After World War II, the GI Bill helped build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. It gave ordinary Americans a path to homeownership and a real interest in the country they loved. veterans and their families built communities, raised children, and strengthened schools and places of worship. They fueled the growth of large cities, colleges, research universities, and a technological boom the likes of which the world had never seen before. Now that is ending.
Today, few young Americans can afford to buy houses. Trump’s response? Fifty-year mortgages. I’m no math whiz, but with the average age to buy a home at 40, that means no American will live to own their home outright.
But this is all by design.
The clearest example of where home ownership in America is headed is the foreclosure disaster now occurring for veterans and their families. Since the Trump administration eliminated VA service purchase programor VASP, more than 10,000 veterans lost their homes to foreclosure. About 90,000 more were behind on their mortgages or already in the foreclosure process. It is unclear how many veterans would have been able to keep their homes if VASP had been left. The VA is quick to point out that there are “other reasons for foreclosures besides the absence of VASP,” and there certainly are, but that doesn’t mean the program’s closure didn’t cause veterans to lose their homes.
This was not an unfortunate accident. The mortgage industry warned that closing VASP without a ready replacement would lead directly to foreclosure. The administration did it anyway. But no matter how you cut it, will pay for this idiotic move. VA loans are backed and guaranteed by American taxpayers.
What makes this especially cruel is that many of these veterans were not out of the woods. Some had enough disability compensation or other income to remain in their homes if they had been offered a viable payment structure. Thanks to VASP, thousands of distressed borrowers were able to obtain low-cost, sustainable mortgages. But the door slammed shut without warning, leaving veteran families stranded between bureaucratic failure and financial ruin.
This is what anti-veteran policy looks like in real life. It’s not always noisy. It doesn’t always arrive wrapped “fools and losers.” Sometimes it looks like paperwork, delays, indifference and a government that decides veterans can absorb one more hit.
Monthly mortgage payments seem to increase by hundreds of dollars while groceries, gasand everything else costs more too. Trumpenomics 101.
And this disaster is unfolding within a broader housing market that is already crushing ordinary Americans, especially younger families and first-time buyers. The proportion of first-time homebuyers has fallen to an all-time low of just 21 percent. Their average age is now 40, another record. Meanwhile, typical buyers are older, wealthier and more likely to make large down payments or pay cash. In other words, the housing ladder is being moved up and veterans are being told to move up anyway.
That’s important because homeownership has long been one of the main ways veterans build wealth after service. He literally built the America we all enjoy today. If you delay this a decade, you won’t simply postpone a purchase. Eliminates years of equity, stability and opportunity. Even the National Association of Realtors noted that delaying homeownership until age 40 instead of 30 can mean losing about $150,000 in equity on a typical starter home. For a veteran trying to transition from military service to civilian life, that’s not an abstract statistic. That’s the difference between keeping them and paying for a house before they leave the workforce.
Trump’s response to this crisis is not to restore strong protections for VA borrowers or expand affordable housing. Instead, his administration floated the idea of a 50-year mortgage for all Americans. As said, that is not a solution. It’s a ladder. Yes, it may reduce your monthly payment a little in the short term. But over time it would bury borrowers in much higher interest and slow capital creation. One analysis found that on a $400,000 home, a 50-year mortgage could save about $250 a month, but would cost more than $378,000 extra in total interest compared to a standard 30-year loan. That’s not restoring the American dream. That is refinancing it until it becomes permanent debt.
One of the greatest attributes of the GI Bill and the classic American homeownership model was that a mortgage could be paid off in 15 to 25 years. Allow second mortgages to pay for equity building, college funds, debt consolidation, vacation homes, etc. Unfortunately, we will never see such a wealthy middle class in America again. No, really.
Giant companies like Blackstone continuous expansion throughout the rental market, purchasing apartments, student housing, mobile home parks and single-family homes in growing markets across the country. The result is a housing system in which big investors grow, rents continue to rise, and ordinary families are told to accept smaller futures. Veterans are supposed to compete in that market after losing the very safeguards designed to honor their service.
Trump built his career and wealth on the same tactics Blackstone uses. He was much less successful, but shows that he is a true believer in mass ownership for the few, not the many.
A country that can spend endlessly on war but fails to protect veterans from losing their homes on the other side of war is not only morally corrupt, it is a travesty.
Veterans were promised a path to the middle class.
Instead, they are on the path to becoming homeless.
