Biden's Unconstitutional Equity Housing Scheme

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Remember when the Housing Bubble burst fifteen years ago, or so?  I was in construction at the time, and work began to vanish real fast.  The problem wasn't predatory lenders like the Democrats suggested, but laws the lenders were required to operate under.  The Community Reinvestment Act encouraged loans to risky borrowers, claiming that not lending to them was racist since most of the low-credit-rating borrowers were not-white (according to the Democrats).

The high-risk loans defaulted, the bubble burst, and the economy spiraled into a recession.

Now, the Democrats are at it again, but this time they are using a more direct federal approach.

Equity in lending, is the excuse.  Equity is one of their favorite failed policies.  Never mind equity in opportunity because government keeps itself out of the way.  They want to use the power of government to force equity into existence by guaranteeing through government fiat equal outcomes.  It's a version of socialism, which is all about taking from the successful, giving to the not-so-successful, and then forcing everyone to ultimately become a laborer so that everyone can be equal.  Except, if there are no opportunities to rise above everyone else, if it is frowned upon to become wealthy through industrious means, innovations are not created, jobs are not created, and wealth becomes a thing that is only mentioned during history lectures as something that once belonged to a privileged few.

Enter, stage left, a new unconstitutional executive order from President Joe Biden targeting the housing market.

First, let's go over a few constitutional rules so that you can see how illegal Biden's housing order actually is.

1. Executive Orders hold no power of law.  Law is created by the legislative process.
2. Executive Departments or Agencies have no authority to establish law or to regulate outside of established law.
3. No authority exists in the United States Constitution allowing federal power over property, lending, or the housing market.
4. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process.
5. No person shall be treated unequally by law as per the Equal Protection Clause.  

Effective May 1, 2023, an executive order by President Joseph Biden will force homebuyers with good credit scores to pay more for their mortgages to subsidize loans assumed by those with poor credit.

His executive order created a new law that does not exist legislatively, allowing his Federal Housing Administration to establish a new rule (again, the creation of law without the presence of any legislative process), based on no authority enumerated in the Constitution whatsoever.  As a result, persons with better credit will pay additional fees per month for their mortgage as a result which, for some people where the line between affordability and non-affordability is a fine one, may deprive them of owning or keeping that property as a result of federal mandate, and being treated unequally according to the law.  

Biden's executive order mandates buyers with credit scores "680" or higher taking out $400,000 or higher mortgages to pay an additional $40 per month for that mortgage.  Down payments also result in additional fees.

The presidential ultimatum is the Community Reinvestment Act by another name, and through federal mandate directed at specifically at homebuyers, rather than through the lenders.  It's the endless quest for the erection of a policy of affordable housing that they want desperately to somehow succeed.  Except, when you insert government interference into anything associated with the free market, the schemes always result in less freedom, and disastrous financial consequences.

Always.

The White House claims their anti-Liberty activities are necessary because of systemic “residential segregation” in the market.  The high cost of buying a home has created an impact that makes it tougher for low-income and moderate-income families to purchase a home.  According to the administration, in particular the groups who suffer most from racist free market practices in the housing industry are "communities of color.”  It is their aim to level the playing field so that the oppressed who are steeped in poverty may be shoved upward by government force and market manipulation.

The reality is, there is never, and can never, be equality in the financial positions of citizens on the prosperity ladder because there will always be those who do better than others, and there will always be those who have less than others.  The only way to reach true equity would be to disallow ownership by anybody and everybody so that everyone is equal because everyone has nothing.

You know.  Communism.

Doing well takes work, patience, persistence, and sometimes a few lucky breaks.  That is the reality of any free market.  Pulling off success does not make somebody privileged, and everyone on a lower rung of the ladder are not "oppressed."  It simply means that the successful person reached a moment in their life where their responsible financial decisions, smart financial choices, and perhaps a risk or two along with a lucky break or two, paid off.  Why should they be punished for their success?  How is it that government even has any constitutional authority to punish them for their success?  Unless the government aims to destroy the economy, why would any administration put such a damaging policy into play?

What's next?  A deeper foray into wealth taxes?  A higher death tax?  Complete control over college education and the costs one might incur during that journey?  Confiscation of wealth through digital means?  Soviet-style stack 'em and pack 'em housing mandated for everyone as they squeeze us into 15-minute cities?  Permit requirements to purchase anything?  For the commies in the Democrat Party, the sky's the limit.

Economic destruction is not a concern to the Biden administration.  Change and equity at any cost, even at the cost of American prosperity, is the goal.  Ideology over truth, equity over logic, social justice over the United States Constitution.  All dissent will pay a fee, or be labeled an insurrectionist.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary