“Senator Elizabeth Warren is right” are words rarely spoken in Washington, but they fit, in this case. As Senator Warren said on August 7 while eating avocado toast in a video on X, “Housing costs are so high, because we have a national shortage of housing.”

But despite this obvious fact and admission from a progressive lawmaker, the Biden-Harris administration decided that it needed a scapegoat to blame for the high cost of housing.

On August 23, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit alleging that software company RealPage allows landlords to collude and unfairly raise rents, and Senator Warren piled on, despite earlier acknowledging the true cause of high housing costs via social media. The administration’s boogeyman has become algorithmic software that helps property managers find the right price for units and manage supply.

Instead of constantly pointing fingers at innovators in the private sector to deflect, lawmakers should focus on obvious and accessible solutions that can lower the barriers and costs to building housing to keep rents affordable for all.

The latest government effort to blame technology for our housing problems accomplishes nothing and distracts policymakers from the real problem. In 2022, the U.S. had 4.5 million fewer homes than consumers needed, a number that had increased from a 4.3 million housing deficit in the previous year.

That shortage is heavily impacting today’s renters, with Gen Zers on track to pay an average of $145,000 for rent by the time they reach age 30 – which is about $18,000 more than the adjusted cost for Millennials when they were the same age. What’s more, half of all renter households in 2022 were termed “cost burdened,” meaning they paid more than 30% of their income for rent, and half of those families paid in excess of 50%.

The suit against RealPage is just another political tap-dance by the Biden administration’s DOJ. When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail…to the DOJ, everything looks like a lawsuit.

Instead of protecting U.S. consumers, overreaching litigation harms us all by inflating prices of goods and services through the added costs of complying with Big Brother government regulations. The administration’s headline-grabbing lawsuits, merger reviews, and rulemakings waste public resources and divert attention from the reality that suffocating agency regulations are the cause of the problems, not the solution.

Last year, this administration’s “sue, don’t settle” mindset was on full display when the FTC issued a lawsuit against software maker Intuit – a maneuver that further illustrated its penchant for ideological crusades, seizing upon convenient political targets.

Despite many high-profile cases resulting in losses for the FTC, the agency’s track record demonstrates its tireless work to expand the boundaries of its authority, and cater directly to the approval of academic elites and partisans, rather than sticking to the real work of protecting consumers.

Furthermore, these charges against a software provider that gathers price data not only wildly ignore the primary housing challenges, they promote a careless regression in U.S. technology. Government interference in innovation, such as by stifling AI development, sends the wrong message to the world…that America is willing to concede technological leadership. It also disgracefully discourages the implementation of new tools that benefit consumers, communities, industries and the overall economy.

When it comes to rising rents, the core issue is insufficient housing supply. The nation’s housing sector has never fully recovered from the recession of 2008, and COVID lockdown supply chain disruptions introduced even more obstacles for builders to navigate. However, among the biggest barriers to the construction of new dwellings is gratuitous government regulations.

Builders are forced to contend with a complex maze of rules and constraints including land-use regulations, permitting processes, environmental reviews, and other bureaucratic hurdles. In 2021, the National Association of Home Builders estimated that regulatory compliance costs added almost $94,000 to the price of the average home.

Instead of trying to litigate its way to more reasonable rents, the Biden administration should call off the lawyers and focus its efforts on embracing policies that encourage new home construction, both single and multifamily. Reducing excessive regulatory burdens will make it easier for hardworking families to find an affordable place to live.

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Gerard Scimeca is chairman of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy.