Bernie Sanders Wants to Impose National Rent Control

Townhall.com ^ | February 2, 2020 | Isabelle Morales

[Kaslin]

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants to impose national rent control. He unveiled the policy proposal last September and recently reiterated his support via Twitter.

Sanders proposes a national cap on annual rent increases to 1.5 times the rate of inflation or 3 percent—whichever is higher.

Ironically, the article Sanders tweeted out attributes increasing rent prices, in part, to government control over the private housing market. This irony reinforces what many economists already know to be true: the left’s prescriptions for lowering housing prices are precisely what keeps prices high and supply low.

Rent control would be a flagrant infringement of American property rights and a vast expansion of the federal government's control over the private housing market. 

The government should have no role in determining rental costs. All governments are ill-equipped to consider the many visible and invisible factors that determine the market price of a rental property.

What enforcement mechanisms would come down on the American people under a national rent control bureaucracy? If a local landlord, for whatever reason, fails to comply with the new federal standard, what kind of punishment would ensue? Might the IRS garnish his wages? Would he be fined out of business? Put in jail?

None of that passes the smell test is because none of it feels like it's an appropriate use of the federal government's power nor is it even within the scope of power that the government ought to operate in. 

Sanders wants to create a new bureaucracy inside HUD which will involvemassive administrative costs. Enforcing rent control requires an elaborate bureaucracy—especially on a national level. To take an example of one city, San Francisco's Rent Arbitration Board can expect to bring in over $5 million in order to enforce rents on 170,000 rent units. The National Multifamily Housing Council explains, “Rental property must be registered; detailed information on the rental property must be collected; elaborate systems for determining rents and hearing complaints and appeals must be established.”

Sanders has proposed a myriad of dangerous, government-expanding policies. National rent control is one that has gotten very little media coverage, despite the dire effects of such a policy. 

Rent control hurts the very people it aims to help. The housing market in rent-controlled cities is defined by dissatisfaction, maddening trade-offs, and paycheck-consuming prices.

If rent control on the local level causes increases in rent prices and limits housing supply, it’s not hard to imagine just how severe the effects would be on a national scale, when the federal government tries to impose Manhattan-type rent control policy on Thurmond, W. Va.

Even the socialist Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck said, “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”

[Clarence The One Eyed Lion]

Oh, you celebrate diversity . . . ha ha ha . . .

White people built this country.

We have 20 million illegals in the country driving up rental prices and you are just fine renting your sh*tholes them.

You keep trying to change the subject.

[Zathras]

Bernie just lost any chance of winning any State in the Snowbird South and probably lost San Diego

[Vermont Lt]

So, you are a clown? Good for you. Lol.

[Clarence The One Eyed Lion]

And I thought my jokes were bad.

[miss marmelstein]

Isn’t that already called Public Housing?

[Elsie]

What enforcement mechanisms would come down on the American people under a national rent control bureaucracy? If a local landlord, for whatever reason, fails to comply with the new federal standard, what kind of punishment would ensue? Might the IRS garnish his wages? Would he be fined out of business? Put in jail?

NYC has rent control.

How does IT handle all of these questions?