Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) has urged the House of Representatives to pass the Build Now Act, a bill he co-authored with Senator Elizabeth Warren, in an effort to address rising housing costs across the United States. Speaking on the Senate floor, Kennedy explained his perspective on why housing prices have increased and outlined how the proposed legislation would seek to remedy the issue.
“Well, what causes prices, specifically the cost of housing, to go up? Well, it’s when demand for housing is greater than the supply of housing. Duh. It’s not complicated,” Kennedy said during his remarks.
He went on to describe how federal funding is currently distributed to local governments through community development block grants (CDBG). “Every year, we send between $2 billion and $3 billion to cities across America. . . . And the local governments, they love what we call community development block grant money—CDBG funds. You say CDBG to a person in local government, they’ll start salivating. They love this money like the devil loves sin. Why is that? Because it’s free money, and they have a lot of discretion. They, meaning our friends in local government, have a lot of discretion on how they spend it.”
Kennedy described his legislative approach as one using both incentives and penalties: “So, I came up with this idea, convinced Senator Elizabeth Warren to join me, and we drafted, and indeed passed, I’ll talk about that in a second, a bill called the Build Now Act. And it’s really very simple. It says, we’re not going to tell local governments how to increase housing starts. We’re just going to tell them if they do increase housing starts, we’re going to reward them with more CDBG money. If they don’t increase housing starts, we’re going to take some of their money away. Carrot, stick.”
Addressing both President Biden and members of Congress directly from the Senate floor Kennedy said: “Mr. President, if you’re listening, please endorse this bill. To my friends in the House, please bring this bill up and vote for it. It will work. We’ve been jawboning and talking about, oh, you know, the cost of living… This bill will lower the cost of housing in America, and it will do it under basic principles of free enterprise.”
Senator Kennedy represents Louisiana in the U.S. Senate and serves on several key committees including Appropriations; Budget; Energy and Natural Resources; as well as chairing one focused on banking and housing issues according to his official website. He maintains offices throughout Louisiana—including Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, Monroe, New Orleans and Shreveport—and engages constituents through public events such as town halls (source). His policy efforts focus on areas such as veterans’ affairs and economic support for farmers and small businesses (source).
