Why Can’t America Have a Housing Bill? Because of Trump’s Signature Obsession.
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Congress recently did something correctly. It passed a big, bipartisan bill to address one of voters’ big, bipartisan concerns: housing affordability. Everything was done the right way. The House and Senate committees of jurisdiction each passed their own versions, cleaned up the draft product in concert with each other, and produced a final version that, while it won’t fix the housing shortage on its own, takes a step toward making it easier to find an affordable place to live. It’s a policy win for both parties, and it could be a political boon to a party in power that needs to show voters, ahead of a difficult midterm election, that it’s capable of delivering results.
And so President Donald Trump just had to step all over it. In a Wednesday morning post, he described the legislation as the “Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren centric housing bill” and of “minor importance.” Shortly thereafter, he called off a planned signing ceremony for the bill at the Capitol “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”
This is the latest episode of the president intentionally sabotaging Senate Republicans until they’ve done what he wants—or because he’s in a fit that they haven’t. What he wants them to do is eliminate or weaken the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, the GOP’s party-line elections bill that Democrats oppose as unduly restricting voter rights and ballot access. Since Republicans will not do what he wants, the net effect is simply that the........
