The New Conservative Housing Push

[Geee]

 

National Review

After home prices surged and then crashed between 2003 and 2011, many of us hoped that the housing crisis was behind us. Instead, the relentless rise in rent — which, unlike home prices, barely fell during the Great Recession — has revealed a bigger underlying problem. And Republican politicians in Washington have taken the lead in the search for policy solutions that ease the housing crisis while maintaining local self-government.

As is often the case, the first step toward good policy is to repeal bad policy. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 took a meaningful step toward cooling off the most inflated home prices by moving more taxpayers to a bigger, simpler standard deduction. Old and busted: tax incentives that promote mortgage debt, high local taxes, and overpriced homes. New hotness: not paying extra taxes because you rent.

This year, President Donald Trump, Senator Todd Young (R., Ind.), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Ben Carson have all gone further, taking national leadership roles in calling for less regulation of housing markets.

Carson and Young, along with Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.), have singled out some Community Development Block Grants as subsidies to places that are actively undermining the purpose of the grants.

On June 25, Senator Young introduced the Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) Act. If passed, the bill would require very little — just that grant recipients with strict regulations explain why they chose not to deregulate. Later the same day, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to promote housing affordability and work together with local and state governments to remove excessive regulation.