While arguing that owning a home is rooted in “deep racism and classism,” Zohran Mamdani’s newly instated radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, seems to have forgotten that her roots are made of gentrification and million-dollar homes.
“Democratically controlled public housing is really important. ... You know, people like homeownership because they like control, and that’s been perverted by, like, deep racism and deep classism in our society,” Weaver once said confidently on a podcast.
“So, like, we have to not have a racist and classist society. And so that’s, like, something we need to think about, like, deeply,” she continued.
“To me, it's about control,” she added. “And why rent control is really important is because rent control alters the power dynamic between renters and who owns the building,” she added.
“So, it’s racist to own a home,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says on “Pat Gray Unleashed,” before pointing out that Weaver’s mother reportedly owns a $1.6 million home in Nashville, Tennessee.
“So, she’s obviously a racist,” Gray says. “And it’s in what used to be a predominantly black neighborhood, which they’ve gentrified, and that’s absolutely wrong no matter who you are or where you’re doing it. You can’t have white people moving into black neighborhoods.”
And Gray isn’t the only one aware of Weaver’s mother’s “racist” homeownership.
When she walked outside of her Brooklyn apartment this week, she was asked about the home her mother owns — and instead of answering, she began crying and ran back inside.
“She broke down in tears. She turned around and left. Now, they thought that she was heading toward the subway station,” Gray laughs. “Instead, she just went back home and then started looking out the window where there’s also a poster there that says, ‘Free Palestine.’”
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The American dream is slipping away for many young Americans, as life becomes increasingly unaffordable — especially home ownership. Soaring home prices and interest rates and a housing shortage bar younger generations of people from purchasing a house. Today, the average age of a first-time home buyer is 40 years old.
Many ideas are being tossed around regarding how to bring home ownership back into the realm of possibility for young families — most notably President Trump’s polarizing 50-year mortgage proposal.
But Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” says we’re ignoring a simple solution: eliminate property taxes.
Right now in the state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is aggressively pushing for the elimination of property taxes, condemning them as "rent to the government.”
Abolishing property taxes, says Sara, is a “standard conservative position.” “You should not have to buy a home and then spend 20, 30, 50 years paying off that home, and yet you still never truly own your home because you would still pay rent to the government,” she says.
And yet there are conservatives who oppose the elimination of property taxes, claiming it encourages older homeowners to hoard inventory.
“So you're basically saying … we should what? Kick all the oldies out of the homes that they've paid for so that young people can buy them up? Like, I'm sorry, are we conservatives or are we not?” asks Sara.
Further, senior tax caps allow older homeowners to pay significantly less in property taxes than younger homeowners, meaning Boomers are already incentivized to not sell. But if we were to enforce higher taxes on our senior population, as some conservatives suggest, we’re now guilty, Sara argues, of the same thing we criticize socialists for — taxing the rich.
Another pro-property-tax argument is that the tax accounts for significant funding for education. But public schools, says Sara, aren't something most true conservatives want to fund anyway because “they're indoctrinating your children."
If we really want to make sure the essentials, like police and fire services, are well funded, we should first look at eliminating all waste, fraud, and abuse. If it’s out of control at the federal level, then it’s almost certainly out of control at the local level, says Sara.
All in all, eliminating the property tax benefits everyone, says Sara. Not only will it prevent people from being forced to pay lifetime rent to the government, but when older homeowners eventually do die, younger families have a better chance of affording those vacant homes because they’re not inheriting enormous property taxes.
“Take this into consideration,” says Sara.
“Say you have parents who are wealthy because they've worked hard and they own a lot of land … that they would like to give to you when they die. Consider you will not even be able to keep your parents' property or home with the astronomical property taxes that you will owe at the end of every year on land and a home that they already paid for.”
“If you're young and you ever want to own a home, you should recognize that [property taxes are] a problem for everyone. So let's solve the problem for everyone.”
To hear more, watch the episode above.
To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
It’s never been more unaffordable to buy and finance a home in America. And yet, government officials seem confused about the cause, chasing “solutions” that will only make things worse. They want more building, lower rates, and more subsidies. But none of that fixes the core problem.
