WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee Chairman Eric Burlison, R-Miss., blamed rising home prices on a supply issue, which he claimed is caused entirely by government policy during a hearing on Thursday.
“That is not a failure of the free market,” he said. “That is a failure of the government.”
Both parties in Congress have remained united on lowering housing costs for months. The House Committee on Financial Services advanced the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act on Dec. 17, which, if passed, would increase home development and construction. The housing package is awaiting consideration from the full House.
In July, the Senate Banking Committee advanced the bipartisan Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act of 2025, although it was cut from the final 2026 National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress.
Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at the Independent Women’s Forum, told the subcommittee that housing affordability is rooted in supply shortage. To address the problem, she recommended relaxing tax policies to encourage multigenerational living and at-home caregiving, as well as deregulating appliance requirements and building mandates for new housing.
“There is so much agreement, so much bipartisan consensus, that now is the time for deregulation and housing that would increase housing supply,” she said.
Yet, despite agreement among representatives that supply must go up to bring costs down, Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said that when he was a first-time homebuyer, he would not have wanted the government to interfere with the free market.
“What we want is the federal government [to get] the hell out of our way so we can live our lives,” he said.
Rep. Yassamin Ansaria, D-Ariz., questioned witnesses about the economic impact of President Donald Trump’s deportations on the construction industry. She said that mass deportations have resulted in fewer workers, which has driven up supply-side costs.
Ansari hosted a shadow hearing on housing affordability on Jan. 14, which Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., also attended. He said that during his rounds of door-knocking in Florida, housing came up repeatedly as the most pressing issue for his constituents.
A Politico poll from December reflected a similar sentiment, finding that respondents found housing to be one of “the most challenging” expenses to afford, second only to groceries.
In his concluding statement today, Frost said Congress is united on bringing down home prices, but the federal government should not interfere with housing regulations, adding that Democrats are trying to figure out what “bipartisan support looks like in Congress to push forth the Democratic proposal that’s been endorsed by President Trump.”
He referenced a press release from the White House on Tuesday, where the Trump administration announced that Wall Street investors would no longer be able to crowd out the middle class by buying single-family homes.
Frost also said investors are damaging the market by outbidding new homebuyers and purchasing foreclosures.
“Whether it’s 2008 or COVID-19 or the next event, we can count on people in Wall Street to exploit Americans’ housing affordability crisis,” he said.
