Trump Screws the 99%
Mar 19, 2017 04:12:21 #
straightUp wrote:
Ya just gotta ignore him. AO is kind of like a village drunk. Harmless... rants and insults.
Well look at you...off your heroin early are ya? Been molesting YOUR kids lately too? Or is it just your one kid? You are another one of those nose picking lil whiners that think you have some indication of reality. You've been on that needle for so long, you look like a cross between swiss cheese and last years rag doll!
Must be hard for you to live being stuck on welfare, support your heroin addiction, swap out your welfare goodies to pay your connection and then cry about how things are in today's world, when the REALITY is YOU and YOUR scum bags are 99% of the problem.
Mar 19, 2017 04:14:44 #
Progressive One wrote:
Of course I do all of that and more and i'm glad it bothers you so much.............there you go with "us" engineers again...."us" with the MBA's...go ahead and say you have a doctorate.....i'm touched that you admire me so that you are creating a life parallel to mine for yourself...feels nice huh? What crimes have I committed? You should search more .....
What a small time loser....I bet you will cry your lil wee wee half to death when the detectives come haul your lil Baboon looking azz down to the cop shop and start grilling you about your escapades!
Mar 19, 2017 04:15:54 #
Yep StraightUp...you're right....he's just an old ass racist drunk.....good call...........
Mar 19, 2017 04:18:37 #
woodssprite 17 wrote:
Being stupid about politics is one thing, and forgivable. But you have to be the dumbest person in other areas that I have ever met on line or off. Other people are entitled to their opinions it's a free country anyway last I looked, so go ahead and prove with every post just what a looser you are. There will always be some snuck that will agree with you.
Lets see you are what, some pencil shavings that got dropped on the floor? Woods Sprite? No..you are what toilet paper is finally processed from.
Yes this IS free country..and scum sucking dogs like YOU are doing your best to destroy the very freedoms this Nation was founded upon.
Really you should stick to doing something useful, blow out a candle, watch the cement grow on the street...hold your breathe and count to five million...
Mar 19, 2017 04:27:46 #
Progressive One wrote:
Yep StraightUp...you're right....he's just an old ass racist drunk.....good call...........
The only drinker here Nappy boy..is YOU! Admit it...you are busted once again...and again...and again. I bet you already have a long criminal history as it is. That is why you have to sneak around your neighborhood LURING young people to victimize them...you are all done now...the college campus security and the cops have been informed all about you.
http://oag.ca.gov/missing
All of your nasty threats you have made over the past years have been compiled and those pictures of you and your victim have been emailed to the missing persons authorities. They have a long list of non identified victims as well as missing victims....wait until they get a load of all your statements and then check your MO with the college campus security...oh lord will they be wanting to knock on YOUR door...and low and behold...if you still live at the same place that is on your LICENSE...I was able to even provide THAT to them as well...Mr. Wanna B. Perfeser!
You can tell them you did not do anything...you were busy mowing the lawn for your MASSA...bet they are not going to want to hear it...nappy boy!
Mar 19, 2017 04:27:51 #
Letters on letters
How free is ‘freedom’?
HOUSE SPEAKER Paul Ryan unveils the American Health Care Act in Washington on March 7. (Chip Somodevilla Getty Images)
Jeff Gold of Granada Hills says “freedom” is the wrong word:
I fear the letter writer is confusing the term “freedom” for “free ride.”
When millions of Americans exercise their right not to purchase health insurance, where do they go when they get sick? To the emergency room, where much of the cost of their care gets passed along to others.
Forcing me to pay for your healthcare in the name of “freedom” is not only an abuse of that freedom I cherish, but it’s also robbery, which still “counts” for something in America.
At some point you must pay because you will need care. Using freedom to justify not paying for healthcare is, well, sad.
Manhattan Beach resident Alice P. Neuhauser would like the freedom to opt out of other obligations:
One writer talks of the “freedom” restored to people with the proposed GOP healthcare plan.
I guess that is the freedom to die (note the gains at the Social Security Administration, which won’t have to pay benefits to prematurely dead Americans).
