SUMMARY:
Jim Parrott, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors, offers insights on the significance of recent discussions regarding housing affordability. With a background that includes senior advisory roles in the Obama White House and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Parrott brings expertise in housing policy and finance to the conversation. He highlights the rarity of housing issues receiving such prominent attention, particularly in the State of the Union address, and underscores the potential for constructive dialogue and policy formulation. Despite current political gridlock, Parrott suggests that sustained emphasis on housing affordability could lay groundwork for future bipartisan initiatives, especially considering potential intersections with tax relief strategies. Looking ahead, events such as the expiration of the Trump tax cuts may present opportunities for substantive action. Thus, Parrott concludes that continued attention to the issue increases the likelihood of meaningful progress in addressing housing affordability challenges.
— THIS SETS THE STAGE FOR ADMIN ACTION TO USE GSE EQUITY PROCEEDS TO SOLVE AFFORDABLE HOUSING CRISIS IF POLITICAL GRIDLOCK PERSISTS INTO THIS SUMMER
uh so it’s a um the relevance of it is sort of twofold one they’re elevating this is an issue that we’ll hear them
44:36
talk about at nauseum for the next eight months which never happens in housing um which is really important and they offer
44:43
really an opening bid for how to think about what a solution should look like so if Congress were to take them up on it and come to the table to actually negotiate over what Solutions should look like then we all get a chance to
calendar year I think big picture um the rest being legislative what matters
59:29
there um is they’ve sort of thrown down the gauntlet I think uh and made housing
59:35
affordability um uh a priority that’s high enough that we’re going to hear about it a lot from them over the next
59:41
year um which seems sort of obvious to people in this room because we all care about housing which is why you’re here
59:47
but it just does hasn’t happened that often in the last 15 20 years the last time it happened is because the housing
59:52
market collapsed on our heads and you know brought the economy to its knees um and so when I was thinking back to
59:59
previous state states of the Union some which I was involved with um none of them at least in the last couple of
1:00:06
decades have given housing anywhere near this kind of um platform uh as as the
1:00:12
one we’ve just had and and what that Ma the reason why that matters is now that it’s in the State of the Union um it now
1:00:19
makes its way into their uh public Outreach sort of talking points and efforts it makes its way into
1:00:26
uh Biden’s sort of regular stump speech it makes its way into the um you know their validators stump speeches so we’re
1:00:33
going to hear this now repeatedly for nine months about why um affordability
1:00:38
is a problem what they plan to do about it so that to me the the biggest takeaway from all this is um it’s now
1:00:45
going to be part of the conversation way it hasn’t been um almost in my in my lifetime which matters a lot because
1:00:52
even if in the current Congress they’re not functional enough to turn the lights on on much less past something like
1:00:57
housing um it does set the stage for the next time Congress is functional enough
1:01:03
to do more than turn the lights on this is more likely not to be part of the conversation on what they’re going to
1:01:09
focus on because historically um the kinds of things that you need to do to actually solve uh the sets of problems
1:01:14
we’re talking about here um as Leo mentioned there’s a bit of a bipartisan opening there I mean a lot of it is tax
1:01:20
side a lot of it’s about tax relief that’s something that often brings Republicans to the table cuz are
1:01:26
marshalling you know private Capital to solve problems so there’s a there’s an opening here that feels a little
1:01:31
bipartisan in nature that feels like um as long as this Administration keeps
1:01:37
elevating it um there’s some a chance that we may see movement I think about say next year for instance um the Trump
1:01:44
tax cuts are going to expire there’s going to be a you know a an enormous push to renegotiate a lot of that
1:01:52
because both sides of the aisle are going to have an interest in thinking about how those numbers add up um and so I think there’s going to be a
SUMMARY: