Between the emerging administration, and a Congress that is hell-bent on taking our country backwards—not just to before Obama, but to before Roosevelt’s New Deal—there is a clear need for citizen vigilance and activism. And Americans are meeting the moment: They’re flocking to marches, airports, and town halls; donating record amounts of money; and subscribing to responsible journalistic outlets that hold the government accountable.

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Americans are showing up in record numbers, but it doesn’t actually take that many people to move the government. The Tea Party proved this in 2009, when a small segment of the electorate organized to thwart President Obama. It rallied its members against a president who had decisively won both the popular vote and the Electoral College, and whose party held majorities in both Congressional chambers—a president who did, in fact, enjoy a sweeping popular mandate for his campaign promises.  Yet by focusing their energy with laser-like precision on a local, defensive strategy, the Tea Party became a force in American politics.

What the Tea Party did was a Civics 101 lesson on constituent power: They engaged with their members of Congress, and reminded them that they have opinions—and that they vote. And they did it week after week after week.

Now we’re in the beginnings of a new movement, and we can use a similar playbook.

It worked here in Roanoke when our Congressman, Republican Bob Goodlatte, proposed legislation to gut the congressional ethics office. Constituents flooded the office with so many calls that his staff seemed dazed when they picked up the phone. Then, when the phone lines were continuously busy, 12 of us decided we were concerned enough to visit his district office in person.

We knew that it was our Representative’s staff’s job to listen to our concerns and report them to Mr. Goodlatte.  But Congressional offices will also try to control the public narrative, and even silence constituents.  We have now visited Mr. Goodlatte’s district office three times, and we were denied entry each time.

On our first visit we were forced to meet with his staff in a lobby on a different floor, where we delivered New Year’s cards with our messages (one of which read “Happy New Year!  We expect better!”). On our second visit we were told the same lobby was private property and no longer available for constituent meetings, so we asked his staff to meet with us outside.  There, a group of teachers and medical and insurance professionals urged Mr. Goodlatte to vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unless he had a health care proposal to replace it.  By our third visit a week later, building security physically blocked the lobby door to keep us outside. Once again, we called Mr. Goodlatte’s staff to meet us in the winter cold so we could deliver 80 letters from constituents asking Goodlatte to vote against a federal “personhood” bill that would criminalize abortion, in vitro fertilization, and some forms of birth control.

Like the woman from Utah who sent a message to her senator via pizza delivery when his voice mail was full, we have learned to improvise and be creative.  We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure our members of Congress hear our voices.

The first weeks of the Trump administration have shown that we can win some fights if we stand together. Congressional Republicans retreated from Goodlatte’s anti-ethics legislation, and the calls and visits demanding a replacement for the ACA before a reckless repeal throws millions of people off their health insurance have forced some Republicans to admit privately that they need to slow down and govern.

Civics 101 is working again.

Right now, we have the chance to do even more. This week, members of Congress are in their home states and districts. It is their job to listen to us, so find a local group and make sure that they do. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.

This is our republic, entrusted to each and every citizen.  Every call and every visit to our representatives is another beat of the heart of our democracy.  Our system only works when we make sure our representatives are not legislating for themselves or their lobbyists, but for those who gave them the power to govern in the first place: The American people.

We’re in the middle of an affordable housing crisis

The United States is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Nearly 1 in 3 households with a mortgage devotes more than 30 percent of their income to their home. The situation is even worse for renters—more than half of America’s 38 million rental households are shouldering a cost burden.

Some of this crisis is fallout from the Great Recession, which brought homeownership rates to historic lows. African-American and Latino households were hit particularly hard, because of predatory lending practices that targeted racially segregated communities.

Congress spends a lot on housing, mostly through tax programs

Given these crises in housing affordability and homeownership, congressional strategies to support housing deserve special scrutiny.

Congress supports housing in two main ways: rental assistance programs and homeownership tax programs. In 2015, the price tag for federal rental assistance programs—which includes Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing, Homeless Assistance Grants, and other programs—was $51 billion. In contrast, two of the largest homeownership tax programs—the Mortgage Interest Deduction and the Property Tax Deduction—cost $90 billion in 2015. That’s nearly double the amount spent on public benefit housing programs.

The biggest beneficiary of the billions spent on homeownership tax programs? The wealthy.

