About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Senate convenes hearing on affordability ahead of midterms from The Hill, published June 23, 2026. The transcript contains 18,839 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"and frankly, around the country. That is a question I hear all the time at home. How do we make this economy work for families who are already working hard, but too often there's just too much month at the end of the money? Housing is too expensive. Food is too expensive. Borrowing is too..."
[0:00] and frankly, around the country.
[0:02] That is a question I hear all the time at home.
[0:06] How do we make this economy work for families
[0:10] who are already working hard,
[0:11] but too often there's just too much month
[0:15] at the end of the money?
[0:17] Housing is too expensive.
[0:19] Food is too expensive.
[0:20] Borrowing is too expensive.
[0:22] Everyday life is simply too expensive.
[0:27] A family in Wajala, South Carolina,
[0:29] trying to buy their first home,
[0:31] a small business owner in Greenville,
[0:33] trying to expand,
[0:35] or senior citizen in Rock Hill, South Carolina,
[0:38] living on a fixed income,
[0:40] should not have to wonder
[0:42] whether Washington understands what it means to choose,
[0:46] I mean this sincerely,
[0:47] to choose between prescriptions or groceries.
[0:53] Affordability is not created by government programs.
[0:56] More red tape or more spending we cannot afford.
[1:00] Affordability comes from promoting competition, innovation,
[1:04] and opportunity.
[1:06] That is why Senate Republicans have been focused on results
[1:08] that will bring relief to everyday Americans.
[1:11] We are approaching the one-year anniversary
[1:14] of the Working Families Tax Cut Bill,
[1:16] a bill that has put more money in the pockets of Americans
[1:20] who desperately need it.
[1:22] Because of this bill, 97% of Americans received a tax cut this year.
[1:30] 97%.
[1:32] And the people who benefit the most
[1:34] are people earning less than $200,000 a year.
[1:39] Hardworking American families will take home more,
[1:42] nearly $300 a month more,
[1:45] because of the Working Families Tax Cut Bill.
[1:48] Let's not forget, every single Democrat in the Senate voted against cutting taxes,
[1:53] which would have led to a $5 trillion, $5 trillion tax increase.
[2:00] This committee has already advanced efforts to improve housing opportunity,
[2:05] create clear rules for digital assets, strengthen our markets,
[2:09] and make the financial system work better for everyday Americans.
[2:14] Our 21st Century Road to Housing Act,
[2:16] which just passed the Senate by historic margins.
[2:20] I think it was 85 to 4 yesterday.
[2:23] Almost nothing happens in the Senate.
[2:26] Nothing happens in the Senate.
[2:28] 85 to 4.
[2:30] We cut red tape.
[2:31] We are unlocking housing supply and preserving local control.
[2:37] I look forward to President Trump signing that legislation into law.
[2:40] The Genius Act, signed into law last year,
[2:43] established a first-of-its-kind regulatory framework for payment stablecoins,
[2:47] fueling financial innovation in America and creating economic opportunity.
[2:52] The next step is solidifying American leadership in digital assets,
[2:56] in completing market structure legislation,
[2:59] and I'm proud of this committee's work to advance the Clarity Act
[3:04] on a bipartisan fashion.
[3:06] Beyond legislation, we also have pushed for better implementation
[3:10] of my Credit Score Competition Act.
[3:12] So millions of Americans who are today credit invisible
[3:17] will have an opportunity to earn the kind of credit scores
[3:22] and interest rates that they deserve by populating all of their information
[3:28] on the credit scoring agencies.
[3:30] And we have supported thoughtful regulatory right-sizing that helps protect consumers
[3:35] without driving up the cost of credit.
[3:38] Unfortunately, too many in Washington still believe the answer to every problem
[3:44] is more government.
[3:46] We saw this during the Biden administration.
[3:48] Reckless spending and heavy-handed regulation made life more expensive
[3:53] and made it more hard harder for businesses to invest,
[3:57] lenders to serve their communities, and builders to build.
[4:00] We should be clear, regulations, they have a cost.
[4:05] When Washington makes it harder for a bank to lend, a business to invest,
[4:09] a builder to build, and an entrepreneur to grow, those costs do not disappear.
[4:15] They show up in higher prices, fewer choices, and fewer opportunities for American families.
[4:21] That is why cutting red tape is also an affordability issue.
[4:26] Agencies should protect consumers, not be weaponized for a political agenda.
[4:32] The Biden administration should never have used the CFPB to target disfavored financial
[4:37] sectors, restrict access to credit, or punish responsible lenders.
[4:43] That made it harder for families and small businesses to access credit while making financial
[4:49] products more expensive.
