Tag Archives: banks

The Rent Is Too Damn High!!

Remember the candidate who ran for Mayor of New York some years back whose single-issue political party and campaign slogan were both “the rent is too damn high”?”

What made me think about him was a recent meeting I sat in on, with Senate candidate Marc Carmichael and a couple of local experts on housing. Marc wanted to be brought up to speed with what has become a significant national issue: the cost of housing (and especially the lack of housing for low-income renters) and the range of national policies that might address the problem. (The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Jim Banks, has been too busy waging culture war against abortion and trans children to bother with legislation that might actually help people; Carmichael actually wants to “do the job.”)

Marc wasn’t the only one who learned a lot in that meeting. I did, too. So I was interested in a recent publication by the Brookings Institution titled “Ten Economic Facts About Rental Housing.”

The publication reports what most of us know: rental housing has become considerably less affordable over the past several years. We have low vacancy rates and high rent inflation, resulting in housing costs that strain the budgets of lower-income households.

The very low unemployment rate and recent strength in wages makes clear that housing instability in the U.S. is, in large part, a structural problem, one that will not be fully solved by a strong economy. Fiscal support for federal housing benefits is inadequate, eligible households wait years for benefits, and the number of single individuals experiencing homelessness has risen. Any effective solution will require policy actions by lawmakers.

Brookings research shows that approximately one-third of U.S. households rent, although the share of renters varies considerably by age of the head of household, ranging from 21 percent of households headed by someone 65 and older to 58 percent of households headed by someone ages 25 to 34. Renting also varies depending upon the head of household’s education, income, and race or ethnicity.

The paper identifies the ten facts that influence housing costs, and the link includes explanations of each. The explanations are well worth pondering, and if you want to gain a broader understanding of these complex issues, I encourage you to click through and read the entire report. But here, in brief, are the factors Brookings identifies:

  • 1. Households are more likely to rent if the household head has no college degree, is in a lower income quintile, or is Black.

  • 2. One-third of rental units are single-family rentals.

  • 3. Rental vacancies have returned to pre-pandemic levels, while multifamily housing starts have leveled off.

  • 4. Rental housing vacancy rates are highest in the Southeast.

  • 5. Rental price inflation is declining to pre-pandemic levels.

  • 6. Rent inflation looks similar across U.S. metropolitan statistical areas.

  • 7. For renting households with low earnings, rent is consistently more than one-third of their total expenditures.

  • 8. Federal housing assistance consistently falls short of housing needs.

  • 9. Single adults are driving the rise in unsheltered homelessness.

  • 10. Families wait years to receive a housing choice voucher.

A number of these structural causes are related to policy choices at both the state and federal levels. Housing assistance is part of America’s tattered and bureaucratic social safety net–and the failure of that assistance to materially address the problem is one more “data point” that should be considered in a much longer-range discussion about the holes in that net. That said, there are clearly areas where a renewed focus on actual governance would ameliorate at least some of the problems renters face.

At the end of the day, voters need to recognize the differences between culture warriors and policymakers–between candidates focused on the often-boring, day-to-day “grunt work” of actual governance, and the antics of the rabid Christian Nationalists who have neither the knowledge of nor interest in the mundane but incredibly important details of economic and social policy.

The embarrassing television ads being run in Indiana’s primary contests tell me that–at least on the Republican side–candidates are confident that voters fail to recognize that distinction–or, for that matter, the distinction between genuinely local issues and those requiring a national response.

In November, Americans will choose between serious candidates who are willing to educate themselves on the issues and committed to actual governance–to doing the job– and performative buffoons like Banks whose messaging is intended to inflame and divide– the culture warriors who have absolutely no interest in the complexities of the day-to-day issues with which so many Americans struggle.

It is said that in Indiana, an R next to a candidate’s name is sufficient to elect a turnip.

I am cautiously optimistic that this year will be different.

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Braun, Banks And ALEC

A reader has provided me with a copy of a letter sent by sitting Senators and Congresspersons–all Republican, so far as I could tell– to ALEC. ALEC stands for American Legislative Exchange Council. Among the signatories of that missive were Indiana culture warriors/Christian Nationalists, Mike Braun and Jim Banks.

The letter read in its entirety as follows:

Dear Founders, Leadership, Members, and Employees of the American Legislative Exchange Council,

We write to express our sincere congratulations as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Since its inception in 1973, ALEC has remained a stalwart defender of limited government, free markets and a strong federalist system.

During its 50 years, ALEC has grown to become America’s largest voluntary membership organization of state lawmakers. Today, ALEC members represent more than 60 million Americans and provide jobs to more than 30 million people in the United States.

A true laboratory of democracy, ALEC enables lawmakers to share ideas and experiences with their peers from across the states and develops the most trusted policy solutions to the diverse challenges facing our communities.

We know that many of the critical policy questions of our time will be decided in the states: expanding educational opportunities for our children, unleashing principled entrepreneurship, protecting taxpayers, and lifting people out of poverty. As Members of Congress, we look to the states to inform our policy decisions. ALEC and its members provide us with valuable research and feedback which helps us build on previous successes or avoid unnecessary consequences.

