Nicholas F. Benton Blog

Key Phrase is "Workforce Housing"

2004-09-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

In an area like the City of Falls Church and environs, where the price of an average single family home is now $527,000, affordable housing options become critical, especially when the explosion in home values is coupled by a huge influx of New Americans and others on the lower end of the income ladder. Comes now the concept of "workforce housing," which will be tested soon in Falls Church. Right now, discrimination in housing is permitted only to the advantage of senior citizens. But the innovative concept of "workforce housing" may be attempted to permit government incentives or subsidies for housing designated for government employees and public school teachers, or employees of businesses in a particular jurisdiction. Can it pass legal muster? Well, certainly government, especially in Northern Virginia, needs to be empowered to do far more to ensure that affordable housing is built. I'll be paying close attention to where this goes.

GOP Convention

2004-09-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Big Lie that was the unifying theme at the GOP convention, aside from all that was not talked about, was the assertion made repeatedly in almost all the speeches that the jusitification for invasion of Iraq stemmed from 9-11, i.e. that it was a component of, rather than a diversion from, the search for Bin Laden and the war on terrorism. Former Bush administration officials confirmed that the discussion of invading Iraq commenced from Day One of Bush's term, and there is overwhelming documentation that it was a front-burner issue for years before that for the Project for a New American Century crowd that came en masse into the Administrsation with Bush. The GOPers ability to speak with one voice -- whether from a kinder-gentler type (McCain) or fire-breating type (Miller) -- in repeating this Big Lie over and over served to defuse the enormity of the Iraq fiasco as a major campaign issue, especially since the Democratic opposition has not even identified this blatant ruse as important to expose and discredit. In other words, it looks like the GOP got away with it.

WELCOME TO THE NICHOLAS F. BENTON BLOG SITE

2004-08-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Nicholas F. Benton Blog site, created August 12, 2004. I will be posting routinely on this site on subjects related to articles, editorials and Weekly White House Reports I author weekly in the Falls Church News-Press. Your comments are always welcome. NFB