California Watch Be Very Afraid, As Democrats ‘Fix’ the Housing Crisis

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American Spectator

It’s common to hear complaints about a “do nothing” Congress, but California’s Legislature has the opposite problem. It wants to do just about everything. Whether it’s fighting global warming or creating a new state-run mini Social Security system to bolster private pensions, California’s legislators don’t lack any sense of ambition. This week, they’ve announced their goal of solving the state’s housing mess.
For California taxpayers and wannabe homebuyers, some advice is in order. Be very afraid. State officials often identify actual crises. Their solutions are the problem. They always involve higher taxes, new bureaucracies, more subsidies, and additional regulations that inevitably make every situation worse. It never dawns on legislators that their previous policies created the problem at hand.
Housing is the perfect example. Home prices continue to soar, and now are at levels last seen at the height of the 2008 real-estate bubble. Median home prices for the nine-county Bay Area — not just within the always-costly city of San Francisco — have hit $755,000. The median price in Orange County is $695,000. Median prices for all of Southern California, which includes many down-market and inland regions, is a half-million bucks.

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