We don’t have a shortage of homes. We have an affordability crisis driven by government intervention — one that’s inflated yet another asset bubble. Housing, like education and health care, has been hijacked by easy money, fake pricing signals, and federal subsidies designed to mask structural rot.
You can’t paper over decades of distortion with another round of Fed intervention.
The solution isn’t more easy money. It’s pulling the plug on government policies that distort markets. Enough with near-zero interest rates. Enough with the Federal Reserve buying mortgage-backed securities. Enough with Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA inflating demand that the market can’t sustain.
Remember the late ’90s? Mortgage rates sat between 7% and 8%. Nobody panicked or complained much about the cost of living. People bought homes. Prices were reasonable. Inflation was low because deficits were shrinking and money wasn’t being printed into oblivion.
Then came the dot-com crash, George W. Bush’s post-9/11 spending spree, and the Clinton-era “affordable housing” schemes coming due. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s footprint expanded. The Fed, under Chairman Alan Greenspan, dropped rates to near zero — the same path Trump wants now — and we inflated the first major housing bubble of the 21st century.
From 2001 to 2006, Washington juiced the market at every turn. M2 money supply growth topped 10% and stayed above 8% into 2003. The Fed funds rate plummeted from 6.25% to 1%, where it stayed for a full year. Real rates were negative for two and a half years.
No surprise what followed: Real estate loans at commercial banks surged at a compound annual rate of 12.26%. Cheap money and inflated supply pushed prices through the roof. The result was a bubble built not on demand but distortion.
Then came the collapse.
And what did Washington do? Bailouts for big banks. Bailouts for Fannie and Freddie. Dodd-Frank. Obamacare. Trillions in new debt. The Fed held rates near zero for six more years, planting the seeds for the next wave of asset inflation — especially in housing.
Then came COVID.
The government printed $7 trillion and subsidized nearly everything. Rates dropped back near zero. The Fed bought trillions more in mortgage-backed securities. Freddie, Fannie, and the FHA expanded their subsidies even further. By 2021, we had the biggest housing bubble in American history.
Now, we’ve hit the wall. The Fed had to raise rates to fight inflation. That created a generational rate cliff. Sellers don’t want to give up their 2% and 3% mortgages. Buyers can’t afford homes at today’s prices — prices that are still artificially high thanks to 15 years of easy money and government meddling.
And yet, housing starts have held up decently. The problem isn’t inventory — it’s liquidity and affordability.
In June, existing home sales dropped to their slowest pace since 2009. But it’s not because no one’s selling. Redfin reports 500,000 more sellers than buyers — a 33.7% gap, the widest since 2005. Total inventory rose to 1.53 million units, up nearly 16% from last year. Vacancies have spiked 28% since the second quarter of 2022. New home supply has ballooned to 9.8 months.
RELATED: Government broke the housing market — only this will fix it
In a real free market, prices would drop sharply. But when government, either directly or indirectly, backs 90% of the U.S. mortgage market, that’s not how it works. Subsidized mortgages and distorted demand keep prices frozen — even as sales crater.
Sellers want prices buyers can’t afford. According to the Atlanta Fed, a household now needs $124,150 in “qualified income” to afford the median home. But the median household income is just $79,223.
Lowering interest rates again won’t fix this. It’ll just stoke inflation and feed the next bubble. And with the Treasury dumping trillions in debt onto the market, 10-year yields — and therefore 30-year mortgage rates — aren’t coming down anytime soon.
Absent a 2008-level crash, housing prices aren’t dropping meaningfully. We’re stuck.
If you want rates to fall, slash spending and debt. That’s how you bring prices down. You can’t paper over decades of distortion with another round of Fed intervention.
Live by Fed money printing, die by Fed money printing.
Texans take pride in low taxes. We believe in keeping what we earn. But property taxes undermine that principle — not just in Texas, but across America.
What started as a local way to fund roads and schools has metastasized into a national scandal: a form of government rent on homes we’ve already paid for. Unlike sales taxes, which reflect voluntary spending, property taxes punish ownership itself — a direct affront to freedom and a quiet war on the American dream.
