As is so often the case, Washington is good at identifying problems, and really lousy at fixing them. Today’s example: the affordability of housing.

In 1980, the average price of a home in this country was just over $76,000. That was just over three times the average household income, which was around $21,000 at the time.

Today, that ratio is nearly seven-to-one. The average home price is almost $500,000, whereas average income is around $74,500.

That’s a big reason why in 1980, the typical first-time home buyer was around 30 years old; today he or she is almost 45.

The inability of younger people to own their own homes has dramatic cultural, societal and public policy implications. This is why so many in Congress are now looking for ways to “fix” things.

But Washington tends to try to fix things that it doesn’t understand. And government is especially prolific at using bad policies to compensate for other bad government policies.

A quick look at the current problems shows that government policy is already part of the problem. In the 1980s and 1990s, for example, in many fast-growing cities, denser “attached” housing was actively discouraged. Putting eight condos on one acre of land, instead of one single-family house, tended to lead to cheaper housing, which led to “poorer” people moving in, which supposedly stressed social services. So, local governments, which make nearly all land-use........

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