With Oregon creating the nation’s first statewide rent control regime, the implications for American housing policy are ominous.

The risk of another government shutdown is over—at least until October. The FAA is now funded, national parks are open, and federal employees are once again receiving paychecks (they even received a pay raise). The shutdown is just the latest proof that the federal budget process is broken. Republicans and Democrats spend countless hours quibbling over a relatively small piece of the budget. Meanwhile, they remain silent as the actual drivers of future deficits, entitlements, grow unabated.

President Trump vowed at his State of the Union address “that America will never be a socialist country.” But legendary economist Dr. Thomas Sowell sounded a more pessimistic note this week, saying that as far as avoiding a dystopian socialist future goes, “I wouldn’t bet on it.”