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Moments ago in our Financial Services Committee hearing, I had a pleasant conversation with Diane Yentel, who works for the National Low Income Housing Coalition. We can both agree on the problem, but our solutions are worlds apart.

If you want to make housing more affordable, the answer is not government subsidies! The answer is not the redistribution of wealth. The answer is not more taxes, and/or more borrowing to add to our massive national debt. 

I’ve said this over and over, but it is not, and CANNOT BE the government’s responsibility to pay for everything from cradle to grave. Food, clothing, healthcare, housing, education, insurance, transportation, internet, cell phones, the list is a mile long. Name ANYTHING you could possibly need or want on a daily basis, and you can bet there are advocates who believe the government should pay for it with other people’s money.

But friends, your government is broke and $34 trillion in debt. We cannot collect taxes for all these things without completely destroying our country and economy. Enough is enough!

(By the way, you all know my private sector experience is in real estate. And all of you would be SHOCKED to understand just how much of new construction costs are due to unnecessary regulations. If my Democrat colleagues really wanted to do something about the high cost of housing, we could quickly slash new housing costs by addressing some of these onerous regulations.)