Trump's HUD initiatives will move forward regardless of health care bill, says Carson

United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson said Tuesday initiatives under HUD, such as increasing millennial home ownership, will continue to move forward regardless of whether Senate Republicans can come together to pass their version of a health care bill.

“We’re working very hard on finding ways to look at things that have gotten in the way and move those things out of the way – regulation after regulation piled on top of each other, which has created a labyrinth, a maze that is very hard to get through,” Carson said during an interview on FOX Business. “And, we’re taking away those detours and making the pathway straight. That’s going to happen regardless of what happens with health care.”

However, Carson noted that he believes the GOP will eventually come together to pass the legislation because although it may not be perfect, “it is progress.”

The HUD secretary also applauded the Trump administration’s push toward a more business-like approach to government, which includes tougher policies regarding housing aid and welfare – something that has received backlash from the other side of the aisle.

“I think it’s important that we recognize that, you know we’re a nation that’s $20 trillion in debt. And, you know we can give out the candy today, and then say to the people coming behind us, ‘too bad, I’m sorry we used it all up.’ Or, we can be responsible at this point in time,” Carson said, adding that it’s not being stingy, but rather a “matter of being responsible.”

Carson, who faced controversy over statements during an interview with SiriusXM Radio in which he called poverty a “state of mind,” emphasized the need to diver deeper into the issue of homelessness to fix the underlying problem.

“It’s not that I don’t believe in being compassion[ate] – there are some saying ‘housing first, that’s the only thing you should be thinking about,’ but I say housing first, second and third. That means, we take the homeless and we put them in a shelter number one, number two we diagnose why they’re there, and number three we fix it. You know, that’s what’s being really compassionate and in the long run that’s the kind of thing that saves us an enormous amount of money.”