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Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I got back late last night from Oregon-- another round of community meetings. You can't do your job well sitting behind your desk back here; you have to get out into the community. I have had more than 1,000--really more than 1,060--open-to-all townhalls, in every corner of Oregon, and I am going to talk for a few minutes about the issue I hear about constantly, and that is the shortage of affordable housing for working families.
I am going to talk about what it means for my constituents, but I will tell you, I hear about it all across the country and from Senators on both sides of the aisle. I have just introduced legislation with the distinguished Senator from Alaska, Senator Sullivan, about housing that is affordable for working families. Ask the New Hampshire Senators about employers and workers facing housing challenges there. Ask those from Kansas what is going on in Kansas City, where they can't house teachers. Oregonians from Brookings to Baker City are facing rising rents and housing costs and are making tough financial choices. They ought to have enough money because they are working hard to pay for affordable shelter.
Here is a statistic that will give you a sense of what the challenge is all about. In my State, 26 school districts have been forced to buy, rent, or build housing for their teachers. So get this, Mr. President-- and we are westerners, and we understand this. We know we have a lot of challenges competing in tough markets. We have a leg up geographically with Asia, for example, on the west coast, but we are losing it if we don't have affordable housing for working families, for firefighters and teachers.
Folks, the minority community has said: We are trying to start small businesses on a credit card, and we can't afford shelter.
In Oregon, these school districts--more than 20 of them--are now basically in the housing business. How in the world--I see my friend from Alaska is here. We have been talking about these issues. It is wonderful to work with him on it. How in the world did our schools suddenly get in the housing business? I guess in some places they are going to in effect rent houses they bought to teachers, and the teachers will practically be back, I say to my friend from Alaska, in their college days. They will be waiting to use the washing machine in line with other teachers.
So I just don't think it is right that all our school districts have to get into the housing business--by the way, there was a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal here not long ago about the same sort of thing in Kansas City.
I have introduced comprehensive legislation as chairman of the Finance Committee to tackle this issue. It is called the DASH Act--the Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All Act. Today, we are just going to focus on one piece, which is affordable housing for working families.
Senator Sullivan and I have teamed up here in the Senate. I am very pleased that our bill is bipartisan and bicameral.
I am very pleased that our bill is bipartisan and bicameral. Representatives Jimmy Panetta and Mike Carey are offering the same kind of tax credit that Senator Sullivan and I are offering for working families, and our proposal is built on the proven and successful--what is called LIHTC--low-income housing tax credit.
My view is that the combination of LIHTC, plus the help that Senator Sullivan and I and our counterparts in the House want to advance--those two efforts--could spur a juggernaut of new and desperately needed housing construction. Our bill could be a big shot in the arm to the countless middle-income Americans hoping to get their shot at the American dream of owning a home.
I want, as we get into this issue of working families, to make sure that everybody understands that we are also recommitting our support to the existing programs that help the homeless and help folks of modest incomes, like LIHTC. These are people who, every week, walk an economic tightrope. They are balancing the food bill against the fuel bill and the fuel bill against housing costs. We desperately need more LIHTC funding, and as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am going to continue to push that.
But I don't think the two needs here for working families and low- income folks are mutually exclusive. We can do both. We ought to do both. Our country is not at its best when we pit working families against people of modest means. We ought to be extending opportunity for all Americans.
I will just say--and I am going to yield to my friend from Alaska-- that small businesses across my State--and I heard it yesterday again at our business summit in Portland--can't grow because employees can't afford housing. Even when they have good-paying jobs, families are forced to search for months for reasonably priced properties, only to be up against several other families in similar circumstances and contending for the same property.
So we are going to continue to try to build on the progress of LIHTC. My hope is--and I had a good talk just this morning with the chairman in the other body, Chairman Jason Smith of the Ways and Means Committee, my counterpart. We had a good conversation about the effort to get help for kids with what is called the child tax credit, and an equal amount of help for the research and development tax issue for innovation so we can outcompete China. We made good progress just in the last week, Chairman Smith and I, in looking at the numbers and the various ways in which we can ensure that an equal amount of assistance--an equal amount of assistance--goes for the child tax credit and the research and development tax credit.
One of the reasons I was so pleased to be able to come to the floor this morning and talk with my colleague from Alaska is I think we also ought to be talking about, on top of--and I use those words--an agreement that is proportional in assistance for the child tax credit and for the research and development tax credit. I think, on top of that, we ought to give a boost to housing, particularly the low-income housing tax credit, which has gotten significant support from my colleague from Washington, Senator Cantwell, and a number of Republicans as well, and we should include such a housing effort--on top of a child tax credit and a research and development-innovation package, help on housing--and make them all bipartisan.
I see my friend from is Alaska here. I thank him for his cooperation.
I will just say, in closing, no community is immune from the skyrocketing cost of housing. Democrats aren't usually supposed to use this word, but I will tell you I am a supply-sider on housing. We need to increase supply, and on that, Senator Sullivan and I are working together.
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Mr. WYDEN. I will yield very quickly to Senator Peters after I wrap this up.
Mr. President, first, I want to thank Senator Sullivan again for giving us a chance to bring housing, in a bipartisan way, to the Senate floor and just to tell colleagues there is an opportunity to do something really big here in the U.S. Senate.
I just got off the phone again with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the other body, my counterpart. We are making good progress in the effort to make sure that there is a child tax credit and a significant boost to research and innovation in this country. They have to be proportional. We have made that clear. That is the essence of a good and fair agreement.
Now, Senator Sullivan and I and our colleagues who are advocating for LIHTC are getting an opportunity to also discuss building upon that and taking some steps to ensure that there is housing for working families and for low-income folks.
I thank my colleague from Michigan for the chance to close this discussion up.
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