There’s the freedom to go bankrupt, because the new, cheaper plans won’t actually cover many treatments or most actual medical needs.
There’s the freedom for leeches to expect the rest of us to pay for their “emergency” care because they didn’t want to take personal responsibility by buying health insurance.
If we are choosing our freedoms, I’ll exempt myself from paying for waste, fraud and abuse in the massive military industrial complex. Then I would have plenty of money to buy health insurance.
Elle Waygh of Valencia warns of the burden of “freedom”:
The writer is correct: Millions of people will exercise their “freedom” and choose not to purchase health insurance next year because the government will no longer force them to.
Los Angeles County hospitals provide low or no-pay treatment for uninsured patients, yet it is the taxpayers who help fund these hospitals. The increasing number of uninsured seeking medical care at these hospitals and clinics may create a larger financial burden for residents in the form of increased taxes to fund services.
However, taxpayers cannot choose to not pay those taxes. Freedom isn’t always “free.”
How free is ‘freedom’?
HOUSE SPEAKER Paul Ryan unveils the American Health Care Act in Washington on March 7. (Chip Somodevilla Getty Images)
Jeff Gold of Granada Hills says “freedom” is the wrong word:
I fear the letter writer is confusing the term “freedom” for “free ride.”
When millions of Americans exercise their right not to purchase health insurance, where do they go when they get sick? To the emergency room, where much of the cost of their care gets passed along to others.
Forcing me to pay for your healthcare in the name of “freedom” is not only an abuse of that freedom I cherish, but it’s also robbery, which still “counts” for something in America.
At some point you must pay because you will need care. Using freedom to justify not paying for healthcare is, well, sad.
Manhattan Beach resident Alice P. Neuhauser would like the freedom to opt out of other obligations:
One writer talks of the “freedom” restored to people with the proposed GOP healthcare plan.
I guess that is the freedom to die (note the gains at the Social Security Administration, which won’t have to pay benefits to prematurely dead Americans).
There’s the freedom to go bankrupt, because the new, cheaper plans won’t actually cover many treatments or most actual medical needs.
There’s the freedom for leeches to expect the rest of us to pay for their “emergency” care because they didn’t want to take personal responsibility by buying health insurance.
If we are choosing our freedoms, I’ll exempt myself from paying for waste, fraud and abuse in the massive military industrial complex. Then I would have plenty of money to buy health insurance.
Elle Waygh of Valencia warns of the burden of “freedom”:
The writer is correct: Millions of people will exercise their “freedom” and choose not to purchase health insurance next year because the government will no longer force them to.
Los Angeles County hospitals provide low or no-pay treatment for uninsured patients, yet it is the taxpayers who help fund these hospitals. The increasing number of uninsured seeking medical care at these hospitals and clinics may create a larger financial burden for residents in the form of increased taxes to fund services.
However, taxpayers cannot choose to not pay those taxes. Freedom isn’t always “free.”
Mar 19, 2017 04:30:03 #
Clean air rule reversal tests GOP
Efforts to roll back methane gas mandate draw public backlash.
A DRILLING RIG at the Jonah Field in Sublette County, Wyo. Methane is among the most potent accelerators of global warming, 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and was a focal point in the Obama administration’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. (Alex Milan Tracy Sipa USA)
By Evan Halper
WASHINGTON — As Republican lawmakers consider how closely to align with the climate skepticism and fossil-fuel fervor radiating from the White House, a nascent clean air initiative that energy firms want scrapped is fast testing their comfort zone.
Weighing on them is 41 billion cubic feet of methane, a greenhouse gas leaking from many of the nearly 100,000 oil and gas wells on federally owned land. Methane is among the most potent accelerators of global warming, 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
Since the House swiftly voted last month to lift a requirement that escaping gas be trapped and converted to electricity, the backlash has been intense.
Anger is most pronounced in the West, where tens of thousands of residents near drilling operations risk exposure to the toxic compounds that leak in tandem with the methane. Local governments are also desperate for the royalty money they would be entitled to if that gas were turned to energy.
