I know it probably goes without saying, but most of the stuff we buy today costs way too much. It wasn’t that long ago that inflation was nearly non-existent. For the decade prior to Covid, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by an average of just 1.8% a year.

Since 2020, however, prices have surged. CPI has climbed by more than 4% annually, with healthcare costs up about 5.25% per year, food increasing roughly 7% a year, and, worst of all, housing soaring nearly 10% annually.

I’ve written at length about the causes of these price spikes. In general, they stem from the laws of supply and demand, the rising cost of production, and, perhaps most importantly, well-intentioned government policies that often make the problem worse.

The latest of these questionable ideas from Washington arrived in the form of a weekend social media post from President Trump, proposing 50-year mortgages as a solution to housing affordability.

Much like the ongoing effort to extend Obamacare subsidies to mask the true cost of healthcare, this policy would disguise the real price of homeownership by stretching payments across five decades. In doing so, it would likely drive housing prices even higher by artificially boosting demand without increasing supply.

If that were the only drawback, I might support the idea as a way to help more young people buy homes. But the real financial time bomb of such a policy would not explode until much later. When Japan and the U.K. tried similar strategies, the results were telling. Ultra-long mortgages made housing seem more affordable at first, but over time they left homeowners paying far more for properties that kept them burdened with debt for much of their lives rather than building significant equity.

Consider this: an average Midwest home costing $275,000 at a 6.25% interest rate, will rack up around $550,000 in total interest over 50 years. However, the same home at the same interest rate will only incur about $134,000 in interest on a 15-year loan. That is over $400,000 that could instead fund a comfortable retirement if invested wisely rather than going to the bank. Perhaps that is why personal finance author Dave Ramsey insists that “debt is not a tool; it is a method to make banks wealthy, not you,” and recommends a 15-year mortgage as the shortest path to financial freedom.

In the end, policies that stretch debt instead of addressing its root causes do not create opportunity. They postpone reality until the politicians who proposed them are out of office. True affordability comes not from longer loans, but from disciplined spending, responsible lending, and policies that encourage more housing supply rather than more borrowing. A 50-year mortgage may promise easier payments today, but it would mortgage the borrower’s financial future and the future of our nation’s economy for decades to come.

(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)