[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 81 (Wednesday, May 13, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2283-S2286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ECONOMY
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, as the Presiding Officer well knows--
because I am about to describe the good people of West Virginia as well
as the good people of Louisiana and of many other States--most
Americans get up every day. They go to work. They obey the law. They
try to teach their children values. They try to do the right thing by
their children, and they try to put aside a little money for
retirement. I have just described millions of moms and dads across the
Presiding Officer's State and mine and all across America.
But, unfortunately, many moms and dads, when they lie down to sleep
at night, can't. And they can't because they are worried. They can't
because they are scared. Worry and fear are inextricably linked. One of
the main things they are worried about today in America is the cost of
living. Worry and fear also can lead to anger. There is a lot of anger
in America today among our middle-class citizens. That anger is shared
not only by the folks in the Presiding Officer's State and in my State
and in other States, it is shared all across political party lines and
all across demographics. Many of my Democratic friends and neighbors
are angry just as they are scared and worried. Many Independent moms
and dads or many Republican moms and dads are worried, and they are
angry.
Why are they angry? First, let me say I understand their anger. It is
perfectly predictable. Here is why they are angry, and this is why they
are scared: These moms and dads who can't sleep at night because they
are concerned about the cost of living look around and they see too
many undeserving people--I want to emphasize ``undeserving'' because I
don't want to paint it with too broad a brush.
These parents--these moms and dads--look around and see too many
undeserving people at the top getting bailouts, and they see too many
undeserving people--not everybody but too many undeserving people--at
the bottom who are getting handouts. And they are in the middle, and
they are getting stuck with the bill, and they can't pay it anymore
because of the cost of living.
Now, this started back during COVID when we experienced our first
inflation--a rise in the cost of living in America. You don't have to
be a senior at Caltech to figure out what happened. The Federal
Government, at the suggestion of President Biden, spent bucketloads of
money that we didn't have, particularly and especially after the
pandemic was over. They just spent
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billions and billions of dollars. There was money sloshing around the
financial system in America like it was confetti. These stimulus bills
were passed at the suggestion of President Biden at a time when many of
our supply chains had kinks in them, and all this extra money that
President Biden spent that we didn't have increased demand at a time
when supply was constant or going down.
Well, what is the result of that? Inflation. That is how you get
inflation. At one point, we had 9-percent inflation in America--9
percent. And inflation is pernicious. It just guts the middle class
like a fish. Those at the top aren't particularly bothered by
inflation. I don't want to overstate this, but many people at the
bottom who depend on public assistance to live are not as worried about
inflation because a lot of their public assistance is adjusted for
inflation.
But the folks in the middle--the ones who get up every day and go to
work and obey the law and pay their taxes and try to do the right thing
by their kids--yes, they have gotten some wage increases but not as
fast as inflation.
We have gotten that 9-percent inflation down. Before the conflict in
Iran, we had gotten it down to 2.5, 2.8 percent. We were trying to get
it down more, but inflation is very sticky. It is like a stray dog.
Once you feed it, you can't get rid of it. Our goal was to get it down
to 2 percent. The Federal Reserve was doing its part, and I would like
to think most Members of Congress were doing their part, but we were
having real trouble getting it down.
Then, of course, we had a spike in the cost of energy. Now, energy
was already up. Under President Biden, the average electricity bill of
the average American went up 28 percent--almost a third. So that
started the fear and the anger among middle-class Americans. But the
conflict in Iran, predictably, raised the cost of energy and
particularly the cost of gas and diesel fuel.
I think most Americans understand. They don't like it. I don't like
it. It is as painful as hell. They understand that every time you have
a conflict in the Middle East, the price of energy is going to go up,
and once the conflict is over, it will gradually come down. Usually, it
doesn't come down as fast as it went up, but it is still painful.
This fear, this anger at the cost of living predates the conflict in
Iran. I don't want to blame it on the conflict in Iran. It was there
before because we had inflation there before the conflict. I am not
going to say it is just energy prices. It is not just energy prices. We
were seeing it in food prices, for example. You shouldn't have to sell
blood plasma to go to the grocery store, but a lot of middle-class
Americans felt that they just about had to.
