“On one of their units, the Lulgjurajs are able to charge monthly market-rate rents of $2,600. For an identical unit that became vacant in 2019 after a long-term tenancy, they can only charge $710 per month.
The costs of legally mandated repairs to that unit—which would include replacing the kitchen and bathroom, performing lead abatement, and leveling the floors—exceed $100,000. Yet the 2019 law permits them to reclaim less than half of these costs, let alone raise rents to something approximating market rates.
Without the ability to recover the costs of legally mandated repairs, the unit currently sits empty.
In addition to alleging a taking, the property owners’ lawsuit also argues that the wildly different rents allowed on units, dependent solely on how old the unit is and when it became vacant, is arbitrary and irrational.”
“After a few months in the program, Smith was no longer diabetic, and she has now been sober for two and a half years.
Her story highlights the success of the Healthy Opportunities Pilot, which launched in North Carolina in March 2022. The program had benefits beyond health and quality-of-life improvements; researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill found the program saved $1,020 a year per recipient on health care costs, and the 38,000 participants had “significantly lower” emergency room visits than their peers.
The program was unique, funded with a five-year, $650 million federal grant approved by the first Donald Trump administration. The idea was to use fresh food, safe housing and transportation — social and economic factors that researchers say determine 80 percent of a person’s health — to improve the lives of the sickest, most expensive patients.
…
But the Healthy Opportunities Pilot shows the limits of such food-based interventions in public policy. These programs often require longer-term investments, chafing against the cost-cutting instincts that characterize Trump’s second term and legislatures in most red states — the policy level at which most MAHA ideas are put into practice.
In the case of HOP, the Joe Biden administration approved a Medicaid waiver last December to continue the program in North Carolina, which Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, hoped to expand throughout the state over the next two years. But in June, the Republican-led state legislature declined to fund it. State lawmakers argue the program costs more than it saves — a claim that state policy experts dispute because of the way Republican lawmakers were calculating the numbers. These experts say the long-term savings potential was given short shrift.”
“Trump is carving out his own brand of capitalism — launching extraordinary federal interventions in the economy through ownership stakes in private companies alongside sweeping tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation. But the way he’s using these tools isn’t really guided by a discernable economic strategy
…
Trump’s policies, taken together, are more like “an idiosyncratic hodgepodge.””
“Freezing the rent: Mamdani’s signature campaign promise was to freeze the rent for more than 2 million tenants living in rent-controlled housing. But the city’s cost of living has grown unabated despite decades of rent control—which, coupled with restrictive zoning, has made the city’s housing shortage worse.
$30 minimum wage: There’s good reason for New Yorkers to be skeptical of Mamdani’s plan to raise the minimum wage. When the city raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2018, the predictable result was increased unemployment and black markets in labor. Nearly doubling the current minimum wage of $16.50 by 2030 would produce similar consequences.
“Free” buses: On the campaign trail, Mamdani promised to eliminate the fare on every city bus to make them “fast” and “free.” The plan would cost taxpayers $600 million–$800 million annually and likely result in slower speeds, which is what happened when the city piloted five fare-free bus lines in 2023 and 2024.
Government-run grocery stores: Mamdani has proposed not-for-profit, government-run grocery stores—subsidized to the tune of $140 million a year—to reduce prices at the checkout counter. New York’s grocery stores, like others across the country, operate on razor-thin margins. The profit motive isn’t to blame for high grocery prices; inflation and supply chain disruptions are.
…
$5 billion corporate tax: Naturally, Mamdani promises that you won’t pay for his multi-billion dollar programs—greedy corporations will! If Mamdani manages to convince state lawmakers to increase the city’s corporate tax rate from 7.5 percent to 11.5 percent, New Yorkers should expect companies to reduce salaries, benefits, and headcount to remain in business. Some might opt to abandon the city altogether, leaving the taxpayers of the People’s Republic of New York to foot the bill for their socialist utopia.”
“”On April 1, 2024, California raised its minimum wage from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide,” Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer write in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that was first addressed by Reason’s Peter Suderman in the November print issue. “Our median estimate suggests that California lost about 18,000 jobs that could have been retained if AB 1228 had not been passed.””
Arguments that we shouldn’t have Medicare for All because medically and scientifically incompetent people like Trump and RFK will gain power and make bad decisions…ignore that people in power like them can also influence private corporations to do healthcare the way they want, so that is a threat either way.