An Amendment in St. Paul
When voters approved one of the nation’s most draconian rent control laws, developers in St. Paul reacted exactly as had been predicted: they halted housing projects. In September, the St. Paul City Council amended the rent control ordinance to exempt properties less than twenty years old. This returns a smidgen of freedom to landlords, but the city will still experience the destructive consequences of rent control.
Not surprisingly, tenants and their advocates opposed any changes to the ordinance. One tenant spoke to the council, saying,
We elected you to protect us. There’s a word for people who take advantage of chaotic situations to steal. Looter. Dominium [the landlord where the tenant lives] is looting us.
According to the tenant, Dominium’s desire to raise rents is looting. She conveniently ignores the fact that rent control is robbery.
If the tenant paid her rent in full and then demanded a partial refund at gunpoint, we would recognize her action as robbery. The principle doesn’t change when government acts as her proxy and demands the refund up front.
Contrary to the tenant’s view, protecting a particular group is not a proper function of government. When government attempts to protect one group, it can only do so by harming non-members of the group. That is precisely what rent control does. Tenants are “protected” by harming landlords.
Government’s only legitimate purpose is the protection of individual rights. Those rights apply to all individuals, landlords and tenants, rich and poor, black and white, male and female.
Further, while the tenant denounces those who “take advantage of chaotic situations to steal,” she and her ilk are attempting to take advantage of a chaotic situation to steal. In the midst of a severe housing shortage, tenants and their advocates seize upon any policy that will reduce the burden on renters. And they don’t hesitate to use the coercive power of government to achieve their goals.
Rent control is worse than putting a bandage on a gaping wound. It is more akin to using forceps to make the wound larger. By the time that legislators, voters, and tenants realize this fact, it will be too late.