There’s nothing wrong with providing support through the tax code—benefits are benefits, whether you get them from your local HUD office or on your tax return.  The important question is: who benefits? Rental assistance programs are designed to help those who will benefit most—primarily individuals and families with less income and less stable housing. But this isn’t the how Congress designed homeownership tax programs. All told, households making over $100,000 a year received nearly 90 percent of the $90 billion spent on the two tax programs discussed above. Households making less than $50,000 got a little more than 1 percent of those benefits.

It gets uglier. There are nearly eight million low-income homeowners that struggle to pay for housing from month to month. On average, low-income households get about eight cents per month from these two homeownership tax programs. Eight cents. There are also about four million middle-income households paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The average monthly benefit from these tax programs for middle-income earners? Twelve bucks. Don’t spend it all in one place.

In contrast, the top 0.1 percent of earners—folks with an average annual income of more than $9 million—get an average of $1,236 per month (nearly $15,000 per year) from just these two homeownership tax programs. That federal benefit is much more than the typical cost of rent in most American cities, and it’s going to wealthy households who really don’t need help keeping a roof over their heads.

Why these tax programs are so upside down

So why are these tax programs so out of whack? It’s no accident—it’s how the programs are designed. Most low-income families don’t even qualify because they don’t itemize deductions. Even among those that do qualify, every dollar they deduct is worth less than a dollar that a high-income earner deducts. As nonsensical as it sounds, the value of homeownership tax support goes up as your income goes up. In addition, higher-income households get bigger deductions when they buy bigger houses (or bigger yachts, which qualify for the same tax benefits).

If we ran the Food Stamp (SNAP) program the same way we run our housing tax programs, low-income parents buying a simple, nutritious meal for their kids would get somewhere around zero dollars in federal support. Millionaires charging their MasterCard with a $5,000 FleurBurger, seared foie gras, truffle sauce, and bottle of 1995 Château Petrus would get a few thousand dollars in federal benefits.

Clearly, this would be a crazy way to run a social program—but this really is how we structure billions in support for wealthy homeowners through the tax code. Even worse, study after study shows that the Mortgage Interest Deduction doesn’t even succeed in boosting homeownership.

How we can get away from this upside-down system

It’s not hard to think up a better way to spend $90 billion. That’s the focus of the Turn it Right-Side Up campaign, which zeroes in on reforming unfair tax programs like these homeownership boondoggles. We could redirect this spending to help lower-income Americans save for a down payment, or use some of these funds to create a first-time homebuyer credit, or create a simple refundable credit for all homeowners. Or all of the above.

In other words, there are options that don’t include flushing billions in tax subsidies down a golden toilet in a millionaire’s yacht (which he claims as a second home, for the tax break). Next time someone argues that we can’t afford to fix widespread housing insecurity, our response should be that we can’t afford to keep spending so much to house the wealthy. Let’s make a different choice—let’s start using these homeownership tax programs to actually solve the affordable housing crisis.

That’s because for millions of Americans, tax time is a big boon—their refund is the single largest check they’ll receive all year.  In fact, for lower-income tax filers, their annual refund can amount to 30 percent or more of their income for the entire year, providing a rare period of financial security in a year full of financial distress. These filers spend their refunds mostly on paying down debts, investing in their kids and their own future, and putting some savings away.  For the rest of the year, though, a near majority of Americans are financially insecure, lacking even the most basic savings to deal with an emergency like reduced work hours or car trouble.

And that’s the problem with tax season: it’s just one short season. But life goes on and financial security shouldn’t end when that refund check is gone. A new bipartisan bill, the Refund to Rainy Day Savings Act, introduced by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), aims to stretch out the positive impact of tax season by boosting emergency savings and year-round financial security.

The legislation tackles that goal in two simple ways. First, it allows all tax filers to opt in to a new Rainy Day Savings program at tax time. Under this program, when tax filers check a box on their 1040, a full 20 percent of their refund is saved for six months, accruing interest over the course of that period. Six months later, that deferred refund is put into their direct-deposit account. (Any account that is direct-deposit eligible can be used, including prepaid cards.) Filers would still get a sizeable refund at tax time, but they also get to set some aside for the year ahead and earn interest on it.

The second big component of the bill is designed specifically for low-income households. The Refund to Rainy Day Savings Act creates a new research and evaluation pilot program run by the Department of Health and Human Services to test out different models of savings matches for tax time. Driven by the needs of local anti-poverty practitioners and the populations they serve, this program will invest in innovative strategies to help lower-income households build savings and become financially secure. For example, as we’ve written previously, a pilot site could set up a 50 percent match for opting into the program. If the family saves $500 of their tax refund, they’ll receive $750 plus interest in six months. For reference, $750 is larger than the typical high-interest payday loan.

