Monday, October 17, 2022

'Rent Is Too Damn High': Biden Pressured to Act as Housing Costs Fuel Inflation

"Biden can fix it by doing everything in his power to regulate rents and stop landlords from profiteering off this inflation crisis," said Tara Raghuveer of People's Action.

Newly released inflation data showing that rent has jumped 7.2% over the past year—the largest increase in four decades—is sparking fresh demands for President Joe Biden and Congress to take action to curb soaring housing costs, including by pursuing rent control measures and a host of other policy interventions.

"Without a real strategy to regulate rents, President Biden lacks a real strategy to fight inflation," Tara Raghuveer, director of the Homes Guarantee campaign at People's Action, said in a statement Thursday. "That problem will play out in the midterms. But Biden can fix it by doing everything in his power to regulate rents and stop landlords from profiteering off this inflation crisis."

In an analysis unveiled after the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed that inflation rose again last month—fueled to a significant degree by rent, which makes up about a third of the CPI—the Homes Guarantee campaign warned that rent increases are an even "bigger problem" than the new data suggests.

"The CPI's measure of rental inflation doesn't factor in rising prices in new rentals and leases, and therefore underestimates the rental inflation people face day to day," explains the analysis, which was co-authored by experts at the Groundwork Collaborative. "Some privately collected measures have reported that rents rose 7.5% year-over-year in September."

The brief also argues that far from combating rent inflation, the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes are actually making it worse by driving mortgage rates to a 20-year high, which has had the effect of "pushing would-be homebuyers into the rental market" and "putting even more upward pressure on rent prices."

"The Federal Reserve seems intent on making housing increasingly unaffordable, forcing prospective homebuyers into the rental market, and making people even less able to pay their rent by putting millions out of work," the analysis warns.

In addition to calling on the Fed to stop raising interest rates before it induces a devastating recession, People's Action and Groundwork demanded that Congress and the White House do everything in their power to reverse the trend of skyrocketing rents—part of a broader nationwide housing crisis made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

"The president has the authority to take executive action and direct agency-level action to regulate rent," the groups note. "For example, the president can direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to impose rent controls on borrowers of federally-backed mortgages, which would apply to approximately 43.8 million rental units—immediately slowing down rental inflation."

"Over the longer term," they add, "policymakers must transform housing from a commodity to a guaranteed public good—making large-scale investments in the supply of housing that is off of the private market, with a goal of guaranteeing safe, accessible, truly and permanently affordable homes: a Homes Guarantee."

Tenant advocates have voiced dismay in recent months at the lack of serious attention that Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration have devoted to rental inflation, even as both have vowed to bring down surging prices.

"If federal policymakers aren't working around the clock to figure out how to regulate rent, by any means necessary, what exactly are they doing about the economy?" Raghuveer asked in a Twitter post on Thursday. "What are they doing to fight for the people?"

In his statement on Thursday's CPI data, Biden touted the Inflation Reduction Act—a law that doesn't include any affordable housing provisions—while not mentioning rental inflation or housing at all.

While the Biden administration garnered qualified applause from advocates for its Housing Supply Action Plan—which carries the stated goal of closing the housing supply shortfall within five years—campaigners say nothing the White House or Congress have done in recent years has been anywhere near sufficient to curb the nationwide rental crisis.

"None of President Biden's major legislative accomplishments—the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—contained provisions to reduce housing costs or expand housing supply," the Revolving Door Project's Andrea Beaty and Vishal Shankar noted in a Wednesday blog post. "The Build Back Better Act—which did contain transformative investments in housing supply and affordability vouchers—was killed by Joe Manchin last December and its housing provisions were abandoned for the scaled-down IRA."

"The president and his top housing officials have broad legal authority to hold corporate landlords accountable by conditioning existing federal subsidies and mortgages to robust tenant protections—all without the need for congressional intervention," Beaty and Shankar added. "The Homes Guarantee campaign continues to do the leg work of determining how the Biden administration can help tenants across the country, immediately and under existing authorities."

On its website, the Homes Guarantee campaign outlines a number of executive and agency actions that the Biden administration can take to tackle rental inflation and bolster tenants' rights.

For example, the campaign argues Biden can condition all federal financing and rental subsidies on robust tenant protections, including:

  • Rent Control: Limit rent increases to 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower.
  • National Right to Lease Renewal: Prohibit evictions without good cause, ensuring every tenant has the right to a lease renewal. Good cause is defined as serious and repeated lease violations provable in a court of law.
  • Tenant Opportunity to Purchase: If a landlord should choose to sell a property, tenants have the right to purchase the property before it is available to the public market.
  • Tenant Right to Organize: Tenants have the right to form tenants' unions free from fear of retaliation from the landlord or managing agent. Ownership and management representatives must not interfere with the creation or actions of tenant organizations.

"It is no longer a question of if or how Biden can act on his own to protect tenants, but rather if he has the political will to do so," wrote Beaty and Shankar. "Historic rent hikes have only strengthened tenant organizers' desire to guarantee safe, accessible, sustainable, and affordable homes for everyone. The question remains: will the White House have their back?"


This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org. Originally published on October 13th, 2022. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. 


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Thursday, October 6, 2022

Supreme Court Poised to Shred What's Left of Voting Rights Act, Plaintiffs Warn

"If the court sides with Alabama," wrote a pair of plaintiffs in Merrill v. Milligan, "political opportunities for people of color will disappear."

photo credit: David Sachs

"If the court's right-wing supermajority has its way, Merrill v. Milligan will open the floodgates for racial gerrymandering across the country and diminish the political power of voters of color," Stand Up America deputy political director Reggie Thedford said Monday in a statement.

Although Black voters comprise nearly one-third of Alabama's population, the congressional map approved last November by the state's GOP-controlled Legislature contains just one majority-Black district out of seven total districts—the illegal result, civil rights advocates argued successfully in a lawsuit filed in federal district court, of "packing" most Black voters into a single district and "cracking" others across multiple districts. To date, no Black candidate in Alabama has ever won in a majority-white congressional district.

A trio of federal judges—including two appointed by former President Donald Trump—unanimously sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that Alabama's recently adopted congressional map unconstitutionally denies equal representation and likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by diminishing Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Biden's Student Debt Relief to Cost a Fraction of US Giveaways to the Megarich and Pentagon

"In contrast to President Trump and Republicans who gave giant corporations $2 trillion in tax breaks, President Biden delivered transformative middle-class relief," said two senators.
JESSICA CORBETT

As opponents of U.S. President Joe Biden's student debt cancellation plan weaponized a new government analysis on its estimated cost, some Democratic lawmakers on Monday pointed to the report as further evidence that the administration is on the right track.

In response to a request by a pair of Republicans, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that Biden's plan—which will cancel up to $20,000 in debt for federal borrowers with certain incomes—will cost about $400 billion over 30 years.

"Today's CBO estimate makes clear that millions of middle-class Americans have more breathing room thanks to President Biden's historic decision to cancel student debt," declared Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Schumer and Warren were among the congressional Democrats who long called on Biden to implement an even bolder plan canceling up to $50,000 in debt per federal borrower.

In their joint statement, the senators recalled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) signed by former President Donald Trump in late 2017. Blasted by critics as the "GOP tax scam," the law largely served major corporations and wealthy individuals.

"In contrast to President Trump and Republicans who gave giant corporations $2 trillion in tax breaks, President Biden delivered transformative middle-class relief by canceling student debt for working people who need it most—nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year," Schumer and Warren said Monday, referencing a CBO analysis of the TCJA.

The Senate is expected to take up another National Defense Authorization Act next month. The version approved by the House in July put $839 billion toward military spending for a single year, which was widely criticized by progressives within and beyond Congress given the urgent healthcare, housing, hunger, and other needs of many Americans.

