National Review Online
Wednesday, August 04, 2021
The Center for Disease Control’s eviction
moratorium, which was first instituted last September under President Trump and
was renewed under President Biden, expired on July 31.
That sentence should start alarm bells ringing in the
heads of any American who has read the Constitution. The Center for Disease
Control’s . . . what?
Insofar as it is legitimate for any government entity in
the United States to engage in an “eviction moratorium,” it is quite obviously
a question for the states and localities, not for the federal government —
and certainly not for an executive agency whose remit is the
study and containment of infectious diseases. That, for eleven months, the
American rental sector was controlled by the director of the CDC is nothing
short of astonishing. Americans who wonder why they have such trouble keeping
their government in check should look at this incident for instruction.
In June, the Supreme Court confirmed that, by acquiescing to the request, the CDC
had “exceeded its existing statutory authority” and was obliged to stop by the
end of the month. In his concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh suggested that
the program could continue only in the wake of “clear and specific
congressional authorization (via new legislation).” Alas, despite his team’s
insistence that he is aware of this ruling — and, indeed, that he has “not only
kicked the tires, he has double, triple, quadruple checked” its legality —
Biden was cowed by a chorus line of progressives who have urged him to defy it.
At a press conference held late Tuesday afternoon, Biden conceded that “the
bulk of the constitutional scholars say it’s not likely to pass constitutional
muster.” But Biden and his CDC, under pressure from the Left, issued a new
moratorium anyway. The Supreme Court, which has thus far been notably
restrained in its language, must make it clear that they cannot.
It is telling that Congress, which has been happy to
spend trillions of dollars fighting COVID-19, has nevertheless declined to
change the law — perhaps because, the legalities aside, it has realized that
the moratorium is making a mess of its others. One of the core aims of the
various relief bills that have been signed since last year has been to prevent
unemployed Americans from getting behind on their bills — including rent —
during periods in which they were unable to work. And yet, by adding an
eviction moratorium on top of its spending — and, thereby, by deferring rent
arrears into the future — the federal government has managed simultaneously to
limit the immediate demand for its $46.6 billion rent-assistance program, to
discourage renters from finding work, and to ensure that the brunt of both
problems will be felt by the millions of small-time landlords who do
not have access to the Treasury’s largesse.
Over the course of the COVID-19 crisis, the federal
government has provided an extraordinary amount of financial support to
struggling families. Analysis from Garrett Watson at the Tax Foundation found that a single-earner family of four that made
$60,000 per year prior to the pandemic received almost $70,000 in COVID-relief
benefits from April of last year to September of this year. Thus far, the
mitigation bill sits at a remarkable $5 trillion — more money than the federal
government spent in total in all of 2019. Given our rising federal debt, and
the higher-than-usual risk of inflation, it would be unwise for Washington,
D.C., to add to this number. But, if it must, it should do so in a manner that
is consistent with the Constitution and that will not undermine Congress’s
broader aims. A moratorium on evictions doesn’t match either of those
descriptions. It must not be allowed to stand.
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