The Rural Housing Bubble

John Berlau, senior fellow for finance and access to capital at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agreed.

“The government subsidize[s] risky home loans that the private sector would never have made without these direct or indirect subsidies,” he said. “Republicans and Democrats, though the latter to a much larger extent, pursued the misguided goal that everyone should be encouraged to be a homeowner to achieve the American Dream.”

“The USDA’s additional souring mortgages should be a wakeup call to these politicos that government’s only role in housing should be to lift crushing regulatory barriers to affordable homes, such as Dodd-Frank and green ‘smart-growth’ regulation,” he said.