Schumer and Warren added Monday that "we don't agree with all of CBO's assumptions that underlie this analysis, but it is clear the pandemic payment pause and student debt cancellation are policies that demonstrate how government can and should invest in working people, not the wealthy and billionaire corporations."

In a series of tweets Monday, CNN senior White House correspondent Phil Mattingly noted some of the limitations of the new CBO report, including that it does not factor in the planned changes to the income-driven repayment program—which one reporter said last month is "potentially a bigger deal than forgiveness."

According to the White House, the administration's plan could "provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including canceling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers."

As Common Dreams has reported, Biden's student debt relief plan is popular among Americans and its announcement has been followed by an increase in the president's approval rating among younger voters.

Related Posts




Tuesday, September 27, 2022

ACTION ALERT: Crime Claims of CNN’s New Police Expert Don’t Hold Up to Facts

In its latest
 move to the right, CNN recently hired former NYPD flack John Miller as its “chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst.” As Josmar Trujillo observed more than five years ago (FAIR.org, 6/21/17), Miller “has spun the revolving door between law enforcement and media like perhaps no one else,” moving back and forth between jobs at the NYPD, FBI, ABC and CBS.

Just last year, while working for the NYPD, Miller falsely testified that there was “no evidence” the department had spied on Muslims in mosques—when, in fact, AP had won a Pulitzer in 2012 for uncovering how after 9/11 the NYPD “systematically spied on Muslim neighborhoods, listened in on sermons, infiltrated colleges and photographed law-abiding residents” (Popular Information9/7/22). Shahana Hanif, the Muslim city council member who called out Miller’s lies, told Popular Information:

"John Miller had the audacity to lie under oath about the nature of this program to my face…. Someone like John Miller should not be in public service nor should they be given a platform on a mainstream cable news network.

Predictably, within days of joining CNN, Miller offered up a healthy dose of dishonest copaganda to the network’s audience.

Heads I win, tails you lose

CNN: NYC Crime Rates

John Miller misexplains crime stats to CNN‘s audience (New Day9/7/22).

On CNN New Day (9/7/22), anchor John Berman brought up the issue of crime in New York City, noting that murder and shooting rates had fallen over the past year, and asking Miller to explain “how…that was achieved.”

Miller replied:

"Well, I know how it was achieved because I was there. And that was achieved by extraordinarily smart deployments, which is the Bronx was driving the shooting numbers for the city a year ago. They flooded the Bronx with police officers on overtime. They flooded the Bronx with police officers working a sixth or seventh day.

They shifted tours around. They were very strategic, watching every shooting, every dot on the map and pushing resources there. And they were able to suppress that. 

Berman then asked Miller how to explain the seeming anomaly that “you can get the murder right and shootings down, but robbery, felony assaults and overall crime, all up? Miller responded:

"When you take the larceny, burglary, auto theft, these are all covered under New York’s new bail reform laws, which is, criminals know — criminals have very good intelligence, as good as the police when it comes to collecting information and distributing that among each other—they know that there are certain charges where the judge in New York state, not just New York City, is legally prohibited, prohibited by law, from setting bail in that case. So they know I commit the crime, if I get caught, I’ll be out as soon as I get my hearing. Now, that has caused recidivism, which was always a problem, to skyrocket. So basically when you look at the larceny, the robberies—which are just larcenies where somebody tried to stop them—the burglaries, the auto thefts…. We have people, John, coming from New Jersey, where they have plenty of cars, to steal cars in New York City, because they know if they get caught, they will not go to jail.

In sum: some crimes are down because police have flooded crime-ridden neighborhoods, but that same flood of police has nothing to do with an increase in other crimes, because bail reform.

NY Post: NYPD’s own stats debunk claims of bail reform leading to spike in gun violence

New York Post (7/8/20): “Most people released under the criminal justice reforms or amid the pandemic had no known ties to the bloodshed…. Cops should focus on the flow of illegal guns into the city.”

