Welfare, Not Work: Obama Shuts Down Minority Business Agency
March 20, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Business, Capitalism, Chicago, Democrats/Leftists, Detroit, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, Los Angeles, New York City, President, Stimulus, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
Hosannas. Obama has finally cut some federal spending. But noting which agency he shut down is sort of emblematic of his whole welfare/big government-pushing presidency.
On Friday, the Department of Commerce announced that it would be shutting down all five regional offices of the Minority Business Development Agency, an agency that was created by Richard Nixon to help develop minority businesses.
The administration claims that it will be saving around $30 million per year by eliminating the offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush is not too happy about the decision.
“It sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs and businesses in our community at this time when we need to have an expansion,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) said. Rush offered legislation to increase funding to the Minority Business Development Agency.
“This is message administrating, message management and message politics. It doesn’t have anything to do with the bottom line. The best message is one of expansion of the MBDA so it can do its work and meet its mission on the ground level and on the local level on the front line,” Rush added. Rush added that he has had a great working relationship with the regional office in Chicago.
Lauren Victoria Burke reports that several other minority congressmen, including Florida Congressman Allan West, were just as unhappy as Rep. Rush.
Lots of annoyed congressmen, to be sure. Still, doesn’t this just seem to fit the Obama administration to a tee? Eliminating business oriented initiatives yet expanding on his welfare oriented ideas? They don’t call Obama the “food stamp president” for nothing, after all.
So, to what effect is Obama’s enlarged “war on poverty”? The Heritage Foundation thinks Congress should start asking questions.
Congress should ask pointed questions about why the war on poverty continues to escalate more than four decades after it began. The Obama Administration’s expansion of the welfare state, in combination with its effort to define poverty up, does not bode well for economic freedom in the United States.
The so-called war on poverty has failed, yet Obama wants to use money that might have gone to business-lifting agencies like the Minority Business Development Agency and put good money after bad.
It pretty much sums up Obama’s presidency.
**UPDATE**
A note from the MBDA for everyone’s information:
Mr. Huston,
Apologies if my colleague at the Minority Business Development Administration already reached out to you, but I saw your recent blog post on the administration and wanted to ensure you had a recent blog post with info on what MBDA is doing to strengthen support to minority-owned firms, (http://www.commerce.gov/blog/2012/02/24/mbda-strengthening-support-minority-owned-firms) authored by MBDA Director David A. Hinson.
Thanks
Sarah R. Horowitz
Deputy Press Secretary
I said I’d pass along the note.
(H/T Bill Baar)
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
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