link should work for everyone https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-do...f?st=NiVJF8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink What Does HUD Have to Show for the Trillions It’s Spent? The U.S. homeownership rate was 64% in 1967, two years after the department opened. Now it’s . . . 64%. By Jack Ryan Nov. 15, 2024 at 4:21 pm ET One of the biggest issues confronting young Americans is the decline in homeownership due to escalating mortgage costs. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program created the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reduce housing costs and increase homeownership. In the signing ceremony for the HUD Act of 1965, Johnson promised that it would “become known as the single most valuable housing legislation in our history.” What are the results? In 1967 the U.S. homeownership rate was 64%. Nearly six decades and $3 trillion of spending (in 2024 dollars) later, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the home ownership rate is nearly . . . 64%. Homeownership rates in Europe average 69%, according to the European Union. Yet most EU members have nothing like HUD’s mortgage companies—Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—and the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, all of which are meant to boost homeownership. With scores of federal housing guarantees and incentives, the U.S. probably meddles in its housing market more than any country this side of China. It would be easy to say that American taxpayers have gotten nothing in return for our $3 trillion, but it’s worse than that. U.S. rental and home prices have increased faster than inflation. According to the Census Bureau, the average price of a home was $22,000 in 1967 and is now $500,000. Home prices have increased at a 5.5% annual rate since the establishment of HUD, while overall inflation has averaged only 4%. In 1967 the average home cost about three times an average family’s income; today, it’s seven times. Prices are also volatile, which threatens the banking system. When people buy homes with smaller down payments and government-guaranteed debt, home prices move artificially higher. These prices, supported by unrealistic capital structures, stress the financial system. When homeowners can no longer cover their payments, home prices crash, followed by financial crises and severe unemployment, as occurred in 1989 and 2008. Meanwhile, otherwise prudent home buyers feel they have no choice but to lever up to compete with other buyers. Combine Americans’ increased personal stress from having to manage highly levered balance sheets with the increased stress to the financial system and we get a rare double whammy of a program that harms both the health and wealth of the nation. The $3 trillion in HUD spending is only part of the price tag for taxpayers. A 2019 MIT/Sloan study puts the cost of bailing out government-backed mortgage companies such as Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the 2008 financial crisis at $500 billion. The housing crisis of 1989 cost about $300 billion in 2007 dollars. The FHFA writes off about $25 billion a year in bad mortgages, according to its May report. Add it all up, and the U.S. has spent about $4 trillion since 1965 without increasing homeownership, making homes more affordable or reducing rents. And we’re at risk of another financial crisis brought on by overly levered personal balance sheets. What can the government do? Get out of the way. Bipartisan deregulation from 1976 to 2000 dramatically reduced the cost and increased the supply of stock-brokerage and telecommunications services as well as air, rail and trucking transportation. In addition to lower costs and better service, deregulation led to innovations such as cellphones, discount airlines and exchange-traded funds. The government can also break up a politically powerful trade group, the National Association of Realtors, whose anticompetitive rules cause U.S. realty fees to be two or three times as much as those of other developed countries. Should realty services run according to free market principles, my firm estimates that rents and home prices would drop by 5%—without affecting homeowners’ net proceeds in fully-built areas—and 10% in areas where new homes could be built and sold without excessive realty fees. (I have been a party to litigation against the NAR in pursuit of this goal.) Elon Musk, President-elect Trump’s government-efficiency adviser, has called for Washington to adopt zero-based budgeting, by which agencies would have to justify their spending every year. A good place to start would be at HUD, which has spent trillions of dollars, made housing more expensive, and greatly increased stress to America’s banking system and Americans’ nervous systems. Mr. Ryan is a co-founder of REX, a home brokerage firm, and a co-Author of “Bringing Adam Smith Into the American Home.”
You won't find any. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2...60-their-time-working-person-omb-says/398779/
thanks, that's helpful: In May 2024, the federal government employed 2.3 million civilian workers, of whom 54% worked entirely in-person due to their jobs not being conducive to telework, leaving a telework-eligible population of 1.1 million workers. Remote work, a practice by which an employee may work entirely from their home or agency-approved alternative work site, accounted for 228,000 employees, or 10% of the civilian workforce. 85 percent was clearly too high.
