Oklahoma governor on housing crisis and price gouging
(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Governor Kevin Stitt (R-OK) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the Harris campaign's first-time homebuyer proposal.
"First off, there are so many first-time homebuyer programs right now, and [my question is], and this is a great question for Vice President Harris, who's going to build the three million homes? I mean, basically, we believe either in a free-market system or we believe in government intervention, and so the bottom line is, you're going to drive up the cost. The reason we have 20% inflation under a Biden-Harris administration right now is because of all of the attacks on energy, for example, the bureaucracy we need permitting reform, we need deregulation. We need to unlock American businesses to meet the needs of Americans. Basically, when you have municipalities stopping new developments for lot sizes and for first time homebuyers. That's the things you need to do. By increasing and throwing more money and giving...like think about it for a second, this ticket, and I know Governor Walz, I'm friends with him in the National Governor's Association. He's a nice guy. I've met Vice President Harris a couple times. She seems like a nice person, but if you think about the Democratic ticket, they've never worked in the private sector...their policies are showing that. You can't give every single first-time homebuyer $25,000 and expect the prices of houses to come down. That's just not the way the economy works. That's socialism. That's communism."
Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK)
During the interivew, Brennan and Stitt talked about why the latter opposes federal restrictions on price gouging, despite having restrictions in his state.
"What we're talking about on the state level, if we have a natural disaster, for example, if there's a tornado that comes through one of our communities, we don't want out-of-state people coming in and price gouging as far as roofing materials. So, when I declare...an executive order and say, this area of the state has been hurt, it's for a short period of time. It's maybe for a month, and that's just to protect the people from really- people coming in to try to make money off of this disaster. So that's totally different than what I see this administration that Vice President Harris recommending. So, she's saying, here's the problem that doesn't make sense to the American people, and you need to question her on this. Okay...she's going to tell grocery stores that the maximum you can pay for milk and charge for milk is $1.99. But, what happens to the farmers if the costs are more than that?"
Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK)
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Stitt, click here.