America was built on the promise of land and liberty. Unchecked property taxation makes a mockery of that promise.
It’s not just a Lone Star problem. From New Jersey to Illinois, California to Florida, families are being taxed out of their homes. Soaring appraisals and bloated local budgets trap homeowners on an endless treadmill: Pay off your mortgage, and you’re still stuck with escalating annual bills. That’s not ownership. That’s serfdom cloaked in paperwork.
Local governments dress up this shakedown. They cite needs like schools, roads, and emergency services. But where’s the accountability? Budgets balloon, bureaucracies swell, and taxpayers foot the bill while public trust evaporates. Politicians boast of stable or “lowered” tax rates, yet the truth is plain: When your appraisal jumps, so does your bill. It’s a rigged game of smoke and mirrors.
This system is a bipartisan betrayal. It punishes young families trying to build a future and retirees trying to hang on to what they’ve earned. It squeezes small businesses and destabilizes communities. For those on fixed incomes — especially seniors — it’s a slow-motion eviction notice signed by the state. Even in places like Denton County, Texas, where limited relief exists, it’s just a patch on a broken dam. The broader trend is unmistakable: rising appraisals, rising taxes, and rising resentment.
At the root, property taxes don’t treat citizens as owners. They treat us as permanent tenants of the government. If the state can hike your bill every year based on speculative market guesses, who really owns your land? Not you. The government does. You’re just paying them to stay on it.
RELATED: A tax hike is coming — and it’s not just for the rich
This is an assault on middle-class stability — and it’s intentional. The ruling class, backed by urban technocrats and local cronies, thrives on an ever-expanding tax base. They want your home to bankroll their pet projects. Can’t afford to keep up? They’ll auction your house on the courthouse steps and call it “revenue recovery.”
Enough.
The solution isn’t complicated. States need hard caps on tax hikes, not flimsy guidelines. Require automatic rollbacks when appraisals skyrocket. Mandate full transparency on every dollar spent. And no more sneaky tax hikes disguised as “market adjustments.”
If local governments want more revenue, let them make their case to voters in the open — not hide behind bloated Zillow estimates. Critics whine that this would “tie local officials’ hands.” Good. Their hands need tying. We’re not funding empires. We’re protecting homes.
Arthur Laffer’s warnings still ring true: Tax too much, and you kill growth. Over-tax property, and you kill ownership itself. Texas drew families and entrepreneurs by avoiding income taxes and offering stability. If property taxes keep climbing, that magnet will flip — and families will bolt.
Nationwide, it’s already happening. Americans are uprooting from high-tax states, chasing affordability that’s disappearing fast. Census data shows that millions are voting with their feet. But if states don’t overhaul how they fund local government, the problem will follow. The escape hatch is closing.
This isn’t just about economics. It’s about sovereignty. If the government can claim an ever-growing slice of your home’s value, it effectively owns a piece of your life. That’s not freedom — that’s feudalism in a modern shell.
America was built on the promise of land and liberty. Unchecked property taxation makes a mockery of that promise. A nation of owners is becoming a nation of renters — forever indebted to a system that never stops taking.
It’s time for a reckoning.
Texas can lead the way by tightening rollback rules, streamlining protests, and forcing every taxing entity to justify every penny. Other states must follow. Because this isn’t just a local fight. It’s a national crisis.
If we fail, we’re not just losing our homes. We’re losing our country. Put homeowners ahead of bureaucrats. Stop pretending the government owns a stake in our houses. Restore the American dream — not just in speeches, but in law.
The move to ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes is a step in the right direction, but it won’t fix the major housing affordability crisis we face right now.
'Potential home buyers would benefit greatly from a whole-of-government approach at the federal, at the state, and at the local level,' said Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni.
States need not punish seniors, but tax policies must be structured in such a way so as not to freeze younger generations out of the market.
For the frustrated and disillusioned on the right, here are four foundational reasons to give thanks for this great country.
Americans want zero illegal immigration, little or no legal immigration, and a mass deportation system that makes noticeable cultural changes to American cities and towns.
A 50-year mortgage, an eight-year car loan, and a forever college payment. Is this the best we can do for our young people?
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