Nearly 100 Members of Congress are ALEC Alumni, and they bring to Washington, DC the collaborative lessons they learned in their state legislatures. Noting that ALEC members adhere to the motto, “limited government, free markets and federalism,” ALEC Alumni in Congress work together to help make Washington more effective and accountable to the American people.

Finally, as we work to reduce federal regulations and interference in Americans’ everyday lives, we can confidently cede statutory power to the jurisdiction of the states, knowing ALEC members stand at the ready to lead the charge. We celebrate the generations of experience and success ALEC and its members have contributed at all levels of government, and we look forward to another 50 years of partnership in providing policy solutions for all Americans.

Here’s what Common Cause says about ALEC and those “trusted policy solutions:”

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate lobbying group that brings together corporate lobbyists and politicians to draft and vote — as equals and behind closed doors — on “model bills” that often benefit the corporations’ bottom line. These model bills, drafted without public input, are then introduced in state legislatures across the country, usually with ALEC’s involvement concealed. ALEC and ALEC-member corporations often pay for legislators’ travel expenses to go to ALEC conferences; when ALEC or the corporations are not paying for these so-called “scholarships,” the expense is often passed on to the taxpayers. ALEC lobbies on a variety  of issues, including taxes and budgets, climate change and the environment, workers’ rights and collective bargaining, healthcare, telecommunications policy, election laws, and education.

Common Cause has filed a “whistleblower” complaint against ALEC with the IRS, and provided evidence that the group has violated its tax-exempt status by operating as a lobby while claiming to be a charity.  (ALEC’s purported “charitable” status allows its corporate supporters to take the millions spent each year to support ALEC’s lobbying as tax deductions–meaning that we taxpayers are subsidizing that lobbying.)

After a raft of very unflattering stories about the organization emerged in 2011, a number of major companies left ALEC. Among those who remain are Altria, Koch Industries, UPS, FedEx, Pfizer, Duke Energy, Charter Communications, Comcast, and Anheuser-Busch.

I have written previously about ALEC–especially about its “leadership role” in gerrymandering, and in assisting the efforts of White Supremacists.The latter post quoted an article from The Guardian about a report by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and other civic organizations, charging ALEC with propagating White Supremacy.

In one of the sharpest criticisms yet leveled at the controversial “bill mill”, the authors warn that “conservative and corporate interests have captured our political process to harness profit, further entrench white supremacy in the law, and target the safety, human rights and self-governance of marginalized communities”

ALEC’s influence is sickening–but it shouldn’t be surprising. Braun and Banks–both endorsed by Trump–are full-throated devotees of and advocates for ALEC’s agenda.

Voters need to see to it that both of them are retired from public office in November.

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The Cost Of Convenience

Every once in a while, I grudgingly agree with a curmudgeonly rant from my husband.

This particular rant is about bank-by-mail–our ability to authorize payments online and have the bank write the check and send it to the payee. It’s enormously convenient; no need to address envelopes, buy stamps, find a mailbox…

In fact, if there is a signal aspect to life in our digital world, it is the convenience that comes with our networked existence. Amazon visits my front door far more than the milkman used to–and thanks to the Amazon Key, the delivery person deposits whatever the package is in my front hall. If I don’t have time to go to the grocery, I can shop online and have Instacart or a similar service deliver what I need. If I don’t want to cook, but I’m not in the mood to go out, Clustertruck will bring me dinner from my favorite restaurant.

If I need information of virtually any kind, Doctor Google provides it; if I am curious about the status (or political opinions) of a friend or family member, there’s Facebook to fill me in. When my children or grandchildren are traveling, emails reassure me of their safety.

It’s a brave new world–but the old saying is right: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Amazon, Facebook and Google have made themselves indispensable to most of us–and in return, we provide them with reams of our personal information. They serve us, and we pay for that service with our privacy. Ditto the other convenient services we use.

It’s slightly different–and much more blatant–with the banks.

When my husband goes online to make a payment, the bank immediately deducts the amount of that payment from his account. The bank then produces and mails a check to the recipient. In the “olden days,” the amount of a check would be deducted from one’s account when it “cleared.” That is, the money would come out of your account when  payees presented the checks and received their money.

Now, in return for the convenience of online bill paying, the bank has the use of the float– the period of time that elapses between your online direction to pay X and the presentation by X of that check.

(This little trick also makes it incredibly difficult to stop payment; since the money has already been deducted from your account, the bank has a convoluted process that wasn’t there before.)

I hear him grouse about this every time my husband pays a bill, and although I’m willing to chalk it up to the cost of convenience, I know he’s right. It’s just one more clever way that one more business has figured out how to “monetize” the processes that have moved online. And I also know that I’m one of the “marks” who enable it all–I am perfectly willing to trade my information for the convenience of shopping from home. I’m addicted to the ease  of accessing any and all information from my laptop.

And I don’t want to hunt for my checkbook and stamps when paying a bill.

I’m the patsy that makes the ripoffs possible.

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