positive steps to make sure that people didn’t discriminate in housing between people of different races or ethnicities etc., just as we said before. But Obama took that brief mention and created out of it a transformative rule, a little bit like Obamacare in that it’s a massive rule that does a great many things, and you have to keep delving and delving. The bottom line is that AFFA, the acronym for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing would radically undercut the political an economic independence of America suburbs. It would allow bureaucrats in Washington, in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to control zoning laws, to control the placement of transportation, and business districts, even to some degree the drawing of school districts. In other words, almost every important local governmental responsibility could under AFFH could fall into the de facto control of the Fed’s
Mark Levin: So, effectively, in so many crucial respects to the people who live in these communities or the people who want to live in these communities the federal government would nationalize, federalized decisions respecting the economy, schooling, law enforcement, housing, zoning, commercial activity, transportation hubs. Have I missed something?
Stanley Kurtz: You probably have, Mark. I probably missed something because there are so many things in the AFFH regulation, it’s hard to keep track. For example, I’ll give you just one example of something we both missed. quote-unquote. The AFFH will allow the fence to push local governments into Regional Governing Consorcia. Now what does that bit of gobbledygook actually mean? It means that it will try to create a layer of government in between the federal government and local government, a layer of government that corresponds to your greater metropolitan area, so if you are in say Montgomery County outside of Philadelphia, it will try to remove your governing responsibilities and hand them over to the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, which will probably end up taking a chunk of your tax money. So there’s a lot in the AFFH.
On Thursday, July 23, 2020, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Dr. Ben Carson announced that he is stripping Obama’s AFFH Rule from the Fair Housing Act, saying the rule “was an overreach of unelected Washington bureaucrats into local communities”.
More Information on Secretary Ben Carson Terminates 2015 AFFH Rule
President @realDonaldTrump and I agree that the best run communities are the ones run locally. Today, we are tearing down the Obama Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which was an overreach of unelected Washington bureaucrats into local communities.
— Ben Carson (@SecretaryCarson) July 23, 2020
Furthermore, the funding subject to the AFFH rule has been misused and abused for decades as slush funds for pet projects and causes ranging from an entertainment venue to a splash park and Planned Parenthood funding.
— Ben Carson (@SecretaryCarson) July 23, 2020
I am unwavering in my commitment to fair housing — when I arrived at @HUDgov we had a disappointingly HUGE backlog of fair housing complaints that the Obama Admin had forgotten about. From January 2017 to present, we have successfully resolved 22,933 cases.
— Ben Carson (@SecretaryCarson) July 23, 2020
Presidential Candidate Joe Biden’s Stance on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule
Joe Biden will re-implement the Obama-Biden Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule
From Joe Biden President Campaign Website
Biden will implement the Obama-Biden Administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule requiring communities receiving certain federal funding to proactively examine housing patterns and identify and address policies that have a discriminatory effect. The Trump Administration suspended this rule in 2018. Biden will ensure effective and rigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. And, he will reinstate the federal risk-sharing program which has helped secure financing for thousands of affordable rental housing units in partnership with housing finance agencies.
Stanley Kurtz: Obama-era ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule’ an attack on suburbs
Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, spoke to Mark Levin about the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule” (AFFH) added by former President Barack Obama to the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which the conservative scholar said has aimed to expand federal influence over suburbia.
Kurtz said in an interview airing Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on “Life, Liberty & Levin” that Obama and his wing of the Democratic Party viewed suburbs as “fundamentally unjust” communities that prevent taxation from flowing into the urban cities they surround.
On Thursday, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Dr. Ben Carson announced that he is stripping Obama’s AFFH Rule from the Fair Housing Act, saying the rule “was an overreach of unelected Washington bureaucrats into local communities” — a point echoed by Kurtz.
Carson called the rule a “ruse for social engineering under the guise of desegregation — essentially turning HUD into a national zoning board.”
Kurtz, in his interview with Levin, said Obama “represents an increasingly influential segment of the Democratic Party that really doesn’t think well of the suburbs.”
“Of course, as [Levin] mentioned, [Democrats] want suburban votes. What they’re a little less eager to have understood is they consider suburbs themselves in some ways fundamentally unjust.”
Kurtz said Obama Democrats oppose the structure of the nation’s suburbs because, much of the time, the people that move out of liberal cities and settle in the suburbs often do so to escape high taxation and regulation in urban areas.
“That is viewed by Obama and many other Democrats as a way of selfishly keeping your money from less well-off people in the cities,” he said. “So the Obama administration, riding on some language in the original Fair Housing Act that did not have all the meanings he gave to it, created a really massive rule called [AFFH].”
