The rate cliff is real — and Washington created it



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.

Cause and effect

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.

Welcome to the rate cliff

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

rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images

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.

You want lower rates? Cut spending

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.

Welcome to Rent Nation, where no one owns and no one is free



For generations, homeownership has been a cornerstone of the American dream. It meant stability, responsibility, and the chance to pass wealth to the next generation. It gave people a stake in their communities.

But that dream is slipping away. And it’s not by accident.

If we want Americans to remain free and self-governing, they must be able to own their homes and their futures.

We are drifting into a rental society. Fewer families can afford to buy a home, while massive investment firms and corporate landlords are buying up the housing supply and turning America into a nation of tenants.

This is hardly the natural evolution of the market. Rather, it’s the result of decades of bad policy, turbocharged by emerging technology and justified by global elites who’ve decided that private property is both outdated and unsustainable.

The corporate land grab

The “renters’ revolution” emerged from bad policy. For years, local, state, and federal governments have made it more difficult and expensive to build homes. Zoning restrictions choke supply.

Environmental rules delay development. Add in the unintended consequences of government-backed mortgage schemes in the Bill Clinton era, which played a major role in the 2008 housing market crash, and you’ve got a system that makes homes less attainable, despite the stated intentions of the enacted policies.

Into that broken system stepped Wall Street. After the crash, investment giants like Blackstone began buying up foreclosed homes in bulk, turning millions of single-family homes into rental properties. Much of this trend is made possible by emerging technology.

Today, institutional investors use artificial intelligence and algorithmic tools to scan markets and make instant cash offers, often outbidding families looking to buy their first homes. Companies such as Invitation Homes own tens of thousands of properties, all of which are managed through centralized apps, automated lease terms, and data-driven pricing tools.

We are experiencing a market shift — from millions of individual owners to a few corporate landlords.

Ideological push against ownership

This shift is also being encouraged, explicitly and implicitly, by international organizations pushing a post-ownership future. The World Economic Forum’s “you’ll own nothing and be happy” slogan was presented as a prediction, not a policy.

But look closer, and you’ll see that many World Economic Forum and United Nations initiatives actively promote this shift. The U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals call for denser high-rise cities, a move away from single-family zoning, and new restrictions on suburban development, all in the name of “sustainability” and “equity.”

It’s a coordinated ideological push to replace ownership with access, property with subscriptions, and permanence with flexibility. And the consequences are already showing.

The price of being a permanent renter

When you don’t own your home, you don’t control it. You follow the rules set by someone else. That might mean no pets, no subleasing, and often no firearms on the premises.

As environmental, social, and governance scores, smart devices, and digital IDs creep into the rental landscape, we are fast approaching a future where landlords, driven by corporate and political incentives, can enforce ideological compliance under the guise of lease terms.

Renting means you’re always paying, never building. Homes have long been the foundation of middle-class wealth in America. When families are locked out of ownership, they’re locked out of that opportunity. The result is a cycle where equity flows upward to institutional investors while working families remain stuck on the hamster wheel.

RELATED: Property taxes are killing middle-class ownership nationwide

Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The “renters’ revolution” isn’t without psychological and cultural costs too. People who own their homes are more likely to put down roots, raise families, get involved in their communities, and feel a stake in the future of the country. Renters, especially when forced into that role, often feel transient and disempowered. That rootlessness is breeding disconnection and resentment.

The political fallout

These psychological costs have political consequences. Younger Americans, who increasingly see homeownership as unattainable, are also more likely to believe the system is rigged against them.

And who can blame them? They’re being told that capitalism failed them, when in reality, it’s crony capitalism, ESG corporatism, and global central planners who’ve rigged the game. But that distinction is often lost — or intentionally obscured. This increases the potential for them to turn to the siren song of socialism or further government action.

This is not just an economic problem. It’s a civic one. A society where most people don’t own anything is a society that’s easier to control, easier to manipulate, and easier to pacify. If we want Americans to remain free and self-governing, they must be able to own their homes and their futures.

