Representative Ilhan Omar is again promoting the daffy idea that the federal government should “cancel” rent and mortgage payments because of the coronavirus.
Omar and her usual gang introduced a bill to do so months ago. And now, assuming that the Biden administration will take over the White House and knowing Biden is discussing another unconstitutional “lockdown,” she apparently thinks she can resurrect interest.
The constitutional authority to “cancel” such payments is nowhere to be found, but that won’t matter. The leftist radicals claim the “cancellation” would last only through the duration of the virus pandemic, which raises the obvious questions of who will decide the pandemic is over and when, and whether the feds would ever relinquish control over rents and mortgages.
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The plan is akin to Omar’s similarly kooky idea to make private hospitals “public,” but only for the duration of the pandemic.
Live Free!
Omar resurrected the idea in a tweet: “Cancel rent and mortgage payments.”
That was it. Nothing else. No explanation. Just another childish demand.
But it’s not something new. In April, as the pandemic began, Omar and eight cosponsors introduced the “Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act of 2020.”
The key provisions are these:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the obligation of each tenant household of a covered rental dwelling unit to pay rent for occupancy in such dwelling unit shall be suspended with respect to such occupancy during the COVID 19 suspension period. …
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the obligation of each mortgagor under a covered residential mortgage loan to make mortgage payments of principal and interest that become due during the COVID-19 suspension period is hereby suspended.
But the bill doesn’t suspend payments. It cancels them.
Landlords and mortgage holders could not collect the payments that were “suspended.” Instead, the bill directs the secretary of housing and urban development to create a “landlord relief fund” to pay unpaid rents, and a “lender relief fund” to pay unpaid mortgages.
An obvious if unwelcome observation: Americans are unable to pay rent and mortgages because federal and state officials ordered a “lockdown” that destroyed a booming economy and threw millions of Americans out of work.
Businesses were wrecked. Lives ruined. Jobs lost. All thanks to the government.
So now leftists see an opportunity: seize control of housing for the “duration of the coronavirus pandemic,” as they say, to resolve a problem government created.
Americans might ask who will determine when the pandemic ends, and what guarantees lenders and landlords will receive that the “suspension” won’t become a permanent cancellation.
“Cancel rent and mortgage payments,” after all, is what Omar tweeted.
The unconstitutional power grab aside, the bill is unnecessary. Top lenders are working with mortgagees and permitting suspension of house payments during the pandemic.
States are providing rent assistance and suspended evictions — as has the federal government — for nonpayment of rent.
Seize the Hospitals
If the beturbaned congresswoman’s plan sounds familiar, it should.
On Twitter in March, she unbosomed this proposal: The government should seize control of private hospitals, but again, only as long as the pandemic lasts:
Here is maybe a radical idea to deal with some of the pressures our healthcare system is facing:
All private hospitals should be made public for the duration of the virus.
Omar backs Medicare for All, which suggests that formerly private hospitals would stay “public” once the government seized them.
So using the coronavirus as a stalking horse, Omar and her socialist gang could get what they want: complete government control of healthcare.
Omar’s support for government seizures of housing and hospitals is not surprising. Neither are the self-dealing payments from her campaign to her husband’s consulting firm, and the credible accusations that she bought votes and married her brother to commit immigration fraud.
The Somali refugee’s only experience with government before landing in the United States on the taxpayer’s nickel was graft, corruption, and murderous warlords with guns; i.e., government by fraud, thievery, force, and coercion.
The voters in Minnesota’s 5th District unwisely elected a Third World immigrant to Congress who wants to enact government that holds power equal to the place she fled. It appears they are unconcerned about getting Third World government, and getting it good and hard.
