In a rare display of Capitol Hill bipartisanship, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously passed the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025.
The legislation is designed to expand and preserve the national housing supply through 40 proposals and initiatives ranging from the removal of regulatory barriers to housing development to expanded access to modular and manufactured housing. If also seeks to promote housing opportunities for veterans, address the issues impacting homeownership affordability, and streamline program coordination.
“For far too long, Congress believed this problem was too big to solve,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the committee’s chairman. “Today, we’re taking not a step – but we’re taking a leap in the right direction in a bipartisan fashion. Many people around the country are frustrated with the way we do American politics wonder, is there any issue that brings this nation together and I’m here to say, hallelujah. We have found one – it is housing. And hallelujah is a southern term, but it’s a term of endearment.”
“This package is a better bill because of its strong bipartisan provisions,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “For years, the American people have called on their elected officials to act to reduce housing costs. The Scott-Warren legislation represents what is possible when both parties put families ahead of politics. It’s a significant step in the right direction.”
The bill, which is backed by leading housing industry organizations including the National Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association, will now go to the full Senate for a passage vote.
LOL. What could go wrong?
LOL, I’m with George Carlin on this one: “The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”
—George Carlin 2014
What could go…what part of “govvment” didn’t you understand?
Oh nothing! Watch billions be earmarked and nothing gets done, except more rich politicians, and their donors.
Articles continue to cite that about 30% of homes are purchased by investors.
The questions politicians should be investigating are how many home investors are MEGA investors who own hundreds of housing units.
In California, ONE SINGLE FAMILY owns 22,000 housing units (rentals).
There are other mega investors who also own thousands of homes.
This is one of the reasons why home prices are being driven up so high.
Politicians should limit how many units (and total value) any one investor can own.
Some investors use rentals for their income and retirement, but a reasonable limit can be set in those situations too.
Investors who own stock in companies that buy homes should be limited as well, with partial units owned added up to find out the total of housing units owned by any one person.
Because investors can be an LLC or other corporate entity, the human being(s) behind those corporate veils should have to reveal who they are to allow these assessments of who owns how many homes.
The super rich have long been trying to buy up everything, often during the economic downturns that they routinely engineer. It is scary to see our society moving rapidly into a renter class society where a few Billionaires will own most of the housing and most of the farm lands and most of the commercial properties (and the water rights in most areas too).
In California’s Central Valley, a few Billionaire farmers are monopolizing the water rights and refusing to reveal the amount of water they are using.
All this insanity is because Americans have been indoctrinated into believing that unbridled Capitalism is the ultimate achievement, when, in reality, it is a recipe to make America like Old Europe, with a few super rich controlling and owning everything, and the majority of the population being very poor.
AMEN!
Julie, you question the impending decline in population. Yesterday, the news reported that
we are now at 1.6 births per family, so that is below replacement rate. Our population
increase in the past few years has primarily been from immigration, legal and illegal.
China’s impending decline is far more dramatic that the U.S. Please do your homework.
Straight up Julie!!
I’m over 6 decades old, and I am really tired of hearing the same complaints about housing, that we need more, more, more housing. We build and build and build and build skyscrapers too, with vast seas of developed lands swallowing up all open spaces and removing what little remains of wild lands. Yet it is never enough housing, Never.
Elon Musk claims that the human population is falling, but if that were the case, we’d have a lot of empty housing and falling home prices. Clearly, Elon Musk is lying.
The population of the U.S. continues to rise higher.
The facts are that there will NEVER be enough housing if we continue to have endless population growth.
The U.S. hit 300 million in 2006, and 19 years later in 2025 the U.S. has 347 million people.
That is 47 million MORE people ADDED in under 20 years!!
That is equal to ADDING the current population of California and Tennessee, and let that sink in when you reflect on how huge the cities in those states are, and all the mid sized and smaller towns too and rural areas as well.
The U.S. population is projected to rise higher over the next 25 years up to 360 million or even higher to 380 million. If the higher projection holds true, then that will mean, yet another, 33 million MORE people ADDED, and that is equal to ADDING the current population of New York and Pennsylvania.
So, by 2050, IF we have 380 million people, we will have ADDED the current populations of 4 states (California, Tennessee, New York, and Pennsylvania).
And think about how well we are getting along now as a nation divided?
Do you think adding that many more humans to the mix will help?
The Earth is NOT a balloon that you can just blow up to enlarge the land areas, the oceans, and the resources. We humans are REFUSING to check our population to a level that would be healthy for us, healthy for other species, and would be a nicer, kinder, less stressful place that would be affordable IF there were a lot FEWER people.
We are paving over every last bit of open space, building on top of prime farm lands, removing wild open spaces and parks for more development, and all that destruction is due to bowing down to the alter of NEVER ENDING HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH.
I am sick of it.
Why not push big incentives for small families, ZERO children, 1 child per couple, or a maximum limit of 2 children per 2 adults.
Why are we paying people over 2,000 per child as a tax credit?
Why should I have to pay for other people’s children, especially if they have more than 2 children per couple?
We should be paying people to NOT breed (or to breed way less).
This would save everyone a ton of money in the short and long term, and as the population leveled off and then fell over time, land and resources would become more plentiful.
NOTHING will EVER be affordable with more and more and more people.
Building skyscrapers for housing is expensive (and you can’t see the sky anymore).
I want ROOM for all the other millions of species to thrive, rather than heading for extinction.
I want ROOM for WILD nature, rather than an endless sea of human development.
I want ROOM for more humane farming like pasture-raised animals (versus cruel factory farming).
I want ROOM to NOT see other people or to see fewer people, rather than humans stacked up and spread out like a Cancer over every inch of the earth.
Globally, humans passed 8.2 Billion humans in 2025, which is 16x more humans than just 400 years ago.
Projections are that by year 2084 (59 years away), the global population will peak at a staggeringly high 10.3 Billion humans.
After that, a painfully slow population decline is expected.
But, even in year 2100 (just 75 years from now), the world is projected to still have a whopping 10.2 Billion humans, which is 2 Billion MORE people than today in 2025.
2 Billion was the entire world population in 1927, and that is what we will be ADDING over the next 75 years IF we fail to stop this train wreck of over-breeding.
The U.S. uses 25% of global resources (used by humans).
Meaning that our 347 million people has impacts as if our nation had 2 Billion humans living in an “average” consumer nation. Meaning that the U.S. impacts are higher than India, China, and all of Africa. So, yes, the U.S. is grossly over-populated for how it consumes.
But other nations are moving into more consumerism too, so any high population area will soon have huge impacts too.
Ain’t NOTHING gonna get cheaper with our grotesque Human Over-Population.
In my lifetime, I have seen so many once cheap and widely available foods go away, things like wild abalone, real sea bass, wild salmon (rare and super expensive), and even cheap fruits and vegetables that were once locally grown near where most people lived.
Agricultural lands are often now far from the consumer, and even those lands are under threat of being developed into more housing.
The Mantra of the Cancer cell is never ending Growth.
Humans are a Cancer of the Biosphere as we refuse to stop growing our populations.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
We can choose and ever force lower birth rates so that we can all live better, more affordably, and with room for wild nature to thrive, which enriches human quality of life too.
Julie is misinformed about the water rights. Farmers are paying for an allotment of water each year, but they are only receiving about 42% of it, but they pay for 100% every year. Where does the water go that is supposed to go the the farmers? San Francisco and several other municipalities are dumping their waste water into the Pacific Ocean. The water the farmers pay for every year is being used to flush their tiolets. Why because the selfrighteous Northern California Liberals won’t pay for modern sewage treatment plans to solve this problem.
I know we are growing as a Nation. While I do not advocated breeding of people, I believe in an old-fashion Bible idea of replenishing the earth with God Fearing People who hold children God’s Gift. People with Christian Values should be producing as many children as they can that show respect to God as their Creator. We should take responsibility of those we have been blessed with and be willing to work with those who are unwanted and placed in hands of non-caring less than Christian Homes. Every parent should provide training and education to produce working people with Creative approaches to dominating our gift of earth.
I can’t think of a worse idea than “producing as many children as they can” for almost any topic, never mind in response to the housing shortage. Oh wait, it might be good for the lords to breed more serfs to dominate the land from which the serfs will never receive the full fruits of their labor.
Julie is misinformed and triggered about everything lol
A comment on the prior post by John.
