The CDC Is America’s New Landlord | Mises Institute

This is astonishing, even by 2020 standards.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, operating under the US Department of Health and Human Services, has asserted jurisdiction over private residential leases nationwide. It intends to curtail evictions until at least the end of the year, and in fact its new directive threatens federal criminal penalties against landlords who ignore tenant “declarations” made using CDC forms.

It is unclear, to put it mildly, exactly how this jurisdiction over private contracts and state/local courts flows even to Congress, much less an administrative agency acting on its own. One federal official justifies the bizarre and legally dubious action based on the CDC’s broad charter to stop the spread of communicable diseases a charter at which they’ve failed miserably with covid:

via mises.org

I’m glad I don’t own any investment real estate.