ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II: Oregon Likely to Become the First in the Nation to Adopt Statewide Rent Control. And that will probably make housing less affordable, not more.

As economist Walter Block wrote about 15 years ago at the libertarian-themed Econlib:

New York State legislators defend the War Emergency Tenant Protection Act—also known as rent control—as a way of protecting tenants from war-related housing shortages. The war referred to in the law is not the 2003 war in Iraq, however, or the Vietnam War; it is World War II. That is when rent control started in New York City. Of course, war has very little to do with apartment shortages. On the contrary, the shortage is created by rent control, the supposed solution. Gotham is far from the only city to have embraced rent control. Many others across the United States have succumbed to the blandishments of this legislative “fix.”

For an ideology dubbed “Progressivism,” the left sure loves the economic policies of the first half of the 20th century.