Feds try to eliminate housing for the deaf -- at complex built for hearing-impaired
By William La Jeunesse, Jennifer GirdonPublished October 21, 2013FoxNews.comFacebook5249 Twitter541 LinkedIn5
Arizona is defying a federal order to eliminate apartments for deaf seniors at a housing complex built specifically -- for the deaf.
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HUD is threatening to pull all federal housing aid to Arizona unless it limits the number of hearing-impaired residents to 18 people. The agency would not forcibly remove current residents, but wants many of their units to be blocked off to deaf residents in the future once they leave.
And right here is the damn problem.
Every state and local government entity is now thoroughly dependent on federal grants, so the degree of independence that was once inherent in our federalist system has become mostly meaningless. They'll do whatever Washington demands because they won't dare risk getting cut off from the DC gravy train. Dependency, it ain't just for individual citizens is it?
We talk about what it's going to take to remedy things in this country, but absolutely nothing will be remedied until people start denying themselves things out of principle. Just stop taking federal grants. I'm sure your 10 man police department will survive without a MRAP. A mindset of "gotta get mine" has been cultivated. You can see the reaction when occasionally an elected official will try to do the right thing, such as Mark Sanford in SC not taking the federal stimulus grant for teachers, or Scott in FL not taking the high speed rail grant. They were excoriated even from their own ranks, because "if we don't take the money it will go to someone else!" Then you start hearing all the arguments about how it is so necessary for job creation, even by people who should absolutely know better than to think that's the dynamic that creates jobs.
This is all just the Washington Mafia making proverbial offers that can't be refused.