[4:51] Senate Republicans are working to bring these costs down at the same time the Biden administration
[4:57] was working to raise those prices.
[5:01] Families in South Carolina and across the country are still living with the consequences of the
[5:06] Biden-era policies in their monthly bills, their mortgage payments, and their household
[5:12] budgets.
[5:13] Families do not need more slogans.
[5:15] They need lower costs, better opportunities, and a government that gets out of the way as
[5:21] Americans try to build a better life.
[5:24] Today, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about practical steps we can take to lower costs,
[5:31] expand opportunity, improve affordability, and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens without
[5:37] growing government.
[5:38] Senator Warren, you're now recognized.
[5:42] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[5:43] I want to thank you for holding today's hearing on affordability.
[5:47] It's only Tuesday, and our committee's already had a big week.
[5:50] We have to.
[5:51] Yesterday, the Senate passed our 21st Century Road to Housing Act, and now the House is on
[5:56] its way to passing it, too.
[5:58] This is the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years.
[6:02] It will help build more housing, bring down costs, and for the first time ever, stop private equity
[6:08] from snapping up homes that families are trying to buy, and your leadership helped make that
[6:14] happen.
[6:15] Our housing bill is an affordability accomplishment that everyone on this committee can be proud
[6:22] of, but it is not nearly enough to offset the economic policies of President Trump and the devastating
[6:29] impact that they have had on American families.
[6:33] So let's set a baseline.
[6:35] When Trump took office, inflation was down to 3% and headed down.
[6:41] The first thing he did was slap tariffs on nearly every item from nearly every country.
[6:47] These tariffs will cost the average American household more than $2,500 this year.
[6:55] Now the Supreme Court struck down these tariffs as illegal, and the administration has not lifted
[7:02] a finger to give consumers a refund on the very high prices that they pay.
[7:09] Then came Trump's illegal war with Iran, which caused energy prices to skyrocket.
[7:15] The impact of the war continues to jack up costs for every single sector of our economy.
[7:22] Families have spent $43 billion more on gasoline alone than they would have if Trump had never
[7:32] started this war.
[7:34] Trump spent billions to cut renewable energy projects, you know, the kind of energy that would
[7:40] actually lower utility costs.
[7:43] And Trump and Republicans have sent health insurance premiums soaring, with next year's premium hikes
[7:51] already on track to rival last year's record-breaking increases.
[7:58] In between these disastrous policies, it has been non-stop Trumpian extravaganza of corruption
[8:07] and incompetence.
[8:09] Anti-consumer mergers that will drive up costs for everything from cable TV to credit cards
[8:16] get rubber stamped under the shadiest possible circumstances.
[8:22] The CFPB, which has returned more than $21 billion directly to families that have been scammed,
[8:29] has been hollowed out and sidelined.
[8:32] Doge fired the USDA team responsible for preventing screw worm.
[8:38] And now an outbreak threatens to bankrupt ranchers and send already high beef prices through the
[8:45] roof.
[8:47] And one white-collar criminal after another gets DOJ dismissal or a Trump pardon, sending
[8:55] a clear message that it is okay for wealthy insiders to rip off families and consumers.
[9:04] And what's the result?
[9:07] Inflation now sits at its highest level in three years, 4.2 percent, nearly double what
[9:12] it was last year.
[9:14] Americans are paying more for groceries, for health care, for gas.
[9:18] The Federal Reserve is forecasting higher inflation, higher interest rates, and slower growth.
[9:25] And the American people can see plain as day that as the economy gets worse, Trump gets
[9:31] more chaotic.
[9:33] Trump focuses on building his golf course and his giant ceremonial arch, getting the right
[9:40] marble for his taxpayer-funded gold-encrusted ballroom, with no thought to the rising costs
[9:47] that are bearing down on Americans.
[9:51] The same guy who ran for office saying he would tackle inflation on day one now calls affordability
[9:59] a, quote, hoax and a, quote, made-up word.
[10:05] He says, quote, I don't think about Americans' financial situation.
[10:10] He says that he, quote, loves the inflation.
[10:16] Trump doesn't care about hardworking Americans.
[10:18] He cares about making himself richer by cutting crypto deals and making thousands of stock
[10:24] transactions with companies whose value he can boost with deregulatory policies or giant
[10:31] government contracts.
[10:34] Trump's billionaire friends are along for the ride.
[10:37] They're getting richer by the hour, while American families are stuck with the bill.
[10:43] The world just got its first trillionaire, and the Trump family's wealth is up by at
[10:47] least $2.3 billion since just last year.
[10:54] And meanwhile, Americans' real wages since Trump was sworn into office 18 months ago have fallen.
[11:04] Mr. Chairman, I am glad that we are having this affordability hearing today.
[11:08] It is a stark reminder of the president's failures.
[11:13] Americans want Washington to make affordability our first priority.
[11:17] And instead, all Donald Trump is offering are higher prices, more chaos, and unprecedented corruption.
[11:25] I look forward to our conversation today.
[11:28] Thank you.
[11:29] I now recognize our first witness, Mr. Cody Carbone, Chief Executive Officer at the Digital Chamber.
[11:36] Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Warren, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity
[11:44] to testify today.
[11:46] I'm honored to be here this morning.
[11:48] My name is Cody Carbone, Chief Executive Officer of the Digital Chamber, the world's largest
[11:52] digital asset and blockchain trade association.
[11:56] Our members span more than 250 companies, from the world's largest exchanges and banks to
[12:01] startups, innovators, builders, and developers.
[12:05] I'm here to talk about how digital assets can make life more affordable.
[12:08] By calling attention to a hidden tax most families never see, but they feel.
[12:13] The cost of moving money and the cost of moving assets.
[12:17] It's simply too expensive and takes too long to move money and assets today.
[12:22] Nearly one in four American households live paycheck to paycheck.
[12:26] And the Federal Reserve reports more than a third couldn't cover a $400 emergency without
[12:31] borrowing.
[12:33] For those families, a credit card swipe fee or a three-day hold isn't just an inconvenience,
[12:39] it's an overdraft, a late fee, or a payday loan.
[12:43] Yet digital assets and blockchain are the first real chance in decades to help people move the
[12:47] money they've earned more easily.
[12:49] To make sending money as simple and efficient as sending an email.
[12:53] And to end that tax.
[12:56] Today I will discuss how digital assets can help lower costs in three areas.
[13:01] First, the cost of moving money across borders.
[13:05] Americans send more money abroad than any nation on Earth.
[13:08] More than $100 billion last year.
[13:11] It costs 6.5% to send, more than double the international target, and takes three to five
[13:17] days to arrive.
[13:19] That's more than $6 billion a year skimmed out of working families' pockets.
[13:25] A worker sending $100 home to a foreign country sees only $93.50 arrive.
[13:30] However, if they were using a dollar-backed stablecoin, that family keeps the full $100
[13:36] and receives it in seconds.
[13:39] The same wall hits the freelance designer in South Carolina paid by a client in Europe
[13:43] or a manufacturer in Ohio paying an overseas supplier, which is why business-to-business payments
[13:49] are already the single largest use of stablecoins today.
[13:53] The rails work and cheaper cross-border payments make American businesses more competitive.
[13:58] Second, closer to home, more competition in everyday payments.
[14:04] There's real cost embedded in how we pay today.
[14:07] And Americans deserve more choice.
[14:09] A regulated stablecoin is one more option.
[14:12] Cheaper to process, settling in seconds.
[14:15] And it's a tool banks can offer, too.
[14:18] Under the Bipartisan Genius Act, banks themselves can issue these products.
[14:22] This isn't about taking anything from the system we have.
[14:25] It's letting a cheaper, compliant rail compete so a merchant can pass a discount to customers
[14:30] at the register.
[14:32] And third, the biggest purchase most families will ever make, a home.
[14:36] Today, thousands of dollars vanish into the process of transferring a home, closing costs
[14:41] of up to 5%, often more than $10,000, much of it just to establish who owns what and to
[14:47] move the money.
[14:49] Tokenization attacks that directly.
[14:50] It records ownership clearly, settles in seconds instead of weeks, and strips out the layers
[14:56] of middlemen who each take a cut.
[14:57] Independent analysts estimate that cut of tokenization can cut transaction costs by 35% to 65%.
[15:06] This is big in housing, but the same approach reaches car titles, equities, treasuries,
[15:12] small business invoices, and more.
[15:15] And it opens the door the other way, too.
[15:16] Tokenization provides for fractional ownership, which lets a family own a piece of a wealth-building
[15:22] asset for as little as a dollar instead of being locked out like they have for decades.
[15:27] Tokenization is real, it's growing, and the savings are already proven in the institutions
[15:32] using it today.
[15:34] This committee deserves real credit.
[15:36] The Genius Act is working.
[15:38] And finishing the job through the Clarity Act is the best chance Congress has had to set
[15:42] clear rules of the road.
[15:44] Clarity is closer than it has ever been, and I'd urge the Senate to finish it this year.
[15:48] Clear, U.S.-based rules are what unlock tokenization for ordinary Americans, keeping this activity
[15:54] onshore, and creating good-paying jobs.
[15:57] Because in the end, the cost of moving money and moving assets is real, and it shows up
[16:03] in every household budget.
