$31K Dining Set? Ben Carson’s HUD Could Have Spent Just $7K: Here’s How

Posted on March 03, 2018 | by Chhing Chhut in News | 1409 Views

K Dining Set? Ben Carson’s HUD Could Have Spent Just K: Here’s How

ben-carson-set — Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The average cost of tuition for a private four-year college is $32,140—just $489 more than the dining set purchased by Ben Carson‘s Department of Housing and Urban Development. This week, we learned that HUD purchased new furniture for its offices for a whopping $31,651.

Carson, HUD secretary, says he was shocked by the extravagant makeover—although the initial request to upgrade the HUD offices came from his wife, Candy Carson, according to the Washington Post.

“I was as surprised as anyone to find out that a $31,000 dining set had been ordered,” Carson said in a statement on Thursday, adding that he wants to cancel the furniture order. The lavish dining set included a table, two armchairs, eight dining chairs, a “breakfront” (a hoity-toity word for china cabinet), and a two-piece sideboard.

So how did this expensive ordeal even come to be? The dining table and chairs were from 1967 and deemed beyond repair, a HUD official told CNN. Sebree and Associates, the interior design firm that sold the dining set to HUD, said the agency wanted to replace the “raggedy” furniture with something “traditional.”

Career official Helen Foster objected to the pricey purchases—HUD has a redecorating budget that’s capped at $5,000—but was overruled, according to CNN. She later left the agency and filed a complaint, saying she was demoted because of her objections. In her sworn complaint, Foster says a supervisor told her that “$5,000 will not even buy a decent chair.”

But is that really the case? We did some digging and found pieces in a similarly statesmanlike style, but with vastly lower price tags—the total came in at $7,066. It’s a difference of $24,585—which would have kept Carson’s department at least in the ballpark of the budget. Let’s take a look, shall we?