Editor’s note: The following is a member comment posted on the Sept. 10 Inman News story, "Housing policy at a crossroads":
"Government hurts affordability when it intervenes to make something ‘easier’ — just look at university education. The extension of grants and loan programs drove up the cost of education much faster than official inflation. The same can be said of medical care, another industry where the federal government is extremely involved.
"I’ve read the U.S. Constitution over and over and I am quite sure it doesn’t say anything about providing housing. The federal government has ZERO responsibility for ‘providing housing.’
"States have a great deal more flexibility. Some will do the wrong thing but others will likely find a winning formula. Local communities create problems for themselves when they take away the rights of property owners and fail to compensate them.
"We are suffering not from too much freedom but rather too little and a lack of respect for property rights. Socialism won; they just forgot to tell you.
"The giant socialist programs created by the federal government to facilitate home ownership over the recent decades provided enormous political payoffs and opportunities for corruption and fraud. The plan was always to cash out by leaning on and abusing the public credit. It is a Ponzi scheme on a scale too big to imagine. I can only wait for the next phase to see how they will keep it up.
"The most amazing part is that we have very cleverly figured out how to use fraudulent MBS and government debt to essentially tax the central banks and savings of other countries. Ever wonder why ‘deficits don’t matter?’ or how we can afford a worldwide empire? Deficits are essential. A deep and highly liquid government-sponsored mortgage finance market, in addition to one for government debt, is necessary for recycling the dollars sent abroad and levying our global tax.
"I do not sympathize with the policymakers. They are at best well-meaning fools." —Steven Smith
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