A Rental Moratorium — and Now We Have to Clean up the Mess
Same thing for Guantanamo Bay, Joe Biden and, watch out — student loan forgiveness
Dr. Sema K. Sgaier and Aaron Dibner-Dunlap paint a vivid picture with lots of numbers of where we are with rental moratorium ending — “How Many People Are at Risk of Losing Their Homes in Your Neighborhood?” the New York Times July 28, 2021.
There is always hell to pay when we dive into the here and now, forgetting past lessons and having no apparent interest in future consequences.
Guantanamo Bay. What an example. It’s our spot on the island of Cuba that sports the most expensive prison in the world — around $10 million per inmate year. In a spur of the moment we locked up some bad and misguided folk but without any real clue as to how this was going to play out. We are still struggling with a solution 20 years and around $7 billion later.
Joe Biden was raised from a political coffin in those few days of terror when a socialist curmudgeon named Bernie Sanders looked pretty for the Democratic Nominee for President. Again history and future were stripped from the deciding equation. The Democratic wigs immersed in the immediacy of events were unconcerned with Joe’s “mediocre” to put it kindly campaign — he had failed to nail a single delegate. Biden’s age and competence in winning against the Donald went unquestioned too. The gods however delivered Biden to the White House following a kind of curfew — providing Corona for cover and an incumbent continually setting himself ablaze. Biden’s win was not overwhelming considering this backdrop.
But my title is “Rental Moratorium.” And I am talking about it — or at least in one fundamental aspect. It was the wrong action to take at the time — and possibly any other. Recommended by the CDC it was the hot spring to the snow monkey on a harsh winter’s day — immediately comforting but bitterly cold when coming out. A division of Department of Health and Human Services essentially made a decision that was not then cross referenced with how housing actually works. It contains millions of systems involving renters and landlords, owners and banks which when interfered with can cause havoc. And it has. Particularly, renters became temporarily secure but to their longer term peril.
The Federal Government did sensibly rise to the Corona occasion with the assistance package (March 2020) by fairly swiftly getting money into individual and family pockets. There is general agreement that the enhanced unemployment benefits and the cash payouts worked. They addressed the immediate concern of households having no money to pay for essential things like groceries, gas in the car and securing the roof overhead. Adding the moratoriums for rent and mortgages did nothing but muck up the systems in place. And, it elevated them from a local to a Federal level too far away and incompetent to deal with renter and landlord, owner and bank relationships. They were a third hand absolutely not needed. The solution was follow up cash directly to renters and owners which didn’t happen fast enough.
Paying off school loans is up next for a ready fix (to Senator Chuck Schumer the solution is a flick of Joe’s pen). Whether or not some of the most able breadwinners in the country each get a $50,000 check is incidental. It’s an attempted solution for what problem? A look at history reveals that tuition costs are out of whack with general inflation and incomes. This is the real issue in need of addressing and not that students (or their parents) are out of pocket. What happens after the immediate forgiveness money is dispersed? Tuition becomes free and really expensive?
Guantanamo Bay, Joe Biden, moratoriums on rent and mortgages, and now possibly paying off student debt? — all are decisions made in the confines of the moment — for the moment, perhaps. Very questionable over time.