The most sweeping federal housing bill in decades took effect Saturday morning with little fanfare after President Donald Trump refused to sign it in protest over unrelated election priorities. The president abruptly called off a signing ceremony on Capitol Hill last month, then decided not to act on the legislation before a midnight deadline. The bill became law anyway because the president did not veto it.Why didn’t the president sign the bill?Trump reiterated on social media Friday that he would withhold his signature “in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.” The president has been pressuring senators to require voter ID at the polls, mandate proof of citizenship at registration and restrict mail-in ballots with limited exceptions. While much of the Republican-led Congress supports the effort, it does not currently have the votes to pass in the Senate. Speaking to reporters last month, Trump dismissed the housing legislation as a “yawn,” even after it won broad bipartisan support. Democrats are seizing on that message to make the case that the president is not serious about addressing affordability challenges ahead of midterm elections that will decide control of Congress this fall. “Donald Trump cares so little about bringing down YOUR housing costs that he’s refusing to sign the biggest housing bill in 30 years,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on social media. Will the bill lower housing costs? The bill includes dozens of provisions to streamline federal regulations, slim down environmental reviews, speed up home building and limit corporations from buying up single-family homes. Dennis Shea, a housing policy expert with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said addressing housing supply shortages is a critical part of the solution. “At the heart of the housing affordability problem is the fact that we simply have underbuilt housing by millions of homes since the Great Recession of 2007, 2008,” Shea said. “No single piece of legislation coming out of Congress is going to solve the housing affordability challenge overnight. We got into this problem over many, many years, and to get out of the problem will require a significant amount of time.” Shea said the new law will have a meaningful impact on lowering housing costs, but that will likely take years. He also stressed that solving the problem will require action from state and local leaders, as well as the private sector.
The most sweeping federal housing bill in decades took effect Saturday morning with little fanfare after President Donald Trump refused to sign it in protest over unrelated election priorities.
The president abruptly called off a signing ceremony on Capitol Hill last month, then decided not to act on the legislation before a midnight deadline. The bill became law anyway because the president did not veto it.
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Why didn’t the president sign the bill?
Trump reiterated on social media Friday that he would withhold his signature “in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.”
The president has been pressuring senators to require voter ID at the polls, mandate proof of citizenship at registration and restrict mail-in ballots with limited exceptions. While much of the Republican-led Congress supports the effort, it does not currently have the votes to pass in the Senate.
Speaking to reporters last month, Trump dismissed the housing legislation as a “yawn,” even after it won broad bipartisan support.
Democrats are seizing on that message to make the case that the president is not serious about addressing affordability challenges ahead of midterm elections that will decide control of Congress this fall.
“Donald Trump cares so little about bringing down YOUR housing costs that he’s refusing to sign the biggest housing bill in 30 years,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on social media.
Will the bill lower housing costs?
The bill includes dozens of provisions to streamline federal regulations, slim down environmental reviews, speed up home building and limit corporations from buying up single-family homes.
Dennis Shea, a housing policy expert with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said addressing housing supply shortages is a critical part of the solution.
“At the heart of the housing affordability problem is the fact that we simply have underbuilt housing by millions of homes since the Great Recession of 2007, 2008,” Shea said. “No single piece of legislation coming out of Congress is going to solve the housing affordability challenge overnight. We got into this problem over many, many years, and to get out of the problem will require a significant amount of time.”
Shea said the new law will have a meaningful impact on lowering housing costs, but that will likely take years. He also stressed that solving the problem will require action from state and local leaders, as well as the private sector.