We need lawmakers to investigate the concentration of housing in corporate hands. We need to roll back ESG-driven distortions in markets and rethink zoning rules that throttle supply. We should do more to promote first-time homeownership, rather than punishing it. And we must restore the idea that private property is not just an economic good — it’s a political necessity.

Mamdani’s socialist New York sounds great — if you don’t have kids



I still remember the first time one of my toddlers bolted into the street — every cell in my body shifted from principle to protection in an instant. Fatherhood doesn’t just stir the heart; it rewires the brain. In those early years, my focus stretched from the next news cycle to the day my kids might walk their own children to school. Sacrifice stopped being a slogan and became second nature.

New York Assemblyman and socialist wunderkind Zohran Mamdani, 33, is newly married and — so far — childless. But he’s busy trying to reshape a city where roughly one-third of children already grow up without fathers. That void correlates with higher poverty, lower academic performance, and a 279% spike in gun-carrying and drug-dealing among boys. These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re generational failures — and Mamdani’s agenda would only make them worse.

Fatherhood teaches trade-offs. Socialism hides them behind someone else’s money.

Take his signature proposal for “free” cradle-to-kindergarten care. He wants universal day care seats, baby-supply “baskets,” mental health counselors in every school, and car-free pickup zones. The cost? Roughly $12 billion per year, funded by higher taxes on employers and top earners.

Parents hear promises like that and think about the paycheck covering piano lessons and groceries. Government doesn’t create money; it redirects it. And new taxes on employers show up as thinner paychecks, higher prices, and fewer jobs.

His rent policy isn’t any better. Nearly 30% of New York renters are families with children. Mamdani wants to pack the city’s Rent Guidelines Board with activist votes to lock rent increases at zero. But freezing rent doesn’t create bedrooms. It discourages builders, shrinks housing supply, and drives growing families out of the city. Ask any parent in a cramped walk-up: When the family grows and the square footage doesn’t, someone ends up sleeping in the hallway.

Mamdani’s approach to crime is just as detached from reality. In 2020, he tweeted: “There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence.” Today, he promotes a $1 billion Department of Community Safety — $600 million of it reallocated from existing programs — staffed largely by social workers.

But dads hauling strollers through subway stations at midnight know what real safety looks like. It involves more than pastel-vested mediators. When train platforms feel lawless, families don’t stick around. They drive. Or they leave the city altogether.

And culture matters too — especially for kids. Mamdani defends the slogan “globalize the intifada,” claiming it’s rooted in the same Arabic term used by the Holocaust Museum to describe the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. He co-sponsored the “Not on Our Dime!” Act to cut off donations to charities linked to Israel and once refused to sign a Holocaust remembrance resolution. Jewish leaders call it anti-Semitism. Parents call it reckless — because they know their kids might hear the echo of that rhetoric in homeroom tomorrow.

Data confirm what dads already know: Kids without a father in the home are 47% more likely to live in poverty. Fathers who show up daily help blunt toxic stress and behavioral problems. It’s not just about income. It’s about modeling restraint, responsibility, and the long-term thinking Mamdani’s high-spend, low-accountability vision systematically undermines.

RELATED: Establishment Dems say Mamdani and his allies are in for a ‘painful lesson’

Photo by Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Our political compass is broken. Résumés stuffed with Ivy League credentials, activist hashtags, and crowdfunding clout now pass for qualifications. Meanwhile, we discount the experience that actually trains a person to lead — especially the crucible of parenthood.

Raising children demands long-term planning, hard budgeting, and a deep sense of stewardship. It builds moral seriousness — and exposes policies that collapse under the weight of real-world trade-offs.

Even California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom just proved the point. On a recent podcast with retired Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Newsom admitted that pushing “gender-affirming care” on 8-year-olds is “tough, man.” He acknowledged that Democrats have a “major problem” with voters on the issue.

And then he said it: “Now that I have a 9-year-old ... I get it.” One of the left’s crown princes backed off the party line the moment fatherhood entered the chat.

