The headline is there is not room for nuance

Everyone in congress at this point realizes the exceptionally fast growing cost of housing is driving inflation across the country. 65%-70% of inflation is due to housing costs, maybe a little more or less depending on how you measure it. However, because its risen to being one of the biggest problems in the current economy, there are literally dozens of acts in congress right now to change housing policies in different ways. A large number of them were all combined into the ROAD to Housing Act, and then that act was put inside the National Defense Authorization Act in the senate during the October shutdown. So now a small number of house members in joint conference will decide whether these housing actions will be included or not, and the house will take a straight up or down vote on the National Defense budget.

A single house member will have almost no say on US housing policy. At most, we can express an opinion about whether or not to include the ROAD to Housing Act in the reconciled NDAA or not. Which I absolutely support including; Americans under 40 are being economically sabotaged by the high cost of housing and that reverberates into weakening the economy as a whole. We need massive action on housing, even if it ends up paired to some corporate giveaways that we don't particularly like. However, the Republican House may still opposed this vital measure.

The ROAD to Housing Act contains a number of provisions expanding or further funding the Housing and Urban Development Agency; something Republicans have sought steep cuts to in their budget. The conservative American Enterprise Institute opposes the ROAD to Housing Act. It remains to be seen if House Republicans will pass it out of reconciliation or not, but the point should be clear: Democrats are more willing to engage in aggressive action on building housing than Republicans.

Incentives vs Mandates

The overwhelming majority of housing policies are about incentivizing private buying and selling decisions without forcing anything through eminent domain. Typically we allow the use of eminent domain for things like gas pipes or powerlines, but not fully private uses like replacing a house lot with an apartment building. This was a campaign issue back in 2016, where republicans opposed expanding eminent domain uses but democrats were more supportive of it because it was needed for things like solar and wind farms. It's time to bring that issue back.

The reality is that minor incentives have failed to revive the housing market. To give an idea, the U.S. now needs up to 7 million new homes. To offer just a modest subsidy of $10,000 per unit, that would be $70 billion. On top of that, US housing subsidies have generally caused cost inflation that wiped out the benefits. The federal government imposes rigorous compliance measures on subsidized projects that make it actually more expensive to build housing with federal subsidies than for the private sector to go it alone.