And So I Go: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

>>Hearing from Rep. Barney Frank Again on Housing. Dear Lord!

Posted by: on: March 25, 2010

Yep.  Barney Frank, Chairman of House Banking Committee is at it again trying to regulate housing .  It wasn’t enough that he and Senator Dodd between them caused the mortgage bust that we are still suffering from but now he is changing his mind and going in another direction.  We can hope that he decides to retire from the House before his newest ideas have an opportunity to take root.   (sigh) that’s something like wishing on a falling star and believing in the tooth fairy.

Unfortunately neither the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny  and not even God will help us when Frank gets a wild idea and in his arrogance pushes it thru  into actual policy regardless of past history and  experience showing all of us but him that his idea stinks.  BB

Don’t Need More Rental Subsidies

Posted by Tad DeHaven

At Tuesday’s congressional hearing on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said that “It’s a mistake for the government heavily to subsidize home ownership.” Coming from one of the biggest cheerleaders for federal home ownership subsidies, and an architect of the housing meltdown, a conversion from Frank would be welcome.

Unfortunately, Frank followed the comment with a call for more rental housing subsidies:

“We are much better off trying to subsidize rental housing, because when you put people into decent rental housing, you do not confront the problems we have seen putting people inappropriately into home ownership.”

Frank is correct that tying oneself to a mortgage is much riskier than renting. The federal bias toward homeownership has been predicated on its alleged civic virtues, but there’s no virtue in being a slave to an expensive mortgage, especially when one’s house is worth less than the note.

But the government’s dismal experiences with rental subsidies, including public housing, demonstrate that more federal interventions are unwarranted. In addition to abolishing home ownership subsidies, the federal government should also abolish rental subsidies, as a Cato essay by Howard Husock argues.

The following are some key points from the essay:

  • Before federal subsidy programs were begun, and before the widespread use of detailed housing regulations and zoning ordinances, private markets did a good job of provided housing for lower-income Americans. During the period from 1890 to 1930, for example, vast amounts of new working-class housing were built in American cities. Data from that period show that a significant percentage of residents of poor neighborhoods did not live in overcrowded tenements, but instead lived in small homes that they owned or in homes where the owners lived and rented out space.
  • Since the 1930s, the federal government has funded one expensive approach to low-income housing after another—without seeming to notice that the new approaches were made necessary less by market failure than by the failure of past public policies. Public housing projects erected to replace slums soon became severely distressed, housing vouchers meant to end “concentrated poverty” instead moved it around, and the low income housing tax credit program provides large subsidies to developers and few benefits to low-income families.
  • A major social benefit of private and unsubsidized rental and housing markets is the promotion of responsible behavior. Tenants and potential homeowners must establish a good credit history, save money for security deposits or down payments, come with good references from employers, and pay the rent or mortgage on time. Renters must maintain their apartments decently and keep an eye on their children to avoid eviction. By contrast, public housing, housing vouchers, and other types of housing subsidies undermine or eliminate these benefits of market-based housing.
  • Federal housing subsidies are very expensive to taxpayers. In 2010, the federal government will spend about $26 billion on rental aid for low-income households and about $8.5 billion on public housing projects.

Just so you understand that what Frank says happens you might want to prepare yourself to perhaps contact your Congressman about this and the insanity of it.  Here are a few more articles packed full of information about the subsidized housing and why it too is a ever growing cancer eating away at our national budget and encouraging behavior that keeps people in poverty.

Give aways never work.  NEVER!  They merely put, and keep, people on the government dole.  And it could be argued that housing subsidies are racist.  yes, racist!  Take a look around the public housing or neighborhoods in your town with a lot of low income rental which in all likelihood  are in the Housing Subsidy Program from HUD.  I will lay you 10 to 1 that the faces you see are mostly black.   As Star Parker says in her book, “Back on Uncle Sam’s Plantation”   the people you see aren’t ever likely to get ahead or get out of poverty.  It’s just easier to let someone else pay your way.

Be truthful with yourself and ask yourself if someone came in and paid your rent or helped with your mortgage would you  give it up and stand on your own two feet, or would you take that “free” money?  Most of us would rationalize that “Heck yes, if they want to give me money then why not take it!?”   Few would look beyond and see that taking someone else’s money is stealing.   BB


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    5 Responses to ">>Hearing from Rep. Barney Frank Again on Housing. Dear Lord!"

    1 | paul Comi
    March 26, 2010 at 16:38

    Even the most passionate supporter of the never ending decision to try once again, another “doomed to fail” plan to build government supported housing should admit that, in view of the recorded history of past failures, and that the obvious reason for those failures was being the lack of enforced requirement that the prospective tenant has a credible work history. along with a history of personal reliability in meeting his or her obligation for timely payment and upkeep of the premises, that any new proposal for such a program would have clear and vigilent rules for such requirements that would give one the expectation of a successful venture that would turn into a decent community, where the children had a decent opportunity for an orderly and peaceful childhood experience that offered some assurance that they would have at the very least, a reasonable chance at a decent future.

    With the record of Mr. Frank and others that have served in such programs, I would demand that new members be given the task and that they would be screened to insure their commitment and passion to see that it was free of corruption and a trustworthy oversight is “set in stone” with monthly meetings to examine the progress.

