Renewing Trump's Tax Cuts Won't Just Be Expensive, It Will Make Housing Even Less Affordable
Before the election Donald Trump promised to fix inflation, which included big voter concern about the cost of housing. For all the shock and awe, the chaos and the daily firehose of orders, Trump has essentially acquiesced to higher inflation. And there’s not a word out of this hyper-verbal administration about housing where rents and prices are still near historic highs. New supply is anemic, and almost none of it is aimed at the lowest three-fifths of earners.
High interest rates are unlikely to decline. On-again off-again tariffs will whipsaw prices of lumber and any number of commodities and products that go into homebuilding.
The only thing congressional Republicans can rouse themselves to do is extend massively expensive provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) that will require equally massive cuts from government programs to finance. The idea is to make the cuts devised by the first Trump Administration permanent. The cost is touted at $4.5 trillion in lost tax revenue—appalling enough considering what that figure would buy in terms of useful services—but the number covers only the next ten years, obscuring the draconian long-term impact on tax revenues and the deficit.
Aside from the immorality of handing more tax goodies to people and companies who already pay little tax, some of these benefits place well-heeled owners and predatory investors in competition for the few non-luxury properties available to people earning middle incomes or less who are simply seeking shelter they can afford. Guess who wins.
https://www.postalley.org/2025/04/06/renewing-trumps-tax-cuts-wont-just-be-expensive-it-will-make-housing-even-less-affordable/