There were five worthy candidates who were guilty of promoting
patently flawed policies, defending wasteful boondoggles, and pushing a
big-spending agenda.
After
the votes were tallied, the dishonor went to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.),
with 38 percent of the vote, a double-digit victory over the runner-up,
incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), whose absurd proposal to
bring back pork-barrel earmarks earned him 27 percent.
Senator
Harris was named August
2018 Porker of the Month for proposing a bill that would subsidize rent with
taxpayer dollars. Her bill would have encouraged the same behaviors that
led to the student loan bubble. A February 2017 study by
the New York Federal Reserve found that as students took out larger
federally-subsidized loans, colleges and universities hiked tuition, blunting
the benefits for students and increasing the burden on taxpayers. The
same would be true in the rental market. Tenants would be incentivized to
rent the most expensive allowable properties and landlords would be able to
spike rents without facing a financial downside because taxpayers would foot
the increased bill. Conservative estimates put the price of
the subsidy at $76 billion per year, and those costs would surely rise, like
other federal programs intended to help the poor.
The Tax Foundation concluded that
Sen. Harris’s plan, “would fail to address the root causes of the high cost of
housing. Instead, it would wind up benefiting landlords, not
significantly improving the lives of renters, and carrying a hefty price
tag.” University of Georgia economics professor Jeffrey Dorfman wrote,
“Instead of the Rent Relief Act, we could call it the Landlord Enrichment and
Taxpayer Fleecing Act.” Read More