    2 | paul Comi
    March 26, 2010 at 16:55

    Upon further thought on the subject, I feel that subsidized housing in any form will never work. Invariably, the moment that it is created, it will be something that will be re-shaped, re-done and ignored.
    The genius of our free enterprize system was, is and will ever be a system that has the advantage of the passionate exercise of free and imaginative action. Without unleashing the creativity and dedication of the independent free mind, you commence with the very thing that is the flaw in the idea and that is that the subsidized person has no responsibility to participate and improve his or her position in life.
    The “Great Society” of LBJ dealt a death blow to personal responsibilty to oneself and one’s neighbors. The government preempted the individual’s responsibility and their necessary awareness of what they should and must do as a good citizen and neighbor. With that “Great Society” came the elimination of decent neighborhoods and two parent families, great philanthropic organizations like the Elks Clubs, The Rotary etc in neighborhoods like Watts and Harlem. Where are they now?
    Gone, because the government is playing Big Daddy. The government has become our conscience.
    Take a look at what the congress is like and what their record is today and get an idea of what our surrogate conscience is like.

    3 | Brenda Bowers
    March 27, 2010 at 13:48

    I have maintained for years that the government should get out of the free housing market all together by giving each tenant a clear deed to his house or apartment as in the townhouse agreements and not the condominium. Leaders will come forward who value their “property” and want their neighbors to do the same. Associations will form and they will put pressure on the slackers to clean up their act or sell their property and leave. Of course they will leave to throw the money they get for their townhouse and then be living on the streets.

    If there are children involved in the homeless state they should be quickly and permanently taken from the parent and placed in special homes and put up for adoption immediately. As it is now children who are taken from their parents spend
    end years giving the parent time to get their act together and then are too old to be adopted.

    But getting back to giving the tenants of the projects clear deeds to their individual apartments has been done and HAS WORKED!s ago in the Chicago area. I saw it on 60 Minutes. It was amazing what the apartment owners did with a derelict building in just a few years. Home ownership gave them pride and a desire to get on with a decent future.

    Why is it that when experience proves some program successful our government fails to follow thru? I think it is because the bureaucrats are saving their jobs and there are no Congressmen looking out and overseeing what the little clerks in little offices with big salaries and huge benefits are doing. BB

    4 | snappysandy
    March 29, 2010 at 16:10

    I think Barney Frank should step aside. He has made more mistakes than I care to think about. This man is an expert in only one thing and that is “failure”. Everything he was supposed to oversee somehow managed to fail, unbeknownst to him.

    How can someone oversee something and not see anything that is going wrong? And how is it that Mr. Frank has never taken responsibility for being wrong, making a mistake or has even said that “hey this last plan didn’t work” because he failed to see a problem. How is it that it is up to him to give himself permission to try something else and put himself in charge of it again? Why don’t the rest of the members in Congress complain about his multi Billion Dollar mistakes??? Whoops!

    I’m beginning to think Mr. Frank is like this character “Allison” on this program that I watch, called the Medium. Allison goes to sleep and has a dream about someone or some event, wakes up and somehow what she dreamt eventually leads her to solve a problem (crime) in her case. I think Mr. Frank goes to sleep at night, dreams and then presents his dream to Congress and the American people as though it were a well thought out plan that he came up with and that it is something we need to do in order to correct the housing situation. Now he wants to only make sure everyone can “rent” a home, not buy one because it is too hard for some people to figure out t I think Barney Frank should step aside. He has made more mistakes than I care to think about. This man is an expert in only one thing and that is “failure”. Everything he was supposed to oversee somehow managed to fail, unbeknownst to him.

    How can someone oversee something and not see anything that is going wrong? And how is it that Mr. Frank has never taken responsibility for being wrong, making a mistake or has even said that “hey this last plan didn’t work” because he failed to see a problem. How is it that it is up to him to give himself permission to try something else and put himself in charge of it again? Why don’t the rest of the members in Congress complain about his multi Billion Dollar mistakes??? Whoops!

    I’m beginning to think Mr. Frank is like this character “Allison” on this program that I watch, called the Medium. Allison goes to sleep and has a dream about someone or some event, wakes up and somehow what she dreamt eventually leads her to solve a problem (crime) in her case. I think Mr. Frank goes to sleep at night, dreams and then presents his dream to Congress and the American people as though it were a well thought out plan that he came up with and that it is something we need to do in order to correct the housing situation. Now he wants to only make sure everyone can “rent” a home, not buy one because it is too hard for some people to figure out that they need a job and money to continually pay for the home. This way if they rent, and can’t pay then they can be kicked out of their home, in I believe 30 days and someone else can rent it until t hey get kicked out. Wow, what a plan Barney!

    Just what did this guy do for a living before he was elected to Congress? What was his expertise, finance, mortgages, banking, investing???? Inquiring minds want to know.
    hat they need a job and money to continually pay for the home. This way if they rent, and can’t pay then they can be kicked out of their home, in I believe 30 days and someone else can rent it until t hey get kicked out. Wow, what a plan Barney!

    Just what did this guy do for a living before he was elected to Congress? What was his expertise, finance, mortgages, banking, investing???? Inquiring minds want to know. ss

    5 | Brenda Bowers
    March 29, 2010 at 18:26

    I don’t think anyone knows what he did before Congress since he has been there so long!

    Frank knows exactly what he is doing. Frank is hate personified and is using his position to get back at all those people out there who called him a fag. He is twisted and evil.

    Perhaps a Republican Congress will throw him out. There are many in congress that decent Congress men would do well to get rid of. BB

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