Oh, give me a home without a subsidized loan
Oct 5, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
Washington – The American dream means different things to different people. For some, it looks like a house on a leafy cul-de-sac with weekends spent mowing the lawn and planting shrubs. For others it’s a rented apartment in the big city with a building engineer to handle such tasks.
The government should not subsidize one dream [...]
Washington – The American dream means different things to different people. For some, it looks like a house on a leafy cul-de-sac with weekends spent mowing the lawn and planting shrubs. For others it’s a rented apartment in the big city with a building engineer to handle such tasks.
The government should not subsidize one dream at the expense of another. Sadly, though, that’s just what has happened. And as history so clearly demonstrates, one-size-fits-all policies don’t work very well.
During much of the last century the heavy hand of government has been used to turn the US into a nation of homeowners. It all began in 1913 with the inclusion of a deduction for mortgage interest when the federal income tax was enacted.
Two decades later, with the economy in the throes of the Great Depression, federal intervention exploded. Herbert Hoover signed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act in 1932. Over the next two years his successor, Franklin Roosevelt, created the Federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration. Fannie Mae was established in 1938.
Centralization of housing policy in Washington gave rise to interest groups representing home building, mortgage lending, and the real estate industries that pressured politicians to shower a never-ending stream of subsidies on owner-occupied housing.
Read More » »