“The thought of a bunch of disconnected lawmakers who don’t live next to leaking gas wells deciding to vote to take this protection away from us just leaves me speechless,” said New Mexico cattleman Don Schreiber, whose Devil’s Spring Ranch in Rio Arriba County is surrounded by 122 natural gas wells.
Supervisors in adjacent La Plata County, Colo., passed a resolution calling on Congress to abandon the rollback. More than 80% of the people in Western states including Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming support the Obama-era mandate, according to a Colorado College poll taken in December.
The political tension has left many Republican senators wavering as they struggle with the potential fallout of going after a signature Obama administration climate change policy that — like many others — has a constituency that extends far beyond climate hawks.
They face competing pressure from the Trump administration, as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt rebukes climate science and steps away from his agency’s far-reaching methane blueprint, intended to stem leaks that in some cases are so large they can be spotted from outer space.
Oil and gas companies have recruited powerful allies in the fight, including in California’s Central Valley, home to some of the highest concentrations of methane anywhere.
“As federal lands become less cost-effective to produce energy on, this unnecessary rule adds to that burden and could wipe out marginal wells run by family-owned businesses who can’t pack up and move their operations,” warned a report posted by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.
He also forecasts financial peril for local governments if the Obama-era rule is not immediately rolled back.
Such pressure has yet to sway many GOP colleagues tangled in the messy politics of methane, such as Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner. His state, like McCarthy’s, is among several that have passed their own laws requiring oil and gas companies to pursue aggressive measures to contain the methane. Many of Gardner’s constituents, including energy firms subject to the new state law, are demanding he help preserve the federal restraints so operators in adjacent states with no local laws would have to abide by the same rules.
They point to pollution drifting from Utah and New Mexico, exacerbating air problems in Colorado. Firms there resent that their nearby competitors can ignore leaks they can’t. The state’s burgeoning clean-energy industry, with its growing bipartisan political might, is applying its own pressure.
“I’m continuing to meet with my constituents on this topic and will continue to do so until the vote,” Gardner wrote in an email.
GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina both announced they would vote against efforts to roll back the rule.
Other Republicans are leaving open the option of joining them, as public concern about leaking methane across the country puts energy firms under new pressure to invest in technology to contain it.
Charges by energy companies that the rule would bankrupt them conflict with Bureau of Land Management findings that the average small business with an oil or gas operation on federal property would see its profit margin reduced by two-tenths of 1% as a result of the rule.
The amount of methane escaping each year, the Obama administration ultimately concluded, is enough to provide electricity for nearly 740,000 homes. The Government Accountability Office alerted Congress in July that capturing it would boost royalties owed to taxpayers by $23 million.
“We shouldn’t just be giving away these taxpayer assets,” said Ryan Alexander, president of the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “We should be demanding fair compensation for them.”
But layered over the fights about royalties and air pollution is the more contentious issue of climate change. Methane was a focal point in the Obama administration’s governmentwide plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions that President Trump set about tearing up upon taking office.
The White House calls the plan “expensive and unnecessary.” This month, Pruitt told oil and gas companies not to bother complying with a directive from the EPA to compile and report data related to their methane emissions, which the agency was to use in crafting new restrictions that would apply to all oil and gas operations, not just those on federal land.
Some Republicans have allied with the charge that methane’s role in changing the climate is exaggerated, noting the gas escaping from oil and gas operations on federal land accounted for a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas that must be cut under the global climate agreement President Obama signed in Paris.
But as climate actions go, this one packs a relatively big punch for the price. Methane leaks are America’s second-biggest industrial source of climate change, behind power plant emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Retreating on efforts to contain them is another signal internationally that the U.S. is ceding the leadership role on the issue it cemented in Paris to other nations, such as China.
And that doesn’t sit well with some Republicans, leaving in limbo a rule rollback that oil and gas companies once anticipated would be easy.
evan.halper@latimes.com
Efforts to roll back methane gas mandate draw public backlash.
A DRILLING RIG at the Jonah Field in Sublette County, Wyo. Methane is among the most potent accelerators of global warming, 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, and was a focal point in the Obama administration’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. (Alex Milan Tracy Sipa USA)
By Evan Halper
WASHINGTON — As Republican lawmakers consider how closely to align with the climate skepticism and fossil-fuel fervor radiating from the White House, a nascent clean air initiative that energy firms want scrapped is fast testing their comfort zone.
