Posted on 10/25/2017 10:51:49 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
It is silly for Uncle Sam to pay glamour city rents so people can be idle in expensive cities like San Francisco and New York.
I would cap a housing voucher for a housing unit at
$250 for a first US citizen adult (age 21+) in the unit, plus
$150 for a second US citizen adult (age 21+) in the unit, plus
$200 if there is a male child aged three to fifteen (or in high school and under age 19) in the unit, plus
$200 if there is a female child aged three to fifteen (or in high school and under age 19) in the unit, plus
$100 for any number of the above
disabled adult -> $350 cap (1-bedroom unit)
[the federal government pays about $700/month in disability benefits too]
mom+newborn -> $350 cap (1-bedroom unit)
mom+newborn+dad -> $500 cap (1-bedroom unit)
mom+4-year old son -> $550 cap (2-bedroom unit)
mom+dad+five-year old son-> $700 cap (2-bedroom unit)
mom+dad+3-year daughter+6-year old son -> $900 cap (3-bedroom unit)
My proposal would generally make it wise for mom and dad to stay together and greatly reduce the welfare state incentive to ditch the daddy.
My proposal would crimp the incentive to make another baby to get more federal money since there would be a three-year waiting period.
My proposal would mainly impact Democrats in expensive blue cities and their suburbs in blue states.
There is no “right way” to set up a housing voucher.
That is why Milton Friedman and other conservative economists proposed basic income instead of housing vouchers and hundreds of other benefits for the “poor”.
Any system of vouchers requires a huge bureaucracy to administer and monitor the system and is subject to an amazing array of abuses by both landlords and tenants.
Give Facebook boy a call. He’s ponying up $45 million for cheap housing and excessive incarceration. You may get him to help you out.
Counter-proposal:
Replace the housing voucher with a moving voucher.
If you can’t afford to live somewhere, find somewhere you can. Big cities are expensive for a _reason_. The biggest complaint I get about “move” is “they can’t afford to” - well, they can’t afford to live where they are either, so instead of trying to keep them there (which increases prices by increasing the supply of money available to pay for it), give ‘em a one-way ticket to wherever they like, moving van service included.
Kevin Williamson(National Review) advocated getting rid of HUD but keeping Section 8. I say keep the Sec. 8 bureaucracy and get rid of the rest. Ain’t gonna happen.
Don’t rent too many apartments, do you?
“Universal basic income” is terrible, except that it’s much better than the alternative of specialized vouchers/entitlements/etc.
Housing vouchers will do nothing more than increase prices. Landlords know low-income renters will have that voucher, so raise otherwise market prices accordingly.
I say dump Section 8 and HUD, and replace them with reducing housing regulations and eliminating property taxes.
If regulations increase housing prices out of reach of poor, they’re worse than not having regulations. Better a roof with no insulation, than not having a roof at all because R36 insulation costs occupants too much.
If the poor can’t own land outright, they’re beholden to the state every day. Better to own 1000 sq ft of land permanently, than to be driven out because one can’t afford ever-rising taxes thereon - and then have to beg the state for housing vouchers.
Am curious why you differentiate “male child” from “female child” as a distinction without a difference.
“Am curious why you differentiate “male child” from “female child” as a distinction without a difference.”
My sister had her own bedroom.
My brother and I shared a bedroom.
This was done by gender by mom and dad.
Older children are generally segregated by gender.
“Universal basic income”
They separate SNAP, housing vouchers, Medicaid out because the poor are often very talented at squandering money.
“Housing vouchers will do nothing more than increase prices.”
I’m proposing to reduce the damage done.
San Francisco and NYC are good places to start.
Should have stopped here:
“It is silly for Uncle Sam to pay glamour city rents.” Period.
Or even better:
“It is silly for Uncle Sam to pay rents.”
“Don’t rent too many apartments, do you?”
The amounts are not meant to cover the whole amount of the rent.
Single mom can wait tables on weekends and leave junior or the little princess with grandma even if grandma still has a weekday job.
Reducing big problems sometimes has to be done in small steps.
Alternate proposal: put ALL “means tested” federal programs into one department. Put a cap on the total amount of aid a family can get. You want a section 8 voucher in an expensive place? Your food stamps or whatever get reduced.
“housing regulations”
That’s a big problem too and pretty much a state law issue.
“Alternate proposal: put ALL “means tested” federal programs into one department. Put a cap on the total amount of aid a family can get. You want a section 8 voucher in an expensive place? Your food stamps or whatever get reduced.”
Some British Conservatives have wanted to do that, but I don’t know that they have made much progress.
On this side of the Atlantic, big welfare reforms will go nowhere since fatcats love leaching off the federal government via the “poor”.
It’s best to start small and make progress than dream big and get nowhere.
I'm not so sure about that. Trump holds the White House because a ton of young lefties are concentrated in small geographical locations. I kinda don't want to see them diluting all those safe Republican districts.
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