Contra J.D. Vance and Tim Walz, Housing Should Be a ‘Commodity’
Tuesday’s vice presidential debate included a surprising amount of agreement between the two candidates on stage. Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) competed on who would produce more oil, keep the border more secure, and support Israel the most.
They also were both in alignment on the notion that housing shouldn’t be “a commodity.”
“The problem we’ve had is that we’ve got a lot of folks that see housing as another commodity,” said Walz, criticizing the influence of Wall Street on the housing market.
Tim Walz: “The problem we’ve had is that we’ve got a lot of folks that see housing as another commodity”
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) October 2, 2024
“We should get out of this idea of housing as a commodity!” concurred Vance, saying that the way to make it not a commodity would be to crack down on illegal immigration.
JD VANCE: “I actually agree with Tim Walz. We should get out of this idea of housing as a commodity! But the thing that has most turned housing into a commodity is giving it away to millions upon millions of people who have no legal right to be here!” pic.twitter.com/mrsQRKWFof
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 2, 2024
The most generic definition of a commodity is something of value that’s bought and sold. A not insignificant segment of the left uses this generic definition when they say we should “decommodify” housing—it should not be something that’s bought and sold like a normal product.
Hear Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) decry the “privatization” of real estate development at a recent event promoting her Homes Act. That bill, jointly authored with Sen. Tina Smith (D–Minn.), would get the federal government back into the business of building and operating public housing units.
Their debate remarks notwithstanding, there’s no indication that Vance and Walz want to go so far as to completely end private housing markets.
Rather, they want to stop certain types of people from buying and selling housing—corporate speculators in Walz’s case, illegal immigrants in Vance’s. (In past remarks, Vance has also said we should squeeze corporate investors out of the housing market.) Once we get rid of the demand of Wall Street and illegal immigrants for housing, there’ll be more left for normal, decent Americans, the thinking goes.
As I wrote on Tuesday, that’s a mistaken attitude. There’s plenty of evidence that corporate investors and immigrants lower the cost of housing. The former provides the capital, the latter the labor, to get needed housing built.
There’s als
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