President Donald Trump scored another major win for his affordability agenda when Sen. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio), a close Trump ally in the Senate and a member of the Banking Committee, reiterated his support for Sen. Tim Scott’s (R., S.C.) bipartisan housing bill.
“I think it’s absolutely correct that we should be building homes to buy, not to rent, and I urge my colleagues in the House to vote for the bill as is, without modifying it, and get that bill passed,” Moreno said of Scott’s bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. “We don’t do a lot of things in this chamber that’s 89-10, and I think the House should take that bill up, should pass it as is, and should get it to the president’s desk.”
Republicans in both the House and Senate are working on legislation to lower the cost of housing; Scott, the Chair of the Senate’s Banking Committee, wants to streamline environmental reviews, modernize manufactured housing rules, unlock private investment, update multifamily financing tools, streamline construction activities across programs, and limit certain large institutional investors from crowding out families in residential markets.
“Every member of the Banking Committee had an opportunity to invest their time, their energy, and their priorities into this legislation, making it a bipartisan win,” Scott explained, “but more importantly, a win for the American people who want to experience their version of the American Dream.”
The White House itself issued a statement of administration policy, saying that President Trump would sign the Senate bill as is if it came to his desk. But, it is not the only housing bill out there.
Recently, the White House has indicated that it is leaning towards Scott’s landmark legislation while Rep. French Hill (R., Ark.), the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, is working on legislation of his own.
Scott’s legislation is viewed by many as being the most significant bipartisan housing reform effort in decades, and Moreno’s renewed push for it comes as Republicans in Congress are renewing their focus on lowering the cost of living for Americans.
For Scott, the issue of home ownership and affordability is personal, as it is for so many others. Both Trump and Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent have urged the House to pass Scott’s bill previously.
Home ownership, he explained in a recent speech on the Senate floor, is “an issue about helping moms like the ones that raised me, the amazing woman that she was, become a homeowner.”
“I grew up in a rental property,” Scott said. “My first home that I remember was the one that my grandparents were renting, a little 700-square foot place, where me, my mother, and my brother shared a bedroom and a bed. Our experience was one that was filled with tragedy and challenges and a lack of resources. But the one resource we had a lot of was love, and hope.”
Scott said that the average age of first-time homeownership is 40, and that that is “too old.” Americans, he added, shouldn’t have to wait “forty years [before they] ever experience the American Dream.”
