DO LIBERALS OPPOSE AFFORDABLE HOUSING? “So it appears that while liberals push for more federal housing subsidies, they fight against more housing, and hence less affordable housing, at the local level. Now you might suspect that the hope is that one off-sets the other. I wouldn’t be surprised to believe the citizens of, say, San Francisco want the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyle and also believe more federal subsidies can take care of affordable housing needs. But the unfortunate truth is that the two, increased federal subsidies and local supply restrictions, end up driving up housing prices, contributing to housing bubbles and ultimately do little to provide affordable housing. The reason is that increased demand, which is what most federal housing subsidies do, simply drives up price in the presence of inelastic supply. If liberals truly cared about the poor and needy, they’d deregulate their local housing market and actually allow for the provision of affordable housing.”

Yeah, but who wants poor people in Marin?