May 29, 2007 - 11:20pm
On Low Income Housing
By Steve LoneganI am as supportive of the great calibrating power of the free market as any believer of individual liberty should be - and most Democrat politicians and a majority of Republicans, are not. Nothing is more frustrating to students of Adam Smith’s free market economics and proponents of the concept of opportunity and responsibility as when the government thinks it can out plan the economy or use bureaucratic formulas to provide “fairness.” The court ordered manipulation of the economies housing requirements is the paramount example of government planner’s failure in tinkering with the free-market.
Trenton’s central planners claim the economy needs 100,000 Low Income Housing units so people have access to jobs in suburban communities. This is total hogwash. The logic is based on a presumption that private businesses are incompetent and unable to make the most fundamental business decisions necessary to compete and succeed.
Any business that locates in a community that does not offer housing affordable to that businesses employee base should either be able to pay higher salaries to the point the employee can afford housing in that community or relocate to an area that offers that housing stock. If not, they deserve to go out of business.
On the other hand, if a community chooses to limit the type of housing the employer needs to attract and maintain its employee base that community deserves to lose that taxpaying business. Besides, most suburban communities in New Jersey were developed as “bedroom communities” and residents travel to other areas to work. The argument is based on providing government subsidies to create housing for economic development in towns that don’t have any real jobs.
The use of government low income housing mandates under the guise of “economic development” is intellectually bankrupt. There is no greater force than the “invisible hand” of the free market in forcing businesses and communities to meet economic needs for business services and the corresponding housing needs of workers.
The underlying principle of the left is that people have a “right” to own a home. The cornerstone of conservative thought is that individuals have the opportunity to earn that home. That opportunity can only be realized when the government steps back and allows true, economic progress. Government intervention only serves to indirectly subsidize businesses with the hard earned dollars of the taxpayer. The taxpayer will pick up the tab when these housing projects are filled with individuals who can not find jobs. Then the central planners will look to create even more government jobs to justify their failed program.
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Low Income Housing
On this issue, Mayor Lonegan is simply not applying logic. We need low income housing for two reasons. One, industry canot operate in certain parts of the State if their low income employees have no place in the vicinity to live. Two, this is the most expensive State to live in, and its become nearly impossible for the lower-middle class to live here, and impossible for the working poor. I agree with the Mayor that there has been fiscal mismanagement in State government that has added to the problem. And, yes, we have had corrupt, selfish members of the State Legislature who have added to the problem. Now, how can we say to low income New Jerseyans, "You're too poor to live here. We don't care about you". Mayor Lonegan, on this issue, you should be ashamed.
Government cannot subsidize private sector employment
It is idiotic for the state to subsidize housing simply to accomodate the private sector. It is not the government's responsibility to provide low income housing to anyone. The flawed "War on Poverty" experiments of the 1960's and 1970's were clear failures. How can you justify price ceilings on the housing market? Are there ceilings on profits, wages or earnings? New Jersey's myopic effort to compel low income housing is no less a failure than for the state under the guise of Abbott v. Burke to compel the state to send billions to failed school districts that cannot teach basic skills much less anything else! This 100,000 target is nothing but social engineering and pandering to corrupt urban politicos who can't govern. The problems of the urban areas are the urban areas themselves. How do you justify given windfall abatements to business to invest in the urban areas with no return? The logic is exactly the same. Does Jersey City need abatements now? Jersey City rents and property values have sky rocketed. Those added assessments should give this municipality the revenue to tackle issues such as housing. The state should have no role in such a flawed process. Does anyone ever realize that affordable or low income units NEVER are constrcuted in suburban enclaves? Why is that? The whole process is flawed and Lonegan is absolutely correct. Democrats have become nothing but puppets for greddy developers under the guise of affordable housing.
Strike a balance
A century ago, there was no affordable housing issue, and neither were building and zoning codes as strict as today. The poor lived where they could afford, which was mostly in blighted, high-risk places, which have come under the wrecking ball since. Building for residential has become ever more regulated. That said, there's no alternative but to have some government incursion to the free market we would like in land development. The only remaining question is, how much...
Lonegan; Wrong Again
Lonegan is a radical "free market" fundamentalist fanatic.
There was a time when "the invisible hand" of the "free market" was allowed totally free reign.
It was called the 19th century.
How far back does this Mayor want to take the country?
At one time, PEOPLE were LITERALLY slaves to be bought and sold in the "free market"
Until Lonegan specifies precisely just how far back he wants to turn the clock of common human decency/morality "interfering" in his precious "free markets" then everything he says is vague ideological nonsense.
Perhaps, Steve would merely be content to go back to the Robber Baron era of the 1890's?
Sorry Mayor, I dare say most of your own constituents would throw you out of office if they ever thought that your re-election could stop their social security benefits....or their grand children's minimum wage summer jobs.
You represent greed/selfishness/avarice masquerading as "freedom". Period.
We live in a nation that is at it's best when we co-operate in service to a common good/cause. That's the American way. That's the Judeo-Christian way. That's the way of common human decency.
If you want to advocate for a Hobbsian world of selfish bastards; that's fine....but don't dress it up in the language of human freedom.
Freedom doesn't mean that the strong have the right to screw those weaker than them....that's the opposite of freedom.
One thing the Mayor and I might agree on is that these programs to create affordable housing have been riddled with self serving political and economic corruption...but that's true of just about everything in the business AND government sectors.
The answer is improving governance; not eliminating it in the name of some delusional concept of "freedom".
From Frederick Douglass