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly the argument Miller’s former employer, and New York mayor and former cop Eric Adams, have been making recently, based on data they will not publicly release, and that contradicts all actually available data (City and State New York8/3/22Crime and Justice2021; Quattrone Center, 8/16/22).

Curiously, when shootings were up in 2020 (and other crimes were down), the NYPD’s argument had it that that was the result of bail reform. At the time, the total mendacity was called out by even the right-wing, cop-loving, Murdoch-owned New York Post (7/8/20). Now with the crime rates reversed, the NYPD and its allies are hoping the baseless bail reform blame will stick on a different target.

Contrary to evidence

In fact, murder and shooting rates are down slightly nationwide, after two years of increases. Criminal justice observers note that, while one should always be cautious in attempting to explain short-term changes in crime rates because of the many interacting factors involved, the nationwide shifts strongly point to national, rather than local, causes—foremost among them the major social and economic dislocations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic that have diminished as pandemic-related restrictions have lifted (Brennan Center, 7/12/22). Gun sales in particular have been mostly dropping since the spring of 2021, after a massive spike from March 2020 through January 2021—a surge in available weaponry that surely encouraged the rise in gun-related crimes like homicide and shootings (FAIR.org7/20/21).

Indeed, it would be very surprising if the NYPD were able to significantly reduce shooting rates by “flooding the Bronx with police officers,” as most research has found no or minimal reductions in violent crime with increased policing—including in New York City. Instead, more cops mostly translates into more arrests for low-level crimes, and the substantial costs those impose on heavily policed communities (FAIR.org1/27/22).

Vera: U.S. pretrial and total jail population, 1970–2015

Vera Institute (4/19): “While the pretrial population comprised about half of people in jail prior to the early 1990s, it now accounts for approximately two-thirds of people in jail nationwide.”

Bail reform is not a policy that says that people who get caught “will not go to jail.” The purpose of bail historically was to make sure that someone accused of a crime—presumed innocent until proven guilty—would show up for their trial. But over the past few decades, the number of people in jail who have not yet been convicted of a crime has increased dramatically, and bail has become a punishment for the poor and a cash cow for the multi-billion dollar bail bond industry.

In fact, research shows that pretrial detention increases the likelihood of conviction, the harshness of the sentence, and the likelihood of recidivism. Given that detainees often wait months for trial, pleading guilty regardless of the circumstances can often seem like the best option for getting back to their life, job (and income), family and community. That pretrial detention also increases crime shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the disruptions it causes in people’s lives, and given that their increased conviction rate makes it harder for them to get work after release (Vera Institute, 4/19).

New York State’s 2019 bail reform prohibited bail for most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges, and required judges to consider the person’s ability to pay when setting bail. Other states and cities have pursued similar reforms. These reforms have reduced the number of people in jail awaiting trial. But according to all available evidence, they haven’t increased crime.

In the most comprehensive assessment of the impact of bail reform on recidivism in New York City, the city’s Office of Criminal Justice reported that as of June 2021, pretrial rearrest rates—the recidivism Miller claimed was skyrocketing “because they know if they get caught, they will not go to jail”—”have remained consistent over time and have not changed with bail reform,” at around 4%. And fewer than 1% are arrested for felonies, like auto theft and burglary.

Moreover, rollbacks in spring 2020 to those reforms allowed judges to set bail for even nonviolent felony cases that involved “persistent felony offenders”—which means the recidivism Miller and the NYPD are highlighting is not impacted by bail reform.

In other words, basically everything Miller said about NYC crime was false pro-punishment propaganda. And that’s what passes for “objectivity” at today’s CNN.


ACTION: 

Please ask CNN to explain why a person who lied repeatedly and under oath about law enforcement actions, and is now misrepresenting the evidence on the causes of crime trends on CNN‘s own programming, should be offered to its viewers as an expert on police policies and practices.

CONTACT:

Messages to CNN can be sent here (or via Twitter @CNN). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.



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Reprinted with permission.  FAIR’s work is sustained by their generous contributors, who allow them to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.
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