Perverse Incentives of Our Welfare State

Floor Speech

Date: April 9, 2025
Location: Washington, DC

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I will point out one more time the perverse incentives of our welfare state.

I will just mention one type right now: Section 42, low-income housing. Section 42 low-income housing is very generous to property developers, who wind up only having to pay for 30 percent of the cost of their housing.

Worse, because it is new housing, I had a staffer looking for a new apartment building with her new husband, and they found out the best apartments in town were the low-income housing.

In order to be eligible for low-income housing, you almost certainly can't be married. In order to be eligible, you can't be working very hard.

I think this body ought to get out of the business of encouraging people not to work hard, and they especially ought to get out of the business of discriminating against people who are married with children. I sure hope that this body, when we finally deal with the reconciliation bill, gets rid of these perverse antimarriage incentives.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward