All those we elect are like kids in a candy store. They are exuberant, giddy at the thought of doing “stuff.” They are filled with the “we need” ideas of “fixing what is broken,” and that is just the beginning.
Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts, has put her leftist two cents into the latest housing bill, one called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This bill is meant to increase the housing supply using a variety of different approaches.
For one, the bill would streamline environmental reviews in an effort to speed the process of constructing homes. It would also mandate that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offer guidance on how communities could best reform zoning and land-use policies to reduce barriers to housing development. This bill would just provide a lot of guidelines around best practices, and specifically pattern books for how local jurisdictions can reduce design and approval costs, other costly red tape processes for housing developers, particularly small developers.
Another provision of the bill would expand the definition of “manufactured housing” that would “unlock” a segment of the housing market by making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce such homes, which are built entirely in factories before being transported to their sites. If you can read between the lines, it is the federal government telling local communities where they will put their thumb on who and where people will live.
This overwhelming allowance for HUD to intervene in local control will make home ownership one of the worst financial decisions you can make. The hundreds of billions that will be spent to put people who cannot afford a home in a home they cannot afford will do nothing to bring home prices down and will clutter every locality with low priced homes in rich priced home areas.
The bill, not signed by the president, will be taken to court and any idea of a quick fix for the home-bereft will not be forthcoming anytime soon.
How the state will take to this latest incursion into local politics is open for discussion. Rest assured if there is a profit to be made, the building industry that has exerted its brand of “corporate capture” on our economy will use all its financial muscle to promote “affordable” housing on a public that has little to no understanding of who will eventually pay the bills.
The value of our currency determines the price we pay for everything. The latest scam to reduce or eliminate ad valorem taxes will not work as advertised and will make the idea of Republicans being “conservative” the latest political joke. Millage rates will increase, referendum financing will be turned into a Vat tax that will be negotiated every year as the economy demands. The local government will be forced to embrace what the state is forced to embrace by the federal government.
Local candidates will speak of solving a problem and while it all sounds good, will create a new class of poor. We will have people who will not be able to pay for their homes and all the “Phantom” costs that come with home ownership.
All this spending without significant wealth creation over time will be more in the vein of “when you feed pigeons you get more pigeons.” Cheap houses encourage those barely able to afford a home to think they will finally find homeownership nirvana.
Over time the sales price of these cheap homes will rise and our county, having its finances determined by builders building on every piece of available land will define quality homes down until we will be living in trailer parks and mini houses. Young people having children will force school taxes to rise. For those who are willing to suffer for the sake of the community, it will be a tough ride.
Our once proud capitalist society has now found that they have to buy off the public before we can get anything done. We have “given” until we have made productive people indolent and worse, we have created an “expectant” class, like chickens waiting to be fed.
Fortunately the entrepreneurial class is not waiting around for the government to buy them dinner. AI has grown in order to take the place of those who will not rise to the occasion and see their place in life. We need to be more demanding and set strict rules to be followed to the letter. Draconian? I do not see any other route.
By Dr. Richard Pitz, Senior Blog Contributor