David Dayen on the sad state of the federal rental assistance program

This is a really good discussion starting at 24:00 in this Majority Report episode with David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, who is really good at following the "sausage-making" process of legislation and also program implementation. Eviction Moratorium Finger-Pointing w/ David Dayen - #MRLive - 8/2/21:

He's talking here about the expiration of the eviction moratorium. But the most striking thing about it is his description of the program that provided $46 billion dollars in rental assistance enacted in December and how poorly it was designed and implemented. Only $3 billion has been distributed.

The Democrats can't blame this one on Republican obstruction. (Although four years of Trump and his team of weirdos wrecking the "administrative state" certainly didn't help!) David compares it to the poor performance of the mortgage-modification HAMP program during the Obama Administration, something he's also covered in detail.

The Republicans, on the other hand, will be happy to bash the Democrats over things like this if they think it's to their advantage. At the end of his segment, David also talks about the necessary dynamic between grassroots Democratic groups and a Democratic Administration.