In a sneaky move to get our sympathy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has declared itself incompetent and is calling itself "the poster child for inept government." How cute. Stick that lower lip out a bit further, and we might throw you some spare change.

To prevent HUD from having to apply for disability benefits (or declare itself blighted), Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo presented a plan for restructuring the department to make it more "business-oriented." (As if that wasn't the problem to begin with!)

First of all, Cuomo's going to send HUD employees back to school by establishing an academy to retrain them all. Then, he's going to cut back staff from 10,500 employees to 7,500 within three years. And finally, he's gonna turn over HUD to a senior officer from the FBI, just to make sure nobody takes any more kickbacks. May we suggest the veteran FBI agent (Jerome Sullivan) who was arrested last month for embezzling $400,000 while investigating the Gambino crime family? Who better to lead HUD into the 21st century than someone who knows all the ins and outs of fraud, theft, corruption, and misrepresentation of facts?

Maybe one of the Nordstroms?