Thread by @LovelyLeninist

In Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 487, 90 S. Ct. 1153, 1163, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1970), a challenge was brought to Maryland’s administration of a cap on the amount of money any single family could receive in order to qualify for housing subsidies. #MarxistLaw

Previously, this was done in proportion to occupancy of the house. This $250 a month cap was challenged as acting as a form of discrimination for impoverished households with large families and in violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.

The Court held that there was no violation of the equal protection clause and Justice Stewart added that “the intractable economic, social, and even philosophical problems presented by public welfare assistance programs are not the business of this Court.”

The case also held that "a state law that imposes classifications subject to differential treatment under welfare programs does not violate the Equal Protection Clause when the classification may be justified by ANY CONCEIVABLE RATIONAL BASIS."

Maryland's rationale was "the legitimate state interests of encouraging employment, balancing the economic status of welfare families and low-income earning families, incentivizing family planning, and assuring funding to assist the maximum number of families." Let that sink in.

So how do these individuals challenge the ineffectiveness of government welfare systems? Who is affected by these precedents and how? Not only does this law financially hurt an already injured class but ignores the cultures of people who practice living in large families.

The more nefarious beneficiaries of these laws include real-estate companies who continue to buy up foreclosed housing and rent them out.

The foreclosure crisis and 2008 financial collapse had few winners, but companies like Starwood Waypoint and Invitation Homes (they merged in 2017) and their Wall Street corporate backers (Blackstone) were among them.

They benefited from the deception and fraud that saddled so many families of color with subprime and booby-trapped mortgages, leading to foreclosures that disproportionately affected African American and Latino families. Does this sound like a system of Justice?