Ben Carson is the latest member of Donald Trump’s cabinet to jump onboard the “he spent how much on what, now?” train, but Carson has done it his own special way. Where other cabinet officials have made news with their private planes and round-the-clock security details, Carson (or his staff) has opted for household furniture. A HUD career official said recently that she was demoted for trying to block a redecoration of Carson’s office costing more than the $5,000 legal limit. And wow, we’re talking a lot more than that $5,000 limit. HUD spent $31,000 on a dining set for Carson’s office—including, for some reason, a hutch—for Carson’s office after Foster filed a whistleblower complaint and, of course, while Carson was pushing cuts to services for the vulnerable people his agency is supposed to be helping:
Mr. Carson “didn’t know the table had been purchased,” but does not believe the cost was too steep and does not intend to return it, said Raffi Williams, a HUD spokesman.
So, what, someone just freelanced, ordered a $31,000 dining set without consulting the guy whose office it was going into or mentioning to him that its cost was more than six times his entire office redecoration budget under the law, and when they told him after the fact, he was like “sure, that sounds reasonable”? This does not pass the smell test. If a department head does want to spend more than $5,000 on their office, by the way, they’re supposed to get congressional approval, which Carson and HUD did not do in this case. The explanation for that also fails to pass the smell test:
Mr. Williams said department officials did not request congressional approval because the dining set served a “building-wide need.” The table is inside the secretary’s 10th-floor office suite.
There’s a building-wide need for a brand-new hutch in Carson’s office? Are people allowed to come in and eat lunch at the table? Hold meetings there when the conference room is booked?
We are also expected to believe that Carson didn’t ask for a new table. However, his wife had been pressuring staffers for a major office upgrade since before he was confirmed, and:
… he had remarked how the previous table was covered in scratches, scuff marks and cracks. Mr. Williams emailed several pictures of the old table, which looks polished and not visibly scarred, during events held by Mr. Carson’s predecessor, Julián Castro.
“I’m not saying I want a new table, but gosh this one sure is terrible. Oh, wow, someone got me a new table? What a coincidence! And it costs how much more than the law says I can spend on my whole office? That’s fine, we’ll keep it—even though I most certainly didn’t ask for it.”
And this may be painfully middle-class of me to even ask, but how do you spend $31,000 on a dining room set? I can’t even figure out the Google search to find a dining room set that expensive, and yet it seems like every single member of Donald Trump’s cabinet would consider it the absolute least one could spend on acceptable furniture.