Of course, not everyone can have children. Many serve the next generation through adoption, teaching, mentoring, or public service. Their sacrifices matter. The point isn’t that only parents deserve a voice — but that people who have shouldered the daily demands of raising children tend to lead with more foresight, more restraint, and more care than the abstract theorists ever do.

Now picture Zohran Mamdani pacing Gracie Mansion at 2 a.m., rocking a colicky newborn. Would he still blow $12 billion on sprawling social programs instead of cutting waste and letting families keep more of their earnings? Would he still gamble his child’s walk to school on unarmed crisis counselors? Would he still bet her rent on policies that shrink the housing supply?

Fatherhood teaches trade-offs. Socialism hides them behind someone else’s money.

New York needs leadership rooted in faith, family, and lived responsibility — not hashtags or hollow credentials. Until Mamdani graduates from theory to midnight diaper duty, voters who already live in the real world shouldn’t hand him the baby.

Government broke the housing market — only this will fix it



If you’re frustrated with being unable to buy a home today, you’re not alone. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, homeownership affordability has been near an all-time low since 2023. The deadly combination of both home prices and interest rates skyrocketing broke the housing market, but simply lowering interest rates today won’t fix it.

To understand why, it’s important to know what caused this housing affordability crisis. Over the last several years, the federal government spent trillions of dollars it didn’t have in the world’s largest-ever borrowing binge. The money came from the Federal Reserve, which created those trillions of dollars out of nothing, depressing interest rates.

The real solution is not to manipulate rates lower and spawn further inflation, but to get government out of the way so interest rates can come down naturally.

The predictable result was a rapid devaluation of the dollar, manifesting as 40-year-high inflation, followed by the fastest rise in interest rates in just as long to cool off the inflation.

Rates aren’t the problem

Not only did home prices become stratospherically high relative to incomes, but financing costs became prohibitively expensive. Consequently, during the four years of the Biden administration, the monthly mortgage payment doubled on a median-priced home.

For the housing market, this was a one-two punch that cratered affordability and consigned millions of Americans to renting for the foreseeable future.

The Fed’s artificially low interest rates helped cause the problem in the first place. Home prices rose not only because the dollar lost value (taking more dollars to buy the same home), but also because lower interest rates meant potential home buyers could borrow more and bid up the price of homes.

What’s most important to someone when considering buying a home is not the home’s price but the monthly mortgage payment. While the payment is clearly dependent on the whole price, interest rates are also a major factor. When those rates fell below 3%, people were willing to spend much more on the same home because the monthly payment didn’t change much.

As the months passed, however, and the bidding wars continued, prices just kept rising. Once interest rates returned to more normal levels, everything fell apart as monthly mortgage payments exploded. It now takes over two-thirds of the median household’s take-home pay to afford a median-priced home.

Historically, when interest rates rise, home prices fall, but that didn’t happen this time. So many people locked in home loans at interest rates below 4% — or even below 3% — that they can’t sell their homes today, because doing so would mean losing that interest rate and getting a new mortgage at 7%, 8%, or 9%.

The only way to make the math work is if homeowners sell at a huge premium, giving a massive down payment on their next home, minimizing the amount borrowed at a higher rate, and therefore preventing their monthly payment from skyrocketing. The large and fast increases in interest rates pushed home prices even higher instead of lower.

Get government out of the way

The temptation today is for the Fed to simply lower the federal funds rate (its benchmark interest rate), under the assumption that such a move will push down interest rates throughout the economy, including mortgages. Sadly, instead of fixing the broken housing market, it would likely have the opposite effect.

Last autumn, in a move that could only be described as blatant election interference, the federal funds rate was reduced when there was no empirical justification for doing so. But the move buoyed stock prices. Market participants saw through the charade and realized the artificially low rates would ultimately lead to more inflation, which prompted private market interest rates to rise.

