The American Dream on Life Support: How Decades of Central Planning Turned Homeownership into a Mirage

The Illusion of Prosperity: How Government Intervention Failed For nearly a century, the U.S. government has been obsessed with propping up the illusion that homeownership equals prosperity. From FDR’s New Deal schemes to the more recent bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, every administration has insisted that subsidizing mortgages and manipulating interest rates would somehow make housing affordable and widespread. Yet here we are in 2025, staring at a homeownership rate of 65.2%—nearly identical to where it stood in 1980. All the intervention, all the cheap credit, all the political theater—and nothing to show but inflated prices and locked-out generations. Cheap Credit, Soaring Prices, and Vanishing Affordability Consider this: In 1981, the average 30-year mortgage rate was a suffocating…