Image Credit: Vice President Kamala Harris / Facebook
By Judson Phillips [Founder of Tea Party Nation] –
Kamala Harris has gone all out in making government interference in the marketplace a centerpiece of her economic platform. In her first policy speech, Vice President Harris announced her support for food and housing price controls despite the economic wreckage these policies have inflicted everywhere and every time they have been tried. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of history and economics knows they are catastrophic failures.
But did Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skremtti, who is usually an A-plus conservative, just inadvertently endorse VP Harris’s failed price control strategy?
The Biden-Harris presidency has been a textbook example of how a growing government does not equal growing prosperity. Since the beginning of the administration’s tenure, government spending has skyrocketed, job-killing regulations have exploded, and government mandates have become commonplace. This commitment to growing government has led to an explosion of inflation and a near doubling of interest rates, all of which combined to create the snowball of economic instability that’s crushing Tennessee’s families.
When faced with an electorate angry over their reduced buying power, the White House put the pedal to the metal by blaming everyone else for its policy failures instead of looking in the mirror and realizing that they alone caused this financial mess. The housing industry didn’t come as an exception, with the administration blaming “landlord price-gouging” for today’s inflated pricing. This was the first White House in 50 years to endorse price controls — all the others listened to the many Democratic and Republican economists who unanimously oppose them.
Yet, on August 23, AG Skrmetti shockingly joined a Merrick Garland Department of Justice led push to help Biden-Harris implement these price controls. He was the only Republican state attorney general to do so.
In short, to help Biden-Harris scapegoat for the high cost of rent, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against the main software company that landlords use to help them figure out what their market pricing should. It accused the company “collusion” and “antitrust violations.” As reporting from Fox Business indicated, this is akin to suing a referee because your favorite quarterback threw an interception. It doesn’t make any sense.
These software companies just report on (and make recommendations based on) the marketplace’s current conditions. If Biden-Harris don’t like what they have to say, they should change the marketplace conditions, which would make housing costs (and these companies’ pricing recommendations) cheaper. Instead, however, the Biden-Harris DOJ has decided to weaponize the regulatory state against the messenger. That might help give Biden-Harris a talking point on the campaign trail, but it doesn’t help solve a single problem for a single American.
Most Republican AGs had the good sense to see this scheme for what it was — a political move designed to give the Biden-Harris Administration cover for their failed policies. Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform went so far as to state the DOJ targeting landlords and their technology “smells of an effort to set up national rent control, which has been discussed by other parts of the Democratic Party.” It’s unfortunate that AG Skrmetti, who is usually a very astute, principled legal mind, wasn’t able to see this scam for what it was.
Without question, AG Skrmetti didn’t intend to help Biden-Harris play politics. With this White House’s DOJ being helpful on Big Tech and some other issuers, it can sometimes be hard to separate its good motives from its bad ones. No one can get everything right all the time! Nevertheless, I hope the good attorney general is quickly brought up to speed on what’s truly in play here.
Whether rent control is imposed through caps on increases or sketchy legal assaults against legitimate businesses, the results are always the same – continued housing shortages, less investment in new properties, less maintenance, and an overall lower quality of life. This is a dangerous path that threatens to bring Washington’s failed policies to Tennessee’s doorstep.
I’m sure AG Skrmetti’s fellow Republican AGs will soon speak to him on this issue, which should propel him to study this issue more closely and get the State of Tennessee off this disastrous suit. He should opt to champion solutions that expand our state’s housing supply instead, which will lower prices by supporting economic freedom. It’s the best (and only) sustainable path forward.