Now, I talked to the President about it. He understands it. It
frustrates him because he didn't cause that 9-percent inflation. No
disrespect, but President Biden did. He did. He spent money that we
didn't have like it was ditchwater. I think, if we had discovered life
on Mars when President Biden was President, he would have sent it money
immediately. That is how much money we were spending that caused all
this inflation, but it frustrates President Trump.
And these are my words, not his, but I have heard him say, in effect:
Why are people mad at me? I didn't cause this inflation. Yes, I did
what I had to do in Iran, and gas prices and diesel prices have gone up
and fertilizer prices, but the American people aren't stupid. They
don't read Aristotle every day because they are too busy earning a
living, but they understand the energy prices will gradually come down
after the conflict is over.
But the President says: Why am I getting blamed?
And I have told the President gently: Mr. President, I understand
your frustration. You didn't father this child--you are not the daddy--
but you have got to raise him. You have got to raise him because you
are the President.
And I don't want the American people to think we have been doing
nothing. We have done a lot already, as the Presiding Officer knows. We
passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. Now, I could stand here--and most of
the provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill which are going to help
with the cost of living are just now taking effect. People are already
seeing tax refunds bigger than they have ever seen, and that is going
to help. It is a breathtaking piece of legislation. I don't think I
have ever--I know I have never voted for a bill that was more impactful
and that covered more subjects.
I have talked before about no tax on tips and the fact that we
prevented a $4.3 trillion tax increase. I am not going to go into that,
but I do want to highlight one of the things we did--one among,
frankly, thousands in the One Big Beautiful Bill--to try to help people
in the middle class who are scared and who are angry.
I will give you an example--and the Presiding Officer knows this. We
have a program called the child and dependent care tax credit. Now, we
have made it as complicated as hell, as the Federal Government is wont
to do, but this is what the child and dependent care tax credit
basically does: Basically, if you are a mom and dad and you are working
and you have to pay for childcare--which is outrageously expensive; I
am not blaming the childcare providers, but it is just really
expensive--under the child and dependent care tax credit, we will pay a
portion of your childcare expenses.
This program has been around since 2001. In the One Big Beautiful
Bill, we amped it up. We don't talk about it much, but we did. For
about 4 million working families, they are going to get more money to
pay for childcare. For many families, that is going to mean an extra
$900 a family to pay for their childcare. I am very proud of that. We
heard the American people, and we did something about it.
We also have another program--way too complicated--called the
employer-provided childcare credit, 45F. Let me tell you what it does
in simple terms. It basically says, if you are a businesswoman or a
businessman and you want to help your employees and you want to attract
new employees because you need them, we will give that company a tax
credit to pay for a portion of the childcare expenses of those
employees. So that is the second way that we have, at the Federal
level, to try to help people pay for their childcare. Under the One Big
Beautiful Bill, we expanded that dramatically. That program has also
been around since 2001.
To make a long story short, which sometimes is difficult for me to
do, basically, in the One Big Beautiful Bill, we have given employers
all across America more money so they can, in turn, help their
employees by giving them more money to pay for childcare. We don't talk
about it enough, but parents with kids will start feeling that
immediately.
We also have a third program at the Federal level that we beefed up
in the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is called the child tax credit. It is
really the simplest of the three. Basically, if you have a child in
America, we will give you a certain amount of money to defray the cost
of raising that child.
Now, look, children are worth it, OK? I don't need to talk in just
purely financial terms. I love my son more than life itself. I
remember, when I was young, my dad used to tell me: Son, you will never
know love until you have a child.
He would tell me--he said: Son, it is not like the love for a spouse
or the love for a dad or a mom or a sibling.
I just can't describe it, Dad would say.
And I would say: Ah, Dad. OK, you know.
Well, he was right, and you can't know that until you have a child.
