Washington (April 15, 2026) – Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) today explained how the One Big Beautiful Bill has helped return money to the American people’s pockets in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.
Key excerpts of the speech are below.
“We passed a major piece of legislation that is just starting to take effect. It’s going to impact every American. They came up with a new name for it because they didn’t like the old name, but I kind of like the old name, so that’s what I’m going to call it: the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is really breathtaking in its scope and will be in its effect.
“We cut taxes. Right now—don’t take my word for it—just pick up the phone and arbitrarily call some Americans who have filed their taxes. They’re getting money back. The average tax refund, is up, like, 11%. The average American who normally gets a refund and who’s already filing is going to get an extra—what works out to be an extra—$250 to $300 a month, so that’s going to help them deal with the higher prices.
“We also extended the prior tax cuts from 2017 that were about to expire. We made them permanent. Anybody who voted against making them permanent wanted to raise your taxes by $4.3 trillion. We beat them back.
“We increased the standard deduction. Whether you get a refund or not, you’re going to pay lower taxes because we increased the standard deduction. We gave Americans a larger child tax credit. We cut taxes for many Americans on Social Security. We cut taxes on tips. We cut taxes on overtime. We gave many Americans a deduction on the interest they pay for a car loan.”
. . .
“This is a major piece of legislation, and it’s taking effect now—and it’s not going to solve the problem completely, but it’s going to go a long way, because the best way to deal with inflation is to grow your way out of it.”
Kennedy also highlighted how short housing supply has raised American families’ cost of living.
He encouraged the U.S. House of Representatives to join the U.S. Senate in passing his Build Now Act to increase home supply and cut housing costs.
“You don’t have to be able to explain the law of special relativity to know that the cost of a home is breathtaking, or to know that rents have gone up. Why is that? Because of the lack of supply—duh. That’s because of a lack of supply.
“So, what do you do to make a . . . new home or used home more affordable? What do you do to make rents go down? You increase the supply. And that’s what we’re trying to do.
“I sit on the Banking Committee. We passed—the Senate has, twice—a housing bill. It’s in front of the House of Representatives right now. I hope my friends in the House pass it. I’ll tell you one of the things it will do: It will increase housing starts. If you don’t think this works, just go read an article about what’s going on in Austin. They increased housing supply in Austin. You know, rents are dropping in Austin like a fat guy on a seesaw. They’re going down. Why? Because they increased supply.”
