Bush’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has been almost comically corrupt and incompetent for years, but with Alphonso Jackson resigning in disgrace, the president has an opportunity to at least marginally salvage HUD’s reputation with a qualified nominee who can use the next eight months to get the agency back on track. It’s a tall order, given the ongoing housing crisis.
Bush, however, has decided to go in a more predictable direction. He’s replacing one loyal Bushie of dubious qualifications with another.
President Bush on Friday said he would nominate SBA Administrator Steve Preston to take over as head of the government’s housing agency at a time of crisis in the industry, citing “an impressive background in finance.” Democrats praised Preston as a problem-solver. […]
In a White House ceremony, Bush called Preston “a reformer who would act aggressively to help Americans obtain affordable mortgages and be able to keep their homes.” … Bush asked the Senate to “quickly consider” the nomination.
The AP said Dems think highly of Preston, which strikes me as rather odd.
Indeed, Preston is only known for his work at the Small Business Administration, which hasn’t exactly gone smoothly.
The NYT reported last year:
The federal government’s biggest program to help people rebuild after natural disasters is on the verge of running out of operating money because of budgeting problems at the agency that runs it, the Small Business Administration.
If Congress does not intervene in the next month or so to cover the administrative costs of the program, it will have to shut down, according to an internal agency memorandum given to The New York Times by a critic of the agency.
Agency officials say, and Congressional leaders agree, that the legislature will almost certainly act to keep the program running. “It would be very surprising to us if they wouldn’t address this,” said Steven C. Preston, the administrator of the S.B.A.
But even a temporary shutdown could delay aid to victims of the ice storms in the Midwest and other recent natural disasters, and would further hamper a program that was widely criticized for its slow response to the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Here’s the deal: the Small Business Administration decided not to ask Congress for any money to pay for running the disaster program in the 2006 fiscal year, because there was a little money left over from 2005. When some disasters struck, and some small businesses needed to rely on the disaster aid, the SBA ran into financial trouble. As the NYT noted, the problem “highlighted a continuing pattern of mismanagement and poor planning at the S.B.A.”
And now, the guy who’s been running the SBA is getting a promotion.
Keep in mind, Preston got the SBA gig in the first place because he was known to be a “Bush loyalist.” In fact, Preston is a self-described “committed Republican,” which apparently was the principal qualification for the job. Put it this way, Bush’s choice to head the Small Business Administration did not have any experience running a small business.
And now Preston is going to run a scandal-plagued Housing Department in the midst of a housing crisis. Raise your hand if you’re optimistic.