RELATED: Trump rips into Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates and suggests he'll be fired soon

Photo by e-crow via Getty Images

Lenders don’t like inflation because it reduces the value of the money being repaid in the future. To compensate, creditors demand a higher rate of return. That’s why the yield on Treasury debt at the end of last year jumped 100 basis points after the federal funds rate fell 100 basis points, demonstrating the Sisyphean nature of the problem.

Additionally, interest rates and home prices have recoupled. If interest rates fall one or even two percentage points, that will again prompt potential home buyers to borrow more, thereby bidding up home prices again. Unless rates drop substantially more, existing homeowners will remain trapped by the golden handcuffs of their 2% or 3% interest rates.

The real solution is not to manipulate rates lower and spawn further inflation, but to get government out of the way so those rates can come down naturally. If the government spent much less, then there would be less demand for borrowed money. Reducing demand in turn reduces the price, and the price for borrowed money is the interest rate.

Profligate government spending broke the housing market. Only fiscal restraint at the federal level will fix the problem.

New York City's Public Housing Is Infamously Trashy. Zohran Mamdani Wants a Lot More of It.

New York City socialist Zohran Mamdani has pledged to target "negligent" landlords and seize their properties if elected mayor. Local real estate experts told the Washington Free Beacon the policy would mark a significant expansion of city power—and lower the quality of affordable housing for New Yorkers.

The post New York City's Public Housing Is Infamously Trashy. Zohran Mamdani Wants a Lot More of It. appeared first on .

The real land-grab isn’t Mike Lee’s — it’s Biden’s ‘30 by 30’



Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

— (@)

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

RELATED: No, Mike Lee isn’t paving over Yellowstone for condos

JohnnyGreig via iStock/Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.

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Red states get it: Economic freedom beats blue-state gimmicks



After enduring state and local COVID policies that wreaked havoc on the economy, followed by historic inflation that delivered a resounding election victory to Donald Trump, you would think that state and local politicians would learn some economic lessons.

Apparently not. Politicians from blue and red states seem to be getting their lessons from very different schools.

If blue states don’t begin to understand how economics work, they are going to continue to see their power centers dwindle.

In red states, politicians want to enable economic freedom. Property taxes, which impose a heavy, lifelong burden on real estate owners, have been a subject of several politicians looking to improve the opportunity to participate in the American dream of home ownership. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is looking at a state constitutional amendment to potentially eradicate property taxes in the state.

Reviving the American dream

Cliff Maloney, CEO of the strategic grassroots organization Citizens Alliance, explained to Blaze News the significance of this lesson:

When you think about it, you never truly own your home. If you miss just a few tax payments, they’ll seize your property that you saved for and worked so hard to make a home. That’s not freedom — that’s essentially just rent to the state. Our internal data shows that out of the 510,000 Americans we’ve talked to, more than 82% said property taxes are a major concern. They're infuriated that while they're being forced to cut their own budgets to survive in today's economy, local governments refuse to do the same.

While not going quite as far as DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) is also trying to deliver some tax relief to property owners, with others in the state working to figure out how to get rid of property taxes in the long term.

Maloney also mentioned that Citizens Alliance's door-knocking and advocacy efforts in New Hampshire “led to abolishing 14 taxes and fees, which has produced a dramatic influx of businesses moving to the state from other nearby states that have a higher tax burden.”

All of this stems from smart economic lessons. Lessons that very blue states have failed to learn.

Democrats haven’t learned anything

After witnessing the inflationary effects of COVID-era stimulus checks — a result that was highly unpopular politically — one might assume politicians would steer clear of repeating the same mistake.

That’s not the case in New York, where Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is laughably handing out “inflation refund” checks, a move even other Democrats are calling a political gimmick — not to mention a bad economic move.

RELATED: How California’s crisis could lead to a big political shift

Carsten Schertzer via iStock/Getty Images

In Virginia, former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, now running for governor, has pledged to raise the minimum wage to $15, another form of market intervention that creates barriers to employment and increases costs.

In Minneapolis, city leaders are considering adding a 2% fee to hotel rooms in an effort to boost tourism — because, apparently, making hotels more expensive is always a good way to get more people to your city.

