Senate Republicans voted in the early hours of Thursday morning to reject an amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders that aimed to cut US prescription drug prices in half by mandating that Americans pay no more for medications than people in Canada and other wealthy nations.
Public debt stands at more than $39 trillion, with the interest expense on that borrowing now exceeding $1 trillion a year, highlighting the urgent need for a sustainable fiscal path.
If we want to bring down the cost of housing, we've got to build a lot more. And what I love about this bill is that it has more than 40 different provisions in it, all of which aim in the same direction, which is to give a push toward building more housing.
The legislation focuses on reducing regulatory and procedural barriers to housing development, aiming to accelerate the construction of both market-rate and affordable housing nationwide. The Housing for the 21st Century Act is the House counterpart to the ROAD to Housing Act. The bill seeks to accelerate housing development by encouraging zoning reforms, supporting accessory dwelling units and small multifamily projects, and lowering costs tied to permitting and design. It also includes grants for preapproved building plans intended to shorten approval timelines.
Organizational filibustering refers to strategies that delay and obstruct efforts to pursue social justice in systems. These additions can stretch out the process of implementation of diversity strategic plans or multicultural programs for years. Change agents can become battle-fatigued and give up their efforts. They can also become so disheartened that they leave a group or organization altogether.
The interchamber tensions between Democrats are becoming a regular feature of funding fights in the second Trump term. Lawmakers, strategists and voters alike exploded in anger last March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a handful of colleagues allowed a spending package to move forward amid the Elon Musk-led DOGE assault on federal agencies. In November, tempers again flared when a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to end a record 43-day shutdown.
These new restrictions-which can be found throughout the appropriations bill for the Department of Education and other sections of the 11-part funding package that was signed into law last week-are part of what policy experts describe as a bipartisan attempt to rebuke the Trump administration's budget proposal and restore Congress's power of the purse. Historically, the language of these budget bills has largely stayed the same, serving as little more than a template into which lawmakers plug that year's dollar amounts and policy riders.