The legislation also provides research funding to evaluate what works and what doesn’t in the field of matched savings for low-income families and individuals, paving the way for future reforms that could scale up countrywide. This is what real evidence-based policymaking looks like.

Of course, the Rainy Day Savings program won’t eliminate financial insecurity. Families need adequate income to get by day-to-day, not just savings to weather emergencies. Low-wage workers who can’t claim children on their tax return in particular will continue to lose out under the current tax code unless Congress acts to stop taxing them into poverty. And a deferred refund won’t work for everyone. Some households will need immediate access to their tax refund. It makes sense—it’s their money and they should have access to it when they want and need it.

But the Refund to Rainy Day Savings Act takes a critical step in the right direction. It’s the first bipartisan bill of its kind aimed at expanding emergency savings and financial security. It creates a new tool that could help millions of low-wage workers take better control of their financial lives. And it will do that while simultaneously laying the groundwork for future large-scale reforms.

The good news is that it won’t take an act of divine intervention to boost financial security for millions of lower-income Americans—just an act of Congress. When two senators from two different parties can come together to announce something like this legislation, the rest of Congress should take notice and make it happen.

Our new animation shows that the key to understanding this is to not think of them as tax programs—instead think of them as this:

That’s right, gigantic congressional money cannons.  Because these tax programs take what would be government revenue, and give it out to folks to buy a house, go to college, or build a retirement nest egg or financial security for themselves.

At CFED, we like all of these things. We want low-wage workers to be savers and learners and homeowners and entrepreneurs. In other words, we want them to have the opportunity to build wealth. As we see it, while income is crucial for getting by, wealth is crucial for getting ahead.

But in America—the land of opportunity—wealth inequality is skyrocketing. The top 0.1 percent own about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. A typical single white male owns $28,900, while a typical single woman of color owns $200 or less. While wealth grows for those at the top, nearly half of Americans are mired in financial insecurity—one paycheck away from economic collapse.

…Which brings us back to those gigantic money cannons. According to our research, the federal government spent $620 billion to help Americans build wealth last year. That’s a lot of dollars shooting out of those cannons—more than $5,000 for every single household in the country.

So where’s your big benefit check?

Well, here’s the bad news: unless you’re a Walmart heir or regularly sport a top hat and monocle, those money cannons probably aren’t aimed at you. Remember that top 0.1 percent that owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent? A typical member of that elite club got $33,391 last year from the largest of these tax programs—roughly the sticker price of a Lexus or BMW. A typical American in the bottom 20 percent?  She got $77—roughly enough for a BMW’s hubcap.

In short, these upside-down tax programs are making wealth inequality even worse. There’s nothing wrong with rich people buying a new Lexus, but the rest of us just shouldn’t have to subsidize it with money that we could be using to get ahead.

It’s an expensive, inequitable, and wasteful way to help Americans afford housing, save for retirement, pay for college, and build financial security. It widens the wealth divide between the rich and the rest; between men and women; and between whites and communities of color. Instead of helping all Americans get ahead, we’re just giving a boost to the lucky few who are already at the front of the pack.

This isn’t going to change unless we speak up. Because you know who doesn’t think taxes are boring? The guy getting that Lexus-sized check every year. And you can bet he’s making his voice heard.

That’s why we made this animation. To fight for change, we have to understand the problem and the solution. We know that the government is already spending billions on wealth-building programs. We just want them to spend it smarter to help everyone get ahead.

As we enter 2016, the country is engaged in a debate on opportunity, inequality, financial security, and, yes, taxes. The Republican and Democratic presidential debates this week are two venues where this discussion will continue, and there will be many more to come. So let’s shape that debate instead of letting others shape it for us. Demand that our elected officials—and wannabe elected officials—commit to turning these upside-down tax programs right-side up. They say they want to reduce wealth inequality and grow financial security for all Americans—well, here’s an easy way they can do just that.

These policies are not going to change overnight, but to get there we first need to raise awareness about the enormity of the problem. Do your part: watch our animation, share the message, and sign up so you can stay informed and take action. Real change starts with you and a click, so do your part to turn things right-side up.

