Freedom Line Blog

In our Liberty Update this week, we highlight two panoramic measures of the Obama Administration’s failed presidency:  the long-term plummet in U.S. economic freedom compared to the rest of the world, and the fact that more Americans today than in January 2009 consider the U.S. a nation in decline.  That wasn’t supposed to happen under Obama’s magical leadership.

Today, the Commerce Department released a more particularized measure of the Obama Administration’s failure:

The U.S. home ownership rate fell to its lowest level in 20 years at the end of 2014 – a level last seen when national leaders embarked on a broad push to expand home ownership in the mid-1990s.  Estimates published Thursday show that, after adjusting for seasonal factors, 63.9% of U.S. households owned their homes in the fourth quarter, a rate last recorded in 1994, according to the Commerce Department.  Home ownership hasn’t fallen below that level since 1988.  The rate stood at 65.1% at the end of 2013.”

Accordingly, ownership isn’t just down since the government-inflated housing bubble burst almost ten years ago, or even since the recession officially ended all the way back in June 2009.  It’s down over the past year, despite the supposed Obama economic recovery.  Home ownership obviously rose too high during the bubble, as the result of government-imposed mandates and too easy credit, but the fact that it declined since even last January 1 offers a reminder of the sluggishness of the economy under Obama.

Dan Murphy at National Review found another possible debating point for Mitt Romney:

Tucked away in President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal was a little-noticed provision telling Congress that it may need to provide $688 million to cover the FHA’s projected losses this fiscal year. Translation: The FHA will need a bailout for the first time in its 75-year history.

A short-term solution by the Department of Housing and Urban Development covered up FHA’s growing financial problem until mid-November, i.e. after the presidential election.

Mitt Romney should clue-in the American people on this failure before they vote.