The Folly Of Bernie Sanders ’ National Rent Control Proposal

Ryan Bourne“Landlords cannot be allowed to raise rents to whatever they want, whenever they want,”Senator Bernie Sanders boomed on Twitter in November. “We need…a national rent control standard.” Now,his presidential campaign advocates one: under Sanders ’ housing proposals, all landlords nationwide would only be able to increase rents annually by one a half times the rate of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is higher. Assuming the current CPI for Urban Consumers is the inflation measure used, that would mean a rent increase cap today of just 3.4 percent.Given the likely unconstitutionality of a  truly national rent control law, one suspects Sanders should be taken seriously but not literally. What he is really doing here is endorsing a spate of new rent control laws across states, encouraging left‐​wing activists to push for more stringent restrictions elsewhere. California has alrea dy instituteda  5 percent plus inflation cap for older buildings. Oregon has passed a  rent increase cap ofseven percent per year above CPI. New York just expanded protections for existing rent stabilized tenants and is expected to follow the others with a  proposal for a general rent cap.But that Sanders ’ national proposal probably won’t or can’t be implemented doesn’t mean his reasoning won’t damage housing policy across the country. His claim that landlords can charge “whatever they want” entrenches the idea that rents are set through greed or market p...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs