Washington (January 14, 2026) – Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) called on Congress to pass the Build Now Act to address the cost of housing in America in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.
Key excerpts of the speech are below:
“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.”
. . .
“So, what can we do about that? Short of us getting in the middle of the business of our cities and telling them what zoning laws should look like, here’s what we can do: We could use a carrot and a stick.
“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.”
. . .
“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.”
. . .
“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.”
Watch Kennedy’s speech here.
Kennedy urges House to pass the Build Now Act to address housing costs: “Vote for it.”
“This bill will lower the cost of housing in America, and it will do it under basic principles of free enterprise.”
Watch Kennedy’s comments here.
WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) called on Congress to pass the Build Now Act to address the cost of housing in America in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.
Key excerpts of the speech are below:
“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.”
. . .
“So, what can we do about that? Short of us getting in the middle of the business of our cities and telling them what zoning laws should look like, here’s what we can do: We could use a carrot and a stick.
“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.”
. . .
“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.”
. . .
“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.”
Watch Kennedy’s speech here.
