Crosstalk: October 3, 2019

Tom DeWeese is the president of American Policy Center.  Tom is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence and protecting our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.  He’s a former newspaper editor. He is author of ‘Sustainable: The War on Free Enterprise, Private Property and Individuals’ and ‘Erase’ a political novel.

As Jim noted early in the broadcast, the phrase, ‘housing for all,’ has been touted by Senator Bernie Sanders who’s making another bid for the presidency.  This morning his campaign announced that he underwent a heart procedure after doctors discovered blocked arteries. 2 stents were successfully inserted. Jim encouraged listeners to pray for the health of Senator Sanders.

Tom noted that Mr. Sanders has said that there’s no place in America where a full  time, minimum wage worker can afford a decent 2 bedroom apartment. Tom believes there are some things left out of that description.  As we’re building such apartment buildings, the government is raising taxes on the property owner, raising the costs of building materials to be environmentally correct, as well as increasing the taxes taken from people’s wages.  Now you know why people making minimum wage can’t afford such 2 bedroom apartments.

Who’s fault is this?  Tom contends it’s bad government policy.  So what’s the solution proposed by Senator Sanders?  More bad government policies.

Jim then went through the list of costs for Medicare, college and daycare-for-all,  the Green New Deal and various forms of housing such as mixed income social housing units and section 8 rental assistance.  The costs are staggering and in the end, Tom indicated that the people that are supposed to be helped by all of this will be the ones that suffer the most.  He cited the history of HUD housing where in almost every case that he’s seen, especially in larger cities, the areas become crime infested ghettos.

In his experience with working to protect private property rights, he’s found that when people own their property, they take much better care of it because they have a stake in it.

In the end, Tom sees ‘housing for all’ as a direct attack upon personal property rights.  Find out more, as well as how listeners responded, on this edition of Crosstalk.