The people have spoken

Given the importance of the economy to Americans, it’s no surprise that Americans are moving from blue states to red ones. Maloney shared:

We've had the unique opportunity to talk to a lot of new residents during our door-knocking campaigns, and in doing so, our data uncovered that 69% of new residents moved for financial reasons. In 41% of these cases, this was because they were no longer able to afford the skyrocketing cost of living in blue states, while 13% were because of new, better-paying job opportunities.

If blue states don’t begin to understand how economics work, they will continue to see their power centers dwindle. Math doesn’t lie. People are taking their capital and spending power to the states where the math works.

‘Time To Get Back To Building’: Dem Rep. Josh Harder Uses GOP Policy Points To Form Anti-Red Tape Caucus

A new Democratic-led Congressional caucus focused on energy and housing appears to have employed multiple frequently-used GOP policy points in its introductory press release Thursday. The bipartisan Build America Caucus‘ creation was spurred in part by its chair, Democratic California Rep. Josh Harder, and some other Democrats’ efforts to fix their “post-2024 message” and recognize […]

Trump proposes drastic cuts to 'dysfunctional' Section 8 housing program



President Donald Trump's administration released a budget plan on Friday that proposed drastic cuts across the federal government, including slashing the Department of Housing and Urban Development's discretionary funding by more than 40%.

The budget referred to the federal government's current rental assistance program as "dysfunctional." NPR reported that it essentially called to end the Housing Choice Voucher Program, also known as Section 8, noting that it would slash rental aid by roughly 40%.

'It furthers our mission-minded approach at HUD of taking inventory of our programs and processes to address the size and scope of the federal government, which has become too bloated and bureaucratic to efficiently function.'

According to the administration's budget plan, the proposal aims to empower states to provide housing assistance "by transforming the current federal dysfunctional rental assistance programs into a state-based formula grant which would allow states to design their own rental assistance programs based on their unique needs and preferences."

If adopted, the budget would place a two-year cap on rental assistance for able-bodied adults. It would also ensure that "a majority" of the funding went toward the elderly and disabled.

"A state-based formula program would also lead to significant terminations of federal regulations," the budget continued. "In combination with efforts related to opening up federal lands, this model would incentivize states and the private sector to provide affordable housing."

Additionally, the budget would earmark $25 million in housing grants for individuals aging out of the foster care system.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner released a statement responding to Trump's proposed budget, calling it a "bold ... reimagining of how the federal government addresses affordable housing and community development."

"It rightfully provides states and localities greater flexibility while thoughtfully consolidating, streamlining, and simplifying existing programs to serve the American people at the highest standard," Turner said. "It creates the opportunity for greater partnership and collaboration across levels of government by requiring states and localities to have skin in the game and carefully consider how their policies hinder or advance goals of self-sufficiency and economic prosperity."

He added, "Importantly, it furthers our mission-minded approach at HUD of taking inventory of our programs and processes to address the size and scope of the federal government, which has become too bloated and bureaucratic to efficiently function."

Critics of the plan have argued that it would lead to a spike in homelessness.

Kim Johnson, policy manager with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told NPR, "We would see, I think, homelessness escalate in a way that has been really unprecedented and unheard of."

NLIHC argued that the budget would "decimate HUD's vital affordable housing, homelessness, and community development funding."

"In total, the 'skinny' request foreshadows a full request that will aim to slash HUD spending by 44% from FY25, including a proposal that would result in an unprecedented 43% cut to HUD's rental assistance programs," the nonprofit stated.

NLIHC noted that 200,000 households currently depend on the HCV program.

Others supported Trump's move to reduce Section 8 funding significantly.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter wrote in a post on social media, "Section 8 housing is a scam for slumlords to charge the government exorbitant rents on behalf of non-paying welfare recipients. Can't imagine anyone OTHER THAN a slumlord defending it."

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Young Canadians Voted Against Spending Orgy, But Their Insulated Parents Won

Younger Canadians stuck living with their parents and unable to afford starting families supported the Conservative Party. Liberals won.