Kennedy urges Congress to pass the Build Now Act: “If we had more housing, the price would go down”

Watch Kennedy’s comments here . WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) urged Congress to pass his Build Now Act, a bill that would address the soaring cost of housing, in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor. Key excerpts of Kennedy’s speech are below: “You know, it wasn’t that many years ago—I think maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago—that the average age of a first-time homeowner in America was 29. You know, most people who wanted to buy a home bought their first home when they were 29. Today, it is 39—damn near middle-aged—because the cost of housing has gone up.” . . . “The main reason is that we don’t have enough housing. If we had more housing, the price would go down, and you wouldn’t have to wait until you are 39 years old, for God’s sake, to be able to buy a home. But we at the Federal level can’t tell our colleagues in local government—or we shouldn’t try to tell them—how to increase the supply of houses. That is their job.” . . . “Every year, the Federal Government sends about—I don’t know—$3 billion in cash to our local governments. We call it community development block grant money. But it is free money. We give it to the cities. We give to the counties. There are very few strings attached. The local governments love it. They love community development block grant money like the Devil loves sin. I mean, it is just free money. They can pretty much spend it on what they want. And we give it to them every year, $3 billion, just like clockwork. “What Senator [Elizabeth] Warren’s and my bill would do is, it says to our friends in local government: We are not telling you how to do it. . . . But if you will encourage more housing built by the private sector and increase housing starts, we will give you extra money from that pool of $3 billion from community development block grants. “That is the good news. The bad news for local government is—because you are saying: ‘Well, heck, we are already giving them $3 billion, Kennedy. Did you just parachute in from Pluto? We have a huge deficit. You want to add more?’ No. Senator Warren’s bill and my bill wouldn’t cost anything because, yes, we will reward with extra money those counties and cities that increase housing starts. Where are we going to get the money? We are going to take it from the cities and counties that don’t increase housing starts.” Text of the Build Now Act is available here . Read more about the Build Now Act here . Watch Kennedy’s speech here .