Ron Wyden

My view is, along with mental health care, rural health, and several other topics, affordable housing is an area where this committee can bring together a bipartisan coalition for real progress.

I strongly believe the next opportunity for a big, bipartisan initiative is affordable housing.

In recent memory the Finance Committee has a proven record of working together, Democrats and Republicans, to solve big, national challenges.

Few things unite Americans quite like the feeling that the rent is too damn high, or that saving enough for a down payment is a pipe dream.

The DASH Act would protect taxpayers' investment in Housing Credit properties by combating two threats to long-term affordability.

We strongly urge all members of the committee to support this change.

Again, Senator Wyden has been a leader in rectifying this problem.

That's why we call on Congress to protect the nonprofit right of first refusal.

We urge Congress to enact the Middle-Income Housing Tax Credit (MIHTC) that Senate Finance Committee Chair Wyden introduced last Congress.

We need to focus on all that. And by the way, a simpler and more rational tax code would also reduce costs for people as well.

We're causing the problem, driving up the cost by 40 percent, and then we're offering what percent relief from that burden?

I have never in my time in public service seen school districts having to buy houses to rent to their employees because the housing crunch is so serious.

We strongly recommend passage of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2021.

We have kicked the can down the road long enough. We urge Congress to act on a variety of legislative proposals.

Obviously, as he indicated, our chair, Senator Wyden, has introduced the Decent, Affordable, and Safe Housing for All (or DASH) Act.

Senator Wyden has very well described those efforts.

These restrictive zoning laws can hurt local economies--and what is even worse, they often amount to a back-door method of segregation.

I strongly believe the next opportunity for a big, bipartisan initiative is affordable housing.

The Fire Funding Fix made a tremendous difference, and I could not agree more.

And we stopped it. We said the biggest fires are now basically going to be treated as the disasters they are.

We made the biggest investment in climate change in American history last year.

The estimates are that we saved somewhere in the vicinity of two billion dollars as a result of the Fire Fix that Senator Crapo and I wrote.

Senator Whitehouse was always out there making the case.

I think it'd be very good if you could tell the American people why it's important that this past use not be a disqualification to serve your country.

My concern is that we're not seeing the urgency that is necessary, because we all know what the challenge is.