Weighing on them is 41 billion cubic feet of methane, a greenhouse gas leaking from many of the nearly 100,000 oil and gas wells on federally owned land. Methane is among the most potent accelerators of global warming, 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
Since the House swiftly voted last month to lift a requirement that escaping gas be trapped and converted to electricity, the backlash has been intense.
Anger is most pronounced in the West, where tens of thousands of residents near drilling operations risk exposure to the toxic compounds that leak in tandem with the methane. Local governments are also desperate for the royalty money they would be entitled to if that gas were turned to energy.
“The thought of a bunch of disconnected lawmakers who don’t live next to leaking gas wells deciding to vote to take this protection away from us just leaves me speechless,” said New Mexico cattleman Don Schreiber, whose Devil’s Spring Ranch in Rio Arriba County is surrounded by 122 natural gas wells.
Supervisors in adjacent La Plata County, Colo., passed a resolution calling on Congress to abandon the rollback. More than 80% of the people in Western states including Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming support the Obama-era mandate, according to a Colorado College poll taken in December.
The political tension has left many Republican senators wavering as they struggle with the potential fallout of going after a signature Obama administration climate change policy that — like many others — has a constituency that extends far beyond climate hawks.
They face competing pressure from the Trump administration, as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt rebukes climate science and steps away from his agency’s far-reaching methane blueprint, intended to stem leaks that in some cases are so large they can be spotted from outer space.
Oil and gas companies have recruited powerful allies in the fight, including in California’s Central Valley, home to some of the highest concentrations of methane anywhere.
“As federal lands become less cost-effective to produce energy on, this unnecessary rule adds to that burden and could wipe out marginal wells run by family-owned businesses who can’t pack up and move their operations,” warned a report posted by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield.
He also forecasts financial peril for local governments if the Obama-era rule is not immediately rolled back.
Such pressure has yet to sway many GOP colleagues tangled in the messy politics of methane, such as Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner. His state, like McCarthy’s, is among several that have passed their own laws requiring oil and gas companies to pursue aggressive measures to contain the methane. Many of Gardner’s constituents, including energy firms subject to the new state law, are demanding he help preserve the federal restraints so operators in adjacent states with no local laws would have to abide by the same rules.
They point to pollution drifting from Utah and New Mexico, exacerbating air problems in Colorado. Firms there resent that their nearby competitors can ignore leaks they can’t. The state’s burgeoning clean-energy industry, with its growing bipartisan political might, is applying its own pressure.
“I’m continuing to meet with my constituents on this topic and will continue to do so until the vote,” Gardner wrote in an email.
GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina both announced they would vote against efforts to roll back the rule.
Other Republicans are leaving open the option of joining them, as public concern about leaking methane across the country puts energy firms under new pressure to invest in technology to contain it.
Charges by energy companies that the rule would bankrupt them conflict with Bureau of Land Management findings that the average small business with an oil or gas operation on federal property would see its profit margin reduced by two-tenths of 1% as a result of the rule.
The amount of methane escaping each year, the Obama administration ultimately concluded, is enough to provide electricity for nearly 740,000 homes. The Government Accountability Office alerted Congress in July that capturing it would boost royalties owed to taxpayers by $23 million.
“We shouldn’t just be giving away these taxpayer assets,” said Ryan Alexander, president of the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “We should be demanding fair compensation for them.”
But layered over the fights about royalties and air pollution is the more contentious issue of climate change. Methane was a focal point in the Obama administration’s governmentwide plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions that President Trump set about tearing up upon taking office.
The White House calls the plan “expensive and unnecessary.” This month, Pruitt told oil and gas companies not to bother complying with a directive from the EPA to compile and report data related to their methane emissions, which the agency was to use in crafting new restrictions that would apply to all oil and gas operations, not just those on federal land.