John Willington’s comment is implying that farmers are paying for San Francisco’s toilet waste water. John, if you have valid info to support your comment, I’d really like to read it…. seriously, I would, because I flushed many of my own toilet water while living in the Bay Area for several years.
The San Francisco Bay Area gets its water (OWNS the water rights) from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir since it was built in 1923, capturing the waters of the Tuolumne River.
As far as I have researched, that fact of San Francisco’s water rights over Hetch Hetchy has NOT changed. So I have no idea what you mean about farmers paying for San Fran’s toilet water. But if you have info, then I am willing to read it.
The Hetch Hetchy dam has been a huge topic for over 100 years, as John Muir fought the building of the O’Shaughnessy Dam that flooded the spectacular sister valley of Yosemite Valley, all for the growing Bay area cities. There have been votes to try to remove the dam and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley, but San Francisco has voted NO (quite ironic considering that it was the birth place of the Sierra Club, led by John Muir).
I have always supported removing that dam and most dams in California, in part because dams have destroyed valuable fisheries, including impacting ocean fish that also use rivers and creeks (salmon, steelhead trout are just a few).
The Hetch Hetchy Valley could be drained and restored, and that would provide more wildlife acreage and another outlet for nature-seekers who are tired of over-crowding in Yosemite Valley.
And, water always run downhill, so there are ample places in the Central Valley where the Tuolumne River could flow into large natural wetlands (which it used to do), with the water available for use for the Bay Area. The only issue would be finding a clean wetland area (not contaminated by farm chemicals).
Send an explanation on the San Fran toilet water, John. You piqued my curiosity.
And, San Fran is not just liberals. The Silicon Tech Bros funded MAGA and Trump.
California and its rural and city areas are a mixture of political views, not a monolith.
Oh Michael, you are steeped in indoctrination.
Take some religious history courses, and it may surprise you that the first commandment of the Abrahamic God (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) was an extreme environmentalist.
I was really happy to learn that.
I’ve confirmed this with 3 Rabbis after taking my college religion courses.
The Genesis story tells of a God who created everything, and, in the original Jewish version, God then commanded Adam and Eve “to be ultimate Stewards over ALL that God had created”. In others words, to take care of the air, water, soils, fish, birds, mammals, plants, etc, to protect all life on earth because it sustains the entire biosphere (you know, including the plants and phytoplankton that free oxygen for aerobic species to breath!!).
The later (altered) versions of this portion of Genesis replaced “ultimate Stewardship” with “dominate and subdue”, and that was NOT the original commandment!
Dominate and subdue has a terrible connotation of disregard and destruction.
But that was NOT the original commandment. Stewardship was, and nearly all religions have similar origin stories of Stewardship being a responsibility.
The Rabbis I interviewed told me that the “Stewardship” term meant that humans would be willing to lay down their lives to protect the biosphere, all life, NOT just human life, and all the components of a functioning world. Of course, the Bible keeps explanations simple compared to what we know today (oh, that darned science and its discoveries), but the Bible has gone through many, many revisions that have distorted the earlier versions of Stewardship.
And, God did NOT say that Adam and Eve had to over-breed. Adam and Eve had only 2 children, and that is a good number in a world that is not already over-populated.
Had humans stuck to low birth rates, the world would have a lot more wild nature and free resources easily obtained. Somewhere around zero AD (forget the exact time), Middle Eastern societies used a plant that had birth control properties. It was so extensively valued that its image was minted upon coins of the era. Sadly, it was so used that the plant went extinct. Too bad. It was working quite well.
You say that “Christians” should breed as many children as they can.
That is a very selfish statement. But a question needs to be asked,
Why??
What is the rush to have so many children all at once?
The world has a very long time to go before the sun expands and destroys it.
A lower global population would make for a better world, an easier world in which people could live in better harmony, with more resources per person, and, thus, less fighting and hatreds and less bigotries. Nothing will make humans perfect, but lack of resources, high costs of living, and crowded conditions definitely makes people behave worse, much worse. And many then dive into beliefs that put them at the top of everyone else as IF they are superior, like many hyper religious people do.
You know that humans are dramatically damaging the world by having too many humans on the planet, with resources then being depleted at alarming rates, thus leading to shortages, conflicts, wars, mass human migrations, bigotries, poverty, mass extinction of non-human species, suffering of factory farmed animals, etc.. So, you are saying that you are fine with intentionally destroying the world by promoting huge birth rates and going against your own God’s first and most important commandment located in the original Genesis Story, which is to be an excellent Steward over the entire world.
