Bernie Sanders calls for nationwide rent control as part of $2.5 trillion housing plan

By Andrew Kerr

Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan Wednesday that he said will “end homelessness” and make access to affordable housing a “fundamental right” for all Americans.

Wikimedia Commons/Lorie Shaull

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

“In America today, there is virtually no city or town where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a decent, two-bedroom apartment,” Sanders said in a statement announcing his “Housing for All” plan. “In the richest country in the history of the world, every American must have a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home as a fundamental right. We need a homes guarantee.”

The $2.5 trillion plan would combat the housing shortage in America by investing in the construction of 7.4 million homes for low-income renters, which Sanders said will “remain affordable in perpetuity.” It would also fund construction for another 2 million “mixed-income social housing units” that would help “desegregate and integrate communities.”

In addition, Sanders’s plan would impose nationwide rent controls that cap annual increases by no more than 3 percent or one and a half times the rate of inflation, whichever is greater.

Sanders said his call for nation-wide rent control is necessary to protect tenants from skyrocketing housing costs and protect renters from evictions, but there’s widespread agreement among economists that such measures negatively impact new home construction.

“While rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood,” the left-leaning Brookings Institution reported in 2018.

Sanders’s plan would be funded primarily by a wealth tax on the top 0.1% of income earners in addition to new taxes on certain categories of homeowners, one of which may apply to the presidential hopeful.

The plan calls for a 2% “Empty Home” tax on the property value of homes owned by individuals but are vacant. The measure is designed to “bring more units into the market and curb the use of housing as speculative investment.”

Sanders, who owns three houses and has an estimated net worth of at least $2 million, did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation when asked if he would need to pay the tax on any of his properties.

Sanders’s housing plan would also realize a core tenet of the Green New Deal by retrofitting all public housing by 2030 to run completely on renewable energy sources.

Sanders said the measure would make electricity “virtually free” after 2035.

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Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Michael Vadon and Wikimedia Commons/Lorie Shaull

6 thoughts on “Bernie Sanders calls for nationwide rent control as part of $2.5 trillion housing plan

  1. Bernie you can buy my buildings. And see how long it takes you to go bankrupt with the increase in the water sewer electricity heating fuel repairs Etc. Oh and don’t forget about the increased taxes.

  2. These are not “Housing Units” but Warehousing Units…aka federalized takeover of housing market…we already have Section 8 which consists of energy-efficient buildings and “units” with rents to those income-eligible at 30% of income.

    Comrade Bernards’ expanded version is part of UN Agenda 2030…replacement for Agenda 21 and its innocuous sounding “Sutainable Development Goals” which along with shelf-life of the planet by fiat had to be pushed forward to the newly minted “10-12 years” as the agreed-upon Marxist talking points since Donald Trump called their bluff and basically exposed it for the cult-like religion and abject fraud it is and always was… along with the hundreds of silenced *other* climate scientists.

    So with Al Gores’ newer dire pedictions along with the ones we’ve bean hearing about since the 1960s – ranging from the planet boiling or freezing, depending on whims of the climate alarmist committee choice – having all been shown to be Sky-is-Falling pure fooolishness and Paris in the rearview now have to fast-forward clock to new future target dates of gloom and doom claiming same failed prdictions and adding new ones to keep the Communist takeover of our economy and redistribution of national wealth dream alive. Same old bs different day…and now century.

    We The (little) People are to be run off of the land, our cars and trucks taken away as carbon will be priced so that only the likes of ‘multimillion property assets Private Jet traveling’ Comrade “not-for-me-but-thee” Sanders and of course our legislators and rest of wealthy ruling class will be able to afford living in the country.

    The plan is for the rest of us to be stuffed into “population centers” where vehcles other than the public busses will not be needed. This represents a return to feudal society which is what the very wealthy as in royalty of our planet desire…which is why all land is being kept from development by environmental laws and subsidies. Our local leaders and officials are mere whipcracking overseers who think they will not have to live in the slavery planned for the rest of us and are being expected to accept…along with taking our guns away or not allowing us to be armed to the extent we can fully protect ourselves, friends and fams.

    Soo…does anyone think we will see the likes of Comrade Bernie flying coach to save the planet that is before it is outlawed for the rest of us…or Comrade Phil @ the bus stop or Comrade McKibben biking into the statehouse…rest of our ‘leaders and lawmakes’ in congress or our statehouses…if so youre a fool imho. However…those who live by that sword will also perish by it.

  3. Maybe Bernie should give away a couple of his lavish homes, I mean Bernie only needs one home right? He can do his part and set a great example and solve the problem he’s babbling about. Unless underneath it all, Bernie is just a “greedy millionah”

  4. Didn’t we already try this in the 70’s 80’s with “the projects” housing for low income and minorities? As mentioned by others the driving factor for high rent is HIGH TAXES ….
    How about TAX CONTROL burnee??? burnee don’t have to worry anyway as the clown car is in drive the independent ol fart out of the DemonRAT’s party mode…Then it’ll be time too cull the pedo ol slow joe….

  5. Bernie is going to compel taxpayers to fund government construction of rental dwellings to fill the void that would result from him passing a bill to discourage private enterprise from building them – instead of reducing taxes and Byzantine applications, licenses, inspections, permits and fees to create the competitive marketplace that would result in landlords having to compete for tenants? He looks crazy, too.

  6. Is there anything that this guy won’t say? This is another one of his government control schemes.
    That’s what socialism is. Screaming Bernie. He is really a joke and an embarrassment.

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