Some Republicans have allied with the charge that methane’s role in changing the climate is exaggerated, noting the gas escaping from oil and gas operations on federal land accounted for a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas that must be cut under the global climate agreement President Obama signed in Paris.
But as climate actions go, this one packs a relatively big punch for the price. Methane leaks are America’s second-biggest industrial source of climate change, behind power plant emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Retreating on efforts to contain them is another signal internationally that the U.S. is ceding the leadership role on the issue it cemented in Paris to other nations, such as China.
And that doesn’t sit well with some Republicans, leaving in limbo a rule rollback that oil and gas companies once anticipated would be easy.
evan.halper@latimes.com
Mar 19, 2017 04:34:03 #
Gays should stomp on the American flag........freedom...
POLITICS WATCH
Man stomps on gay pride flag at Capitol office
He says it’s ‘immoral’ to display it near American flag. He’s let go, as police say he broke no rules.
REP. ALAN LOWENTHAL says of the incident: “I just think it’s terrible. ... It just reinforces my belief that more work needs to be done.” (Tom Williams CQ-Roll Call Inc.)
SARAH D. WIRE
WASHINGTON — An unidentified man entered Rep. Alan Lowenthal’s Capitol Hill office Wednesday upset about the display of a gay pride flag and pulled it from its stand outside the office to forcefully and repeatedly step on it, the Long Beach congressman said Thursday.
The incident occurred after the man told Lowenthal’s staff that it was “immoral” and “disgusting” to fly the flag associated with the gay rights movement near the American flag, Lowenthal said.
“The fact that someone would grab a flag that they didn’t like and not just throw it on the ground, but stomp all over it ... it’s certainly shocking,” he said.
Lowenthal was not present, but his chief of staff and other staff members followed the man down a hallway and urged him to return to the office and speak with Capitol police.
Capitol police spoke with the man at the office, Lowenthal said.
“They told us he didn’t break any rules or any laws, so they let him go,” he said.
A Capitol police spokeswoman said they do not comment on ongoing investigations.
Lowenthal, vice chairman of the House LGBT Caucus, has displayed the gay pride flag outside his office since 2013. He said he was told at the time it was the first of its kind to be displayed at the Capitol. He said passersby often comment that they're happy he’s displaying the flag, but this is the first incident of someone having a negative comment about it or touching it.
“I just think it’s terrible. I’m just shocked that it happened,” Lowenthal said. “It just reinforces my belief that more work needs to be done.”
The flag already is back on display.
“We’re proud to fly the pride flag, and we’re going to continue to show how proud we are,” Lowenthal said.
Many members of Congress have displays outside their Capitol Hill offices. Several members of the California delegation display pride flags alongside the American flag and the California flag, and they jumped to Lowenthal’s defense.
sarah.wire@latimes.com
Twitter: @sarahdwire
POLITICS WATCH
Man stomps on gay pride flag at Capitol office
He says it’s ‘immoral’ to display it near American flag. He’s let go, as police say he broke no rules.
REP. ALAN LOWENTHAL says of the incident: “I just think it’s terrible. ... It just reinforces my belief that more work needs to be done.” (Tom Williams CQ-Roll Call Inc.)
SARAH D. WIRE
WASHINGTON — An unidentified man entered Rep. Alan Lowenthal’s Capitol Hill office Wednesday upset about the display of a gay pride flag and pulled it from its stand outside the office to forcefully and repeatedly step on it, the Long Beach congressman said Thursday.
The incident occurred after the man told Lowenthal’s staff that it was “immoral” and “disgusting” to fly the flag associated with the gay rights movement near the American flag, Lowenthal said.
“The fact that someone would grab a flag that they didn’t like and not just throw it on the ground, but stomp all over it ... it’s certainly shocking,” he said.
Lowenthal was not present, but his chief of staff and other staff members followed the man down a hallway and urged him to return to the office and speak with Capitol police.
Capitol police spoke with the man at the office, Lowenthal said.
“They told us he didn’t break any rules or any laws, so they let him go,” he said.
A Capitol police spokeswoman said they do not comment on ongoing investigations.