IF there is a God, then I hope you meet and understand why being in balance with nature, the nature that you say your God created, is so important.
Why do other species matter?
In 2017, a global Biomass study was completed, peer reviewed, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, May 2018 edition. It’s a bit dry to read, but a great synopsis was in The Guardian. I read the study.
In 2017, when the world had 7.6 Billion humans (600 million fewer than today), the Biomass of various life forms was analyzed.
On group was Mammals (humans, livestock, wild Mammals of many types, even dogs and cats).
MAMMAL Biomass (in 2017) looked like this:
96% of Mammal Biomass was Human Biomass (36%) and Livestock Biomass (60%).
A tiny 4% was WILD Mammal Biomass, representing 6,500 species on Land and in the Oceans, all COMBINED was only 4% of the total Biomass. That is why nearly ALL wild Mammal species have low populations, many teetering on extinction (certain species of rats and mice are doing fine as they live in and near humans).
Why should you care about other species?
Mammal Species, especially wild mammal species, share most of our DNA, and thus, hold great potential for scientific breakthroughs that can help humans in all fields of science and technology because Mammals are most closely related to US.
African elephants are one species that almost never gets Cancer. That species is under study to find a PREVENTION for cancer, not a treatment, not a cure, but a PREVENTION.
That should interest everyone.
However, the human over-breeders of this world are wiping out wild habitats and the species that need those habitats.
African elephants used to number 27 million about 200 years ago.
Today there are only 400,000 and falling as habitat disappears. That’s means that only 1.5% of their population exists today, a 98.5% DROP in their population!
When wild animals have fewer numbers, in-breeding problems can pop up, and great gene traits can be lost, forever. That means that “the anti-cancer” genes may be lost too.
Fish Biomass (in 2017) had dropped by 50% across all ocean depths and dropped 13% in the fishing zone (0 to 650 feet depth).
Fish is important for food and ocean fertilizer and fish hold many traits that are applicable for scientific applications.
Bird Biomass (in 2017) was:
70% Poultry Biomass for human consumption (and feathers)
30% WILD Bird Biomass
Why care about WILD birds? They are great pollinators, especially at higher and colder altitudes where other species (insects) do not survive as well or slow down in cold weather. Some bird species are responsible for pollinating only certain plants.
When pollinators go extinct, plant species can go extinct too.
Plant Biomass (in 2017) was 82% of all the Biomass on Earth. Wow!
But that makes sense because Plants made land life possible while providing more nutrients to the oceans too.
Plants changed the chemistry of the world and enriched it with more oxygen, while also sequestering carbon and changing rocks into living soils.
Most life (biomass) is on land, and plants are why.
Plant Biomass (in 2017) was 450 GT-C (stored carbon)
Prior to the rise of Human civilizations, Plant Biomass was over 916 GT-C.
Humans have REMOVED over 50% of the global Plant Biomass.
Plants also “shunt” rain across continents thru the photosynthetic process, which releases water vapor thru leaf pores when oxygen molecules are released.
A recent scientific study showed that plants are responsible for 40% to 70% of the rainfall that falls away from the coastlines of continents (i.e. more interior locations), the differences depend upon the continent and the plant biomass and types of plants.
The Great Smokey Mountains are called that because when those lands were bought up for the National Park, the trees came back, and the water vapor from all those leaves created fog (smoke) and more rain in that region and in nearby regions.
Plants (at large habitat scales) also cool the local climate in summer (via shade and water vapor) while keeping the local climate warmer in winter. Stand under trees in the winter and it is warmer than under a bare sky.
Plants ROCK! With humans OVER-POPULATING the planet, we continue to wipe out huge swaths of life giving plants. We are fools to think that ANY God would approve of destroying such wonderful creations, we call “nature”.
I am really tired of Christians NOT reflecting on why it is a bad idea to destroy the planet and other species and the biosphere. This global suicide and biocide pact is disgusting and does NOT reflect the views of many Christians and others who have common sense, while still retaining their various faiths and their responsibility to be good Stewards.
And you do not need to be religious to care about nature. But it would be great to have more religious people speak up in support of protecting nature, because humans also need nature.