Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“The social impact of the housing affordability crisis is huge: fewer marriages, less household formation, lower birth rates, lower economic growth. The prices of stocks and bonds can go up indefinitely with few consequences. But housing is something people need, in addition to being an asset. It is an asset you also consume.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/02/trump-i-want-to-drive-housing-prices-up/
“USCIS currently has 11.3 million pending applications, “the largest immigration backlog in its history,” reported Newsweek in November. While officials say green card and visa processing are getting faster, “agency data from January through March shows that processing times for several key immigration forms have continued to rise, leaving applicants waiting months or even years longer than expected.” The “closure of consulates abroad” and “planned firing of State Department staff,” the MPI noted in April, were also “expected to lengthen visa wait times.””
https://reason.com/2026/02/03/trumps-bureaucratic-war-on-immigrants/
“Creating true housing affordability for homebuyers would require an expansion of housing supply to lower overall housing prices—the thing Trump said he did not want to do.
The good news is that the federal government does not have too much direct influence over the number of homes that are built in the country. It’s local and state governments that decide what’s allowed to be built where.
…
it’d also be a mistake to completely dismiss the idea that we can lower buyers’ housing costs and raise property values at the same time. Contra the president, that can easily be accomplished by allowing more homes to be built on existing residential land.
Free markets are generally win-win institutions. One should expect that free market reforms in the housing sector would produce win-wins for homeowners, buyers, and builders.
When local officials “upzone” land to allow more housing to be built on it, one expects the value of that land to increase to reflect the additional development potential. If a single-family property is upzoned to allow apartment construction, the current owner will see a windfall increase in the value of their property.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/03/housing-policy-can-be-win-win/
“”Since June 2025, the Administration has deployed National Guard personnel or active-duty Marine Corps personnel to six U.S. cities: Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; and New Orleans, Louisiana,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) responded to a query from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.). “The Administration has also kept 200 National Guard personnel mobilized in Texas after they left Chicago. CBO estimates that those deployments (excluding the one to New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the year) cost a total of approximately $496 million through the end of December 2025.””
https://reason.com/2026/02/04/deploying-troops-to-u-s-cities-cost-half-a-billion-dollars-in-2025/
“In July 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order vowing to end “crime and disorder on America’s streets” caused, the administration asserted, by the record number of homeless people, many of them with mental illnesses. The president promised that, among other measures, involuntarily committing more Americans with mental illnesses would “restore public order.” The risks to civil liberties that executive order created are now impossible to ignore.
A recent lawsuit involving a man who has been involuntarily committed, despite the dismissal of his criminal charge, shows that involuntary commitment can lead to permanent federal detention for people who have not been convicted of any crime.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/04/how-involuntary-commitment-could-become-indefinite-detention/
TrumpRx, where Trump negotiated prices with drug companies, has lower drug prices for certain weight loss and fertility drugs, but outside of that, it won’t help much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtgVg7aZ7wI
“Trump quietly pulls National Guard from Chicago and Los Angeles after series of court losses”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-quietly-pulls-national-guard-163846290.html
“Thanks to a lack of hiring standards, purposeful federal policy, poor training, and a lack of accountability for bad behavior, ICE is eroding safety and liberty for all Americans.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/06/militarized-policing-caused-at-the-root-of-the-minneapolis-mayhem/
“Another judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to follow federal law, even as the Trump administration argues it has broad authority to conduct warrantless immigration arrests.”
The administration’s mass deportation efforts are repeatedly unlawful.
https://reason.com/2026/02/06/once-again-a-federal-judge-orders-ice-to-stop-unlawful-warrantless-arrests/
“Many factors outside the control of any given president affect crime rates, and the recent drop continues a trend that began before Trump took office.
Another historical point further undermines Trump’s credibility on this subject. During the 2024 presidential race, he was keen to deny the numbers he is now citing with pride.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/10/in-2024-trump-rejected-numbers-showing-a-homicide-drop-as-a-lie-now-he-is-bragging-about-them/