Lowenthal, vice chairman of the House LGBT Caucus, has displayed the gay pride flag outside his office since 2013. He said he was told at the time it was the first of its kind to be displayed at the Capitol. He said passersby often comment that they're happy he’s displaying the flag, but this is the first incident of someone having a negative comment about it or touching it.
“I just think it’s terrible. I’m just shocked that it happened,” Lowenthal said. “It just reinforces my belief that more work needs to be done.”
The flag already is back on display.
“We’re proud to fly the pride flag, and we’re going to continue to show how proud we are,” Lowenthal said.
Many members of Congress have displays outside their Capitol Hill offices. Several members of the California delegation display pride flags alongside the American flag and the California flag, and they jumped to Lowenthal’s defense.
sarah.wire@latimes.com
Twitter: @sarahdwire
Mar 19, 2017 05:48:20 #
Progressive One wrote:
Letters on letters br How free is âfreedomâ? b... (show quote)
Still a LIAR and a FRAUD, Nappy BOY! Must be hard to be a crack a baby and lie to make ends meet...that ol welfare checks and foodstamps is all you are about. The po lil nappy with no pappy...so unhappy because you still "ain't white".....
I be designing puter stuff and uh then I do some work for Bo Nanas....I be an EE yup ....
Mar 19, 2017 07:25:55 #
Mar 19, 2017 07:36:39 #
Trump budget may hurt L.A. homelessness fight
Plan would cut federal rent vouchers that were expected to be used for thousands of new units, officials say.
AN ENCAMPMENT on 39th Street under the 110 Freeway in L.A. President Trump’s budget could upend the city’s housing efforts. “There are a lot of moving parts, none of them good,” said L.A.’s housing authority chief. (Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times)
By Gale Holland
President Trump’s budget would upend Los Angeles’ attempt to solve its homelessness crisis, cutting into federal rent subsidies that had been expected to cover operating costs for thousands of new housing units, officials said Friday.
Limitations built into the spending plan for the Department of Housing and Urban Development would force the loss of 200,000 vouchers from the federal Section 8 program, 4,000 to 5,000 of them in the city of Los Angeles, officials estimated.
Douglas Guthrie, president and chief executive of the city’s housing authority, said the cuts would eliminate all new vouchers and probably rescind some from families already on the Section 8 rolls.
Congress still has to weigh in on Trump’s plan, and budget details remain sketchy. But officials are worried.
“It certainly signals intent and where they want to go,” said Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. “We have to take it very seriously.”
“There are a lot of moving parts, none of them good,” Guthrie said.
After decades of struggling to manage homelessness, the city in November persuaded voters to approve $1.2 billion in bonds to build up to 10,000 homeless and low-income housing units, with long-term financial support projected to come from rent vouchers.
L.A. County voters this month approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to generate $355 million a year for homeless supportive services.
The measure narrowly cleared the required two-thirds majority, officials said Friday.
Trump also called for cutting off all community development block grants, which Lynn said the city uses for emergency shelters and short-term rent support for homeless families.
A budget increase is proposed for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which agreed in 2016 to build 1,200 units for homeless veterans at its West Los Angeles campus. The rent vouchers for that project, however, also come from the Department of Housing and Urban Development budget.
A possible preview of what might happen if Trump’s budget is adopted came in 2013, when the federal sequestration halted distribution of all rent vouchers in Los Angeles, officials said.
Douglas Rice, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said the federal government currently operates under a spending cap that limits funds for poor people.
Trump’s budget, Rice said, has received some “fair pushback” from Republicans and Democrats. But, he added, there is no organized constituency for tenant subsidies.
On the other hand, block grants are popular with mayors, and Republicans have consistently supported voucher renewals in the past, Rice said.
One option not on the table is curtailing the city’s homeless housing construction, Guthrie said.
“There has been an enormous effort by the city and by the county, backed by the citizens, to comprehensively address the homeless problem here,” Guthrie said. “We will do our part in making sure that program works.”
gale.holland@latimes.com
Twitter: @geholland
Plan would cut federal rent vouchers that were expected to be used for thousands of new units, officials say.
