The American Dream

An article appeared on The Patch asking a really good question. Is owning a home is still the American Dream? According to the Department of Commerce,“Home ownership" in the U.S. hit a nearly 18-year low in the second quarter of 2013. The rate declined to 65.1 percent, the lowest level since 1995.”

This sad fact, of fewer families owning their homes, took me back to 1997. You will remember Democrats took control of the House and decided to make the home loan industry more fair. Democrats argued the poor were being discriminated against by banks who would not make loans to low income people. What followed was a battle lasting until the collapse of the housing market. This collapse led to this generation’s great recession.

The problem started when banks were threatened, by Congress, with action if they did not write a certain number of loans in low income neighborhoods. At a Congressional Hearing President Bush sent a representative to argue these actions would damage the economy. Committee members Maxine Waters and Barney Frank challenged the Administration. Both Representatives said they had checked, and these actions would not harm the economy. They accused the Bush Administration of being against poor people owning homes. Once again, in the name of fairness, Congress had intervened in the private sector.

Waters and Frank, both Progressive Democratic Congressmen were wrong. But they are not suffering, Barney Frank retired and Maxine Waters still represents California in the House of Representatives. The people who got hurt were the banks and the people who took out loans they could not afford.

Home ownership is now at the lowest level since 1995. All the pain of forcing banks to make bad loans, all the pain of raising peoples' hopes by putting them in a home they could not afford, and the pain for all of America due to the financial fall of the economy is the legacy of Big Government intervention in the free market.

Now, as tens of millions of Americans are forced into a health care system they don’t like, we will experience another failure of Big Government, brought to us by the Progressives in their attempt to “be fair”. I reject the argument alleging The President and his team are working against the rich. I  believe their lack of knowledge in economics, combined with their arrogant belief in Socialists Big Government, will lead us to this disaster.

Let’s review some of the spectacular failures Progressive, Big Government has brought us. The lowest labor participation rate in over 30 years, huge student debt by our young, the largest number of people on food stamps in 20 years, lowest homeowner ship since 1995 and a record number of people receiving government benefits. 

It is not politics. It is not discrimination against the poor. It is not the divide between the wealthy and the poor. The problem looks us right in the face every day. The problem; despite soaring rhetoric, Big Government does not work. Take a look at the break down between red states and blue states. Notice those states with lower taxes and less regulation are on average increasing in population. Notice states with less regulation have more jobs and higher labor participation rates.

We need to remove our blinders and look at what works. There is a reason Big Government generally fails. The Soviet Union learned you cannot have central planning and be a world player. Argentina, at the end of WWII, was an economic powerhouse. Then came the Peron’s and socialism. Progressive/Socialism just does not work. There are many, many examples, most of which you are familiar.

The article on home ownership had an impact. According to the article such things as deferred maintenance, the risk of a declining neighborhood and transaction costs are major concerns. I have other concerns and would ask, what about the benefit of a family with a mother and father raising their children in a place the kids call home? What about the stability of your kids growing up with their friends in “their neighborhood?” What about the neighborhood not declining, because stable neighborhood families grow old together, and take pride in their neighborhood.

The article was not about home ownership. It was about life in America. The American lifestyle is declining. Promises that guarantee equal outcomes, promises that build false hope and a history of the failure of Big Government in combating poverty all serve to discourage those trying to improve their circumstances. I believe we would do better without Big Government being in your face 24 X 7.