Vice President Kamala Harris wants to give first time homeowners $25,000 for a down payment plus $400 a month towards mortgage payments.
But there’s a catch.
Eligible candidates must be the first generation in their family to buy a home to secure the $25,000 grant. In addition, a “certain tranche of folks” will receive the $400 a month to help pay their mortgage costs.
The purpose of this all is pandering, of course. Harris’ pledge is catered towards Black Americans whose support she needs to help President Joe Biden secure the White House for another four years – a demographic that Democrats are increasingly desperate to hold on to. Even 15-20% of the Black vote going toward Trump would be catastrophic for them.
And it seems to have worked – at least to the audience she was directly pandering to, which applauded her racialnomics:
Immediately, there’s a problem. If you’re looking for somewhere which will be covered by the payments, then you must search hard for a property worth no more than $92,000.
Obviously that math assumes the person in question is unemployed, but even if a poor person was able to come up with another $400 a month to put towards the mortgage, the maximum home price they’d be able to afford is far below the national average.
Alas, it has raised questions over whether the policy actually promotes equality or favors one group over another – and what kind of loopholes may exist.
It does raise the question as to whether Harris’ is seeking to “buy” votes through wild, idealistic policies, rather than focusing on purposeful economic actions.
The Democrats have been ramping up their campaign to secure the Black vote after a disastrous four years in the approval ratings. Black voters make up large parts of swing states such as Pennsylvania, which the Biden-Harris administration needs to secure if it is to earn another four years in the White House.
Lastly, is any of this legal? Who knows – that certainly didn’t seem to matter for the Administration when it came to their unconstitutional student debt bailouts.