AN ENCAMPMENT on 39th Street under the 110 Freeway in L.A. President Trump’s budget could upend the city’s housing efforts. “There are a lot of moving parts, none of them good,” said L.A.’s housing authority chief. (Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times)
By Gale Holland
President Trump’s budget would upend Los Angeles’ attempt to solve its homelessness crisis, cutting into federal rent subsidies that had been expected to cover operating costs for thousands of new housing units, officials said Friday.
Limitations built into the spending plan for the Department of Housing and Urban Development would force the loss of 200,000 vouchers from the federal Section 8 program, 4,000 to 5,000 of them in the city of Los Angeles, officials estimated.
Douglas Guthrie, president and chief executive of the city’s housing authority, said the cuts would eliminate all new vouchers and probably rescind some from families already on the Section 8 rolls.
Congress still has to weigh in on Trump’s plan, and budget details remain sketchy. But officials are worried.
“It certainly signals intent and where they want to go,” said Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. “We have to take it very seriously.”
“There are a lot of moving parts, none of them good,” Guthrie said.
After decades of struggling to manage homelessness, the city in November persuaded voters to approve $1.2 billion in bonds to build up to 10,000 homeless and low-income housing units, with long-term financial support projected to come from rent vouchers.
L.A. County voters this month approved a quarter-cent sales tax increase to generate $355 million a year for homeless supportive services.
The measure narrowly cleared the required two-thirds majority, officials said Friday.
Trump also called for cutting off all community development block grants, which Lynn said the city uses for emergency shelters and short-term rent support for homeless families.
A budget increase is proposed for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which agreed in 2016 to build 1,200 units for homeless veterans at its West Los Angeles campus. The rent vouchers for that project, however, also come from the Department of Housing and Urban Development budget.
A possible preview of what might happen if Trump’s budget is adopted came in 2013, when the federal sequestration halted distribution of all rent vouchers in Los Angeles, officials said.
Douglas Rice, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said the federal government currently operates under a spending cap that limits funds for poor people.
Trump’s budget, Rice said, has received some “fair pushback” from Republicans and Democrats. But, he added, there is no organized constituency for tenant subsidies.
On the other hand, block grants are popular with mayors, and Republicans have consistently supported voucher renewals in the past, Rice said.
One option not on the table is curtailing the city’s homeless housing construction, Guthrie said.
“There has been an enormous effort by the city and by the county, backed by the citizens, to comprehensively address the homeless problem here,” Guthrie said. “We will do our part in making sure that program works.”
gale.holland@latimes.com
Twitter: @geholland
Mar 19, 2017 08:28:24 #
eagleye13 wrote:
Yep; It is time to straighten up!
Your sick candidate screwed up.
Hillary Clinton Song 2016 - Hillary Clinton Flu
https://youtu.be/aNPGteZCjVM
HILLARY IS SO VAIN
https://youtu.be/z3bYb7qtkbo
Can't Touch Me The Hillary Song
https://youtu.be/zcTGTFNXJss
Your sick candidate screwed up.
Hillary Clinton Song 2016 - Hillary Clinton Flu
https://youtu.be/aNPGteZCjVM
HILLARY IS SO VAIN
https://youtu.be/z3bYb7qtkbo
Can't Touch Me The Hillary Song
https://youtu.be/zcTGTFNXJss
I think you meant that for straightup.
Mar 19, 2017 13:33:41 #
Bevos wrote:
I think you meant that for straightup. br img s... (show quote)
That I did.
Has he straightened up, and walking erect yet?
Mar 19, 2017 14:46:08 #
Floyd Brown
Loc: Milwaukee WI
Big Bass wrote:
As usual, you make all these outrageously ludicrous claims, and you never provide irrefutable proof. Have you not yet learned that smart people do not believe in fiction?
They may not believe it but they sure know how to spread it.
Mar 19, 2017 15:04:41 #
Floyd Brown
Loc: Milwaukee WI
woodssprite 17 wrote:
Only morons can find reasons to like Trump and sup... (show quote)
Add one more to the I have my eyes open Gang.
It will sure take a lot of crap before his backers will get a clue to what is going on.
Some will never get it. After buying the B.S. From the right for so long they have a taste for it.
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