30 November—Among the stratagems employed by Connecticut’s too comfortably—but irresponsibly—entrenched Democrat politicians to buy votes is one called Time to Own. It’s an indulgent program created only in 2022 of “Forgivable Down Payment Assistance,” as the headline on the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority website (chfa.org) proclaims.

The benefits of this program, available to first-time home buyers, as stated on the website, are a zero-percent interest rate with no monthly payment required; ten percent of the principal balance being forgiven annually on the anniversary date of the loan closing; and the loan being fully forgiven on the tenth anniversary. The maximum principal allowed is 25,000 dollars (50,000 dollars in areas the Democrats like to count on for votes), intended to cover up to 20 percent of a down payment and up to five percent of closing costs.

Sounds pretty good. So it’s not surprising that, according to a state press release, the 5,000^th Time to Own loan was closed earlier this week.

I’m pretty inexperienced and rather naive in such matters. So am I reading it wrong or missing something? Or with zero-percent compound interest (and consequent simple, straightforward arithmetic), does that leave only principal to be repaid? And ten percent of the principal forgiven every year until the whole bloody loan is forgiven after ten years. So doesn’t that leave nothing at all—bupkes, nada, zilch, zip, zero—to be repaid after ten years? Ever? At all? With no penalties?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it certainly looks something like a non-amortizing loan, also known as an interest-only loan and a balloon-payment loan, for which the principal owed doesn’t get paid until the entire loan is due. But in this case there’s no interest. And, better yet, no principal.

So aren’t we really looking at what most people—non-Democrat politicians, anyway—would call a gift? Similar in essence and motivation to Joe Biden’s forgivable college loans that everybody but the lucky recipients involuntarily pays for?

If lucky recipients of the Time to Own gifts do in fact have to repay any of the largess, I look forward to being corrected and educated. It seems like a good deal in all events.

In the bad old days, most Monitor readers will recall, if you couldn’t afford a down payment, closing costs, mortgage payments, or other associated home-owning expenses, you simply didn’t buy your first home until you could afford it. Or you’d save your pennies, perhaps forgoing some frivolities, and eventually buy less costly—i.e., affordable—real estate.

In 1972, for instance, the Rosenbergs forwent a Porsche 911 Targa and didn’t move to Greenwich. Lucky Litchfield. Don’t even think, lucky Greenwich . . .