The reason why we had the ruinous housing bubble several years ago was federal meddling — artificially low interest rates coupled with governmental pressure to lower lending standards so that almost everyone who could sign his name could get a mortgage. You might think that the geniuses in Washington would have learned their lessons, but they have not. AEI’s James Pethokoukis informs us here that Obama wants to lower lending standards again in order to boost home ownership.
Explanation: politicians don’t bear the costs of their mistakes and will always go after short-term political benefits (in this case, the silly idea that increasing home ownership is a good thing for the country) at the expense of long-run costs.