]]> https://talkpoverty.org/2014/10/14/housing-policy-increasing-homelessness/ Tue, 14 Oct 2014 13:17:17 +0000 http://talkpoverty.abenson.devprogress.org/?p=5028 Continued]]> There’s good news for homebuyers in the D.C. area this fall: The Washington Post reports that analysts expect healthier inventories, stabilizing prices, and fewer bidding wars. To help boost the housing market, Councilmember Grosso introduced a “tax credit” bill last month to cut district taxes for first-time homebuyers.

We have to admit—this sounds great to us. You see, we’re both in DINK households—Dual Income, No Kids. Yuppies in comfortable, do-gooder D.C. jobs. One of us just bought a home, the other is considering it. It’s hard not to read this news and think: Ooh, is the credit retroactive? How can I get a piece of this pie?

But a growing number of D.C. families have a different question about housing: Where are we going to sleep tonight? And our housing policy isn’t helping to provide much of an answer.

Since 2008, the District’s homeless population has increased 73%. Nearly half are people living with families. Though six of America’s ten wealthiest counties are in the D.C. region, one-third of all four member households earn less than $70,000 a year.

At the same time, D.C. housing prices remain sky high. The median price for a D.C. home is half a million dollars. And though the city’s stock of luxury apartments has increased more than 70% since 2010, vacancy rates for older, more affordable apartments remain extremely low.

This combination — of stagnant incomes and high housing prices — means there’s no reason to expect the rise in D.C. homelessness to end anytime soon.

The Great Recession is of course a key driver of these trends. The bad economy and lingering unemployment rates continue to hurt millions of families across the country. But macroeconomic forces aren’t the only thing prolonging the District’s current homelessness crisis. The split between housing policy for the wealthy and housing policy for most families is making things worse.

What about that legislation offered by Councilmember Grosso? The first-time homebuyer taxes that the legislation would cut help fund the Housing Production Trust Fund—the main source of funding for affordable housing in the District. So it’s a boost for wealthy homebuyers who are doing just fine, and a cut for low- and moderate-income D.C. residents who are struggling.

Unfortunately, boosting homeownership tax programs for top earners while short-changing housing programs for everyone else is a common practice for policymakers. And no U.S. legislative body does it with such aplomb as the U.S. Congress.

One of the few resources to assist low-income households with unaffordable rents is the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, or Section 8.  For four decades, this program has used private-sector solutions to make housing available to those in need.

This year, Congress scaled back rental assistance significantly, even though the housing market has become increasingly unaffordable for many Americans, particularly those with lower incomes. These cuts will result in 80,000 fewer households receiving help, deepening the 72,000 reduction caused by last year’s sequestration.

We know, we know. In this town of policy wonks and political spinners, these are just another set of numbers. It’s easy to gloss over them. But take a moment to imagine the human faces behind these numbers. Tens of thousands of fewer American households are receiving the help they need to sleep comfortably tonight. Fewer vouchers mean less stability for the elderly who scrape by on fixed income; for the adults who want to work; for the children who want to excel at school. It means scores more homeless on the street and in shelters. These are the human consequences of these numbers.

Some argue that the federal government can’t afford to spend any more to ensure that homeless families have a safe place to sleep. This is just ridiculous. Taxpayers are spending more to house the wealthiest among us than they are to house low-income families.

Wait a minute, can that be true?

In 2012, the Heritage Foundation put together a list of twelve low-income housing programs to highlight the size of government “welfare” spending. Those programs cost about $50 billion last year. This may seem like a large sum, but consider that the federal government also spent $211 billion last year on homeownership tax programs.  In fact, the top 10% of earners received about as much housing support from just two of these tax programs – the Mortgage Interest and Real Estate Tax Deductions – as the federal government spent on all of the housing “welfare programs” identified by Heritage. Simply put, the government spends some to help house low-income families, but it spends a lot more to help house high-income families.

There is one more key difference between high-income homeownership tax programs and low-income rental vouchers: the former are scheduled to grow 80% between 2011 and 2019. At the current rate, we’ll be spending $240 billion predominantly to help house the wealthy, while cutting thousands of vouchers for those who desperately need a safe place for their families. If this seems inefficient, inequitable, and callous, that’s because it is.

Congress has the power to change this. The lack of affordable housing is a crisis that our nation must address. In the District, we have families living in hotels, doubled-up with relatives or friends in overcrowded households, and even sleeping in cars. The same is true in communities across the country. We cannot allow this to continue.

We need policymakers to stop indulging the excesses of the wealthy at the expense of struggling families and individuals. We need policymakers to match the scale of the problem with real solutions to end homelessness in America.