Fran Quigley

Government-funded landlord Trump hypocritically attacks government spending

President Donald Trump is making good on his promised threat to “dismantle Government bureaucracy” and “cut wasteful expenditures,” issuing orders to choke off the funding pipeline for federal grants and assistance programs.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Because government spending, particularly the generous big-landlord benefits baked into U.S. law and tax policy, forms the very foundation of Trump’s own wealth. The Trump real estate fortune was built by hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies and huge tax breaks, none of which are available to the working people Trump is hurting with his current attacks.

Trump became wealthy the traditional American way: he was born into it. As most thoroughly described in Samuel Stein’s excellent 2019 book, Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State, Donald’s father Fred’s real estate empire began with Brooklyn and Queens housing developments financed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). For some of those Trump developments, the path was literally cleared by government demolition of existing homes and buildings. Fred Trump’s appetite for government funding was so voracious that he was investigated by the Senate Banking Committee for defrauding post-World War II government housing programs by lying about the costs of his projects.

That was not the only investigation targeting Fred Trump’s government-funded properties. His Maryland buildings were so decrepit and his ignoring of the residents’ pleas for help and city orders to repair so blatant that the elder Trump was actually arrested in 1976 for operating a “slum property.” A U.S. Department of Justice discrimination lawsuit during the same era showed that the Trump properties systematically blocked Black prospective renters, using racist practices like attaching to their applications a paper bearing a big letter “C”—for Colored—so they could be rejected out of hand.

Fred Trump’s appetite for government funding was so voracious that he was investigated by the Senate Banking Committee for defrauding post-World War II government housing programs by lying about the costs of his projects.

That federal housing discrimination lawsuit, filed in 1973, did not just name Fred Trump. It also included the company’s president, his 27-year-old son Donald.

Donald Trump soon followed in his father’s footsteps by exploiting government programs to develop his buildings. The benefits included an unprecedented 40-year tax abatement, funding that was designed to support low-income neighborhoods, sweetheart deals to privatize public land, and government bonds used to finance his developments. “Donald Trump is probably worse than any other developer in his relentless pursuit of every single dime of taxpayer subsidies he can get his paws on,” a New York deputy mayor told the New York Times in 2016.

For example, the famous Trump Tower benefited from over $163 million in tax abatements provided by New York politicians whose campaigns Trump helped fund. That money was part of what the Timesestimated was nearly a billion dollars Trump received in government grants and tax breaks for his New York properties alone, not counting the government benefits for his properties in Florida, Nevada, and Atlantic City. "Donald Trump's business wouldn't be possible but for major government subsidies,” Timothy O'Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, toldNPR.

Trump’s dependence on government funding is more than matched by the taxpayer dollars hoovered up by his designated government waste czar Elon Musk. As CNN has reported, the world’s richest person reached his status thanks to government loans and contracts that propped up Tesla and SpaceX in their vulnerable beginning stages. Musk still rakes in billions of dollars from government contracts and government-mandated payments to Tesla by other automakers.

“The foundation for Musk’s financial success has been the U.S. government,” tech analyst Daniel Ives told CNN.

We know that the Trump-Musk attacks on federal government programs are deeply harmful to vulnerable people, devoted civil servants, and communities and organizations trying to make the world a better place. Less well known is that Trump and Musk both owe their fortunes and careers to the very government spending they demonize now. They used government programs to climb to great heights, and now are intent on pulling up the ladder behind them.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once said that a hypocrite politician is one who cuts down a redwood tree, then stands on its stump to deliver a speech about conservation. When the wealthy and powerful Donald Trump mounts his attacks on government programs, he does so while standing on a platform built by government largesse.

NOW READ: How Trump's turning his back on America's real problems

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Millions in US toiling under this imposed housing crisis need one thing: Straight-up cash

Katrina is the mother of three children, one of whom lives with major disabilities that require Katrina to spend most of her time as a caregiver. Katrina was already struggling to make ends meet, but then an unexpected car repair and reduced work hours caused her to fall behind on her rent.