So I don't mean to talk about children just in financial terms, but it
is expensive to raise children. We increased in the One Big Beautiful
Bill--right now, we give parents $2,000 per child to defray the
expenses. We raised that to $2,200 a child. But more importantly, had
we not acted--we not only acted, but we increased the child tax
credits. But had we not acted, it was going to go back to $1,000 a
child. So I think it would be fair to say that we increased the child
tax credits from $1,000 to $2,200.
I don't want to get too partisan, but I was very disappointed that my
Democratic colleagues--not a single solitary one voted for this.
We also increased the adoption tax credit. We basically decided to
give more money to people who want to adopt children.
I could go on, but I won't. I could talk about the Dependent Care
Assistance Plan. I could talk about the paid
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family and medical leave credits. But the point is, this is one of the
reasons we passed One Big Beautiful Bill, and I don't want anybody to
think that we in Congress--at least our side of the aisle, the
Republican side of the aisle--are not aware of and are not trying to
help with the cost of living.
This is just one small part of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Let me
tell you what else we are doing. We are doing a lot of stuff, but I
will just mention one in particular: housing.
You know, it wasn't that many years ago--I think maybe 10 years ago,
15 years ago--that the average age of a first-time homeowner in America
was 29. You know, most people who wanted to buy a home bought their
first home when they were 29. Today, it is 39--damn near middle-aged--
because the cost of housing has gone up.
Now, that is great if you already have a home and you bought it early
enough. God bless you. I am happy for you. You know, you built up
equity, and your home is worth more. But it is terrible for our young
people who want to buy a home and they just can't. It is not just the
downpayment. It is not just the mortgage rates. It is the price of the
home.
Now, the Federal Government, the U.S. Congress, is not in charge of
housing. That is not part of our job description. That is an issue for
local government--State government, yes, but especially local
government. Why? Because the supply of housing is determined in large
part by municipalities, by cities and counties.
If you increase the supply of housing, the cost is going to go down.
One of the reasons homes have become so expensive is because we don't
have enough houses for people to buy. The other reason is that people
who have bought and locked in cheap interest rates don't want to sell.
But I digress.
The main reason is that we don't have enough housing. If we had more
housing, the price would go down, and you wouldn't have to wait until
you are 39 years old, for God's sake, to be able to buy a home.
But we at the Federal level can't tell our colleagues in local
government--or we shouldn't try to tell them--how to increase the
supply of houses. That is their job.
One way to increase the supply of housing is to change your zoning
laws. A lot of our local governments--a lot of them--make it terribly,
terribly, terribly difficult to build. They do. It is not just the fees
and the permits and the regulations; it is the zoning laws.
You know, we all need zoning laws. I am not saying we don't. But
there is no appetite by many folks on the city council and many mayors
to increase housing starts by relaxing the zoning laws.
I don't want to be the one to tell them how to do their business.
That is their business. I don't want to have the Federal Government get
in the middle of zoning laws. That is up to local government because
they are closest to the people.
But we have a bill--it has passed the Senate twice. It is in front of
the House of Representatives right now. There are one or two Members of
Congress over there that are holding it up, and I hope they will let it
go. But we passed it twice. In fact, this bill is called the Build Now
Act. It is a bill sponsored by myself and Senator Warren from
Massachusetts. I have had it put on the crypto bill that we are going
to mark up tomorrow. We have passed it twice, and it is in front of the
House now, but in case something goes wrong over there, I am going to
send it to them again through the crypto bill.
What does it do? It doesn't tell local government how to do their
job; it just tells them: We will give you extra money if you will do
your job.
Every year, the Federal Government sends about--I don't know--$3
billion in cash to our local governments. We call it community
development block grant money. But it is free money. We give it to the
cities. We give to the counties. There are very few strings attached.
The local governments love it. They love community development block
grant money like the Devil loves sin. I mean, it is just free money.
They can pretty much spend it on what they want. And we give it to them
every year, $3 billion, just like clockwork.
What Senator Warren's and my bill would do is, it says to our friends
in local government: We are not telling you how to do it, but if you
will increase housing starts, if you will allow the private sector to
build more houses--how you do it is up to you. You change zoning laws,
whatever you do. We are not going to tell you how to do your business.
