Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Representative Jodey Arrington (TX-19) gave remarks in a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the housing affordability crisis in the United States. The hearing emphasized the challenges that American families are burdened with due to reckless inflationary policies under the Biden Administration. Rep. Arrington highlighted the ongoing labor shortage, self-inflicted supply and demand gap, and recent decades-high housing rates.

Click here for Rep. Arrington’s full remarks

Full Remarks

 It is very concerning for all of us to find ourselves in this affordability crisis, driven by record inflation for all Americans, that is taking away on average $500 every month for working Americans. There are probably five out of ten Americans that do not have $500 a month in savings. We are on the front end of the crisis. I hope we can turn it around, but I do not see the policies that will stop this inflation and recession and get us back on our feet to provide some relief to our fellow Americans. 

Unfortunately, the nation is relearning two very important lessons: the law of supply and demand and the law of unintended consequences. When supply is constrained and significantly outstripped by overstimulated demand and the gap between the two continue to grow, you get what we have gotten, which is the largest regressive tax on working families in recent history. 

 This is no exception in the housing sector. We have seen interest rates as a lever to try and gain some control over inflation, forcing mortgage rates up by two points year over year. If you own a house that cost you $300,000, you're paying on average $400 a month more in your mortgage every month. It is unsustainable for most working people in this great country. 

 I would suggest that the supply and demand gap was self-inflicted in most of the cases. I will never say every and all, but I think when you look at the labor shortages, you have people that were given generous social welfare without work requirements and were paid more to stay home than to go back to work. They had a rational decision to make – make as much, or more, staying home or go back to work.

We have a massive labor shortage situation in the country and an overregulation issue, especially with the fuel supply. Nearly 80 percent of what turns the wheels in the United States economy is oil and gas – fossil fuels. There is a whole-of-government assault on that industry, and we wonder why we are paying an all-time high cost for fuel at the pump. These things are constraining supply. 

Meanwhile, as the Federal Reserve of San Francisco appropriately suggested, flooding the market with federal monies overstimulated and created this demand side crisis because of federal policies, which were well intended. I do not think any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted the consequences, but we have reaped the whirlwind from those policies sown in the past. 

Here is the thing. They are continuing to push policies similar to what I described. Namely, the largest tax and spending bill we've seen in recent history. 

Rep. Arrington then asked the following question to Senior Fellow and Director Edward Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center:

Mr. Pinto, you talked about 70 years of government subsidies and interventionist policies in the housing sector for the objective of having more affordable housing stock for low-income folks. You said not only did we miss that mark by country mile, but we achieved the highest levels of foreclosures in our country and the developed world. 

So, tell me what the effects of the unintended consequences of more taxes, more regulations, and the President’s $4 trillion tax proposal are. What will those taxes, more regulations on oil and gas, and more spending and dollars from our federal government going into the market do to this already tenuous, at best, situation in the housing market?