Darren was hurt on the job and lost six weeks of pay. Now he is trying to put in as much work time as his employer will give him, but the pay is only about $17 an hour. Darren shares custody of two very young children, ages three and nine months, and he is desperately struggling to catch up on overdue rent.

Sheila‘s husband has been arrested and jailed for violently abusing her. Safe for the moment, Sheila has returned to work as a manager at a retail business. But she owes several months of back rent, plus late fees and court fees. It is more than she can pull together, so Sheila will have to move within the month. She is putting most of her possessions into storage. She is also packing a few trash bags of clothes to take with her to her new home—a friend’s unheated garage with no access to plumbing.

I teach a law school clinic in Indianapolis, where my students and I represent Katrina, Darren, Sheila and other clients in eviction court. They have a shared need, one that also applies to the nine million U.S. households that are behind on their rent right now:

They need money.

Katrina, Darren, and Sheila are among the three of every four households who qualify for subsidized housing, but do not receive it because we don’t fully fund the programs. They are forced to try to pay market-rate rent, which takes up most of their income even in the good times. In the bad times, the rent is more than what is coming in. So we see them in eviction court.

Turns out that some of the usual suspects—volunteer work, random acts of kindness—may not be as impactful as we hoped in delivering happiness. But what does work? You guessed it: money, especially for low-income folks.

We can do better than this. We know we can, because just a few years ago Katrina, Darren, and Sheila and almost everyone else we see eviction court now were safely housed. Emergency rental assistance, expanded child tax credits, maximized food stamps, and extended unemployment benefits prevented more than three million eviction cases, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. In fact, poverty rates actually dropped during the Covid pandemic.

Since then, researchers from Columbia University and City University of New York, CUNY, studied the impact of those benefits, and confirmed what we saw in our clients’ lives. “We find that direct cash payments were the single most useful tool for helping people ride out the pandemic and were first and foremost, used to cover basic needs, including rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and food,” they said.

That is powerful evidence pointing us toward what we can do to help. Add that to the pile of research showing that strings-free cash leads to dramatically positive outcomes. Specifically to housing, studies have shown that unconditional cash given to unhoused persons both reduced homelessness and saved money that would have been spent on government programs the recipients. Cash is so effective because this and other studies show that low-income people are far more likely to spend cash assistance on rent, food, and transportation than “temptation goods” like alcohol or drugs.

More broadly, analysis in the Annual Review of Psychology reviewed multiple studies examining what actually makes human beings happier. Turns out that some of the usual suspects—volunteer work, random acts of kindness—may not be as impactful as we hoped in delivering happiness. But what does work? You guessed it: money, especially for low-income folks.

“A growing number of rigorous preregistered experiments suggest that such cash transfers and other forms of financial support can provide an efficient mechanism for enhancing happiness,” wrote Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn, professors of psychology at the University of British Columbia. “Cash seems to be as good or better than other interventions that carry similar costs, including psychotherapy and job training.”

This analysis matches what we see in court. Would Katrina and Darren and Sheila benefit from psychotherapy? Maybe. But for most clients it appears that their financial crises are causing their mental health struggles, more so than the other way around. Would job training help? Again, maybe. But these people are already doing work in the community—home healthcare, food, service, retail work, warehouse work, etc.—that is essential for our economy. So, shouldn’t those jobs pay a living wage?

As we evaluate presidential candidates’ responses to our housing crisis and the clamor over building more housing, it is worth keeping this simplicity in mind. Until and unless we create much more subsidized housing, which is the real solution to the crisis, what our clients need most is straight-up cash.

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Government-funded landlord Trump hypocritically attacks government spending

Millions in US toiling under this imposed housing crisis need one thing: Straight-up cash

How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into 'Multiple Felony Saboteurs'

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