But if you will encourage more housing built by the private sector and
increase housing starts, we will give you extra money from that pool of
$3 billion from community development block grants.
That is the good news.
The bad news for local government is--because you are saying: Well,
heck, we are already giving them $3 billion, Kennedy. Did you just
parachute in from Pluto? We have a huge deficit. You want to add more?
No. Senator Warren's bill and my bill wouldn't cost anything because,
yes, we will reward with extra money those counties and cities that
increase housing starts. Where are we going to get the money? We are
going to take it from the cities and counties that don't increase
housing starts. So the net effect is going to be a wash.
Now, we are not telling local government how to do their job. They
don't have to do a dadgum thing if they don't want to. But if local
government will work with us to increase housing starts, it will be
good for them and good for us. If they don't want to work with us, they
don't have to, but those that do work with us will get extra money, and
those that don't will get less.
I know this will work. I have seen it with my very own eyes. You
have, too, Mr. President. Just look at Austin, TX. About a year or so
ago in Austin, it was the hottest housing market in the country. Prices
were going through the roof. Why? Because Austin had all these people
that were moving in, wanted to live in Austin.
You know, I always have loved their expression and their slogan in
Austin. It is ``Keep Austin Weird.'' Austin is a great place. The
University of Texas is there. It is just a great place.
Now it is a hub for technology, and people were moving into Austin
from all over the country. The supply of houses was remaining the same,
and the cost of housing was going through the roof. Nobody could afford
a house, and nobody could afford an apartment.
Well, Austin said: You know, this is very uncool.
They changed their zoning laws.
They said: We are going to relax our regulations to try to increase
more houses and more apartments.
Do you know what? They did. They did. And the price of homes, but
just as important, the price of rent has gone down dramatically.
You increase supply, and price will go down every single time.
You know that. I know you know that, Mr. President. You have been
very successful in business.
Most people who weren't playing frisbee in the quad near Econ 101
know it too. So that is what our bill would do.
So I just wanted to come to the floor and say to the American people:
Look, I get it. We get it. You know, I wish there was a magic wand and
we could just fix it, but we are trying. And it starts with the One Big
Beautiful Bill.
We need to do more. We have passed the housing bill that will help if
we could get our friends over in the House of Representatives to just
take it up and pass it. There is talk of a third reconciliation bill,
and I am all for it.
There are things we could do in a reconciliation bill if we could get
it past the Parliamentarian. One idea I have: insurance. It is killing
people. It is just killing folks. And it is not just homeowners
insurance, it is flood insurance, it is car insurance, it is all kinds
of insurance.
What I am about to say is going to give all of our insurance
commissioners--they are all going to have a grand mal seizure when I
say this, but what I think we ought to do--right now, if I want to buy
insurance, I have to buy it in my State. I can't say: Man, the quote I
got on my homeowners is too high. I want to see what kind of deal I can
get in West Virginia or Alabama.
You can't do that. You can't buy insurance across State lines.
Craziest thing I have ever seen. Craziest thing I have ever seen.
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I want to introduce a bill--I may try to put it in our reconciliation
package--that says: Henceforth, you can buy insurance across State
lines.
I am sorry that the insurance commissioners are upset, but, you know,
enough is enough.
We have--and you know this, Mr. President. You have dozens of ideas.
I have them. We all have them. We are working on them.
I just wanted to come to the floor tonight and point that out to the
American people, that we get it. We get it. And I am sorry for that
worry and that fear among a lot of middle-class Americans. I am sorry
for that anger. But we are working on it, and we are trying, and we are
taking some steps to try to make your lives better.
That is it. My work here is done for the evening. I don't know what I
am supposed to say next, except--what? Let's go home? Is that what you
are saying?
Well, we are done. I am done. I can show myself out.
Whatever the magic words the Parliamentarian is telling me to say, I
want to say it, and we will be recessed until we are supposed to come
back. How is that?
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