[16:05] The Digital Chamber is proud of our role in helping Americans shed that burden in working
[16:09] with this committee.
[16:11] Thank you for your time, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Warren, and I look forward to your questions.
[16:15] Thank you very much.
[16:16] Our next witness will be Mr. Kevin Brown, the President of the National Association of Realtors,
[16:20] you are now recognized, and thank you all for your support of the housing bill as well.
[16:26] Thank you.
[16:26] Thank you, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Warren, members of the committee, thank you for inviting
[16:31] me to testify at today's hearing on America's affordability agenda.
[16:35] My name is Kevin Brown.
[16:36] I'm the 2026 President of the National Association of Realtors, the largest trade association in
[16:42] the country with nearly 1.5 million members.
[16:45] I'm also a broker-owner with Better Homes Realty, Rockridge, and Oakland, California.
[16:50] Every day, realtors work with families and individuals who have saved, worked hard, and
[16:55] maintained good credit, yet still cannot find an affordable home.
[16:59] The numbers are staggering.
[17:01] Housing remains one of the largest drivers of economic growth in the country, making up
[17:06] nearly a fifth of the U.S. economy.
[17:08] But the supply of homes to purchase has collapsed.
[17:13] The American population has grown nearly 30% since 1995, yet the existing housing stock has
[17:19] actually dropped more than 25% from 1.58 million units in 1995 to 1.18 million units today.
[17:28] The median annual home price has skyrocketed to over $400,000, and the average age of the
[17:34] first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old.
[17:36] This is not sustainable.
[17:39] Thankfully, under the leadership of this committee, meaningful changes are on the way.
[17:44] The 21st Century Road to Housing Act is the most consequential housing legislation in decades.
[17:50] The bill strengthens many existing programs and streamlines others while cutting red tape
[17:55] and removing barriers to housing development.
[17:58] In particular, the bill reforms federal housing programs such as the Home Investment Partnership
[18:03] Program and the Community Development Block Grant Program to be more flexible and effective.
[18:10] The legislation modernizes financing for rural manufactured and modular housing and updates
[18:15] FHA multifamily loan limits to reflect today's market.
[18:19] It also streamlines federal environmental review and increases coordination across agencies.
[18:24] On the state and local side, it provides resources and incentives, not mandates, to help communities
[18:31] build and preserve homes.
[18:32] The Housing Supply Frameworks Act requires HUD to work with stakeholders to develop guidelines
[18:39] and best practices for addressing zoning policies that block housing production.
[18:44] The bill includes funding to develop pre-reviewed design libraries of ADUs, duplexes, townhouses
[18:51] that can help streamline permitting.
[18:53] It also creates planning grants to support affordable housing strategies at every level of government
[18:59] and a home renovation pilot to help families preserve the home that they already own.
[19:04] The House and Senate now agree, or now agree, we look forward to this legislation being signed
[19:11] into law, adding to other successful reforms from Congress, such as Opportunity Zones and
[19:17] Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
[19:18] We know the 21st Century Road to Housing Act will have the same meaningful impact, but as we all
[19:24] know, there is more work to be done.
[19:27] We know it will take time to build more homes, but we also need to ensure that communities don't
[19:32] adopt short-sighted, quick-fix things to address affordability.
[19:36] In my home state of California, we have seen policies that do more harm than good.
[19:41] While solutions like rent control may be popular, the on-the-ground results only water down personal
[19:47] property rights, discourage more development, and push mom-and-pop housing providers from
[19:52] the market.
[19:54] Property ownership works best when property rights are strong.
[19:57] That's what allows consumers to build and protect equity, the foundation of long-term
[20:02] wealth.
[20:04] While rent control may be seen as a way to protect tenants, in practice, it limits housing
[20:08] opportunities and makes it more expensive.
[20:11] This is why it's critical that the federal government take the lead in meaningful, lasting
[20:16] solutions.
[20:17] Realtors look forward to working with Congress on additional reforms and policies, such as
[20:21] More Homes on the Market Act, a bipartisan bill that would double the capital gains exclusion threshold
[20:27] on a primary residence for the first time in nearly 30 years, while adjusting the caps
[20:33] to reflect future inflation.
[20:35] Just like people who are locked into their homes at lower interest rates, seniors are often
[20:41] locked in because of the home equity penalty.
[20:45] This legislation expands existing housing stock and gives seniors the opportunity to tap equity
[20:50] that they have counted on for retirement.
[20:53] In turn, move-up buyers can then buy homes, thus freeing up houses for first-time homebuyers.
[21:00] Additional policy solutions are included in my written testimony.
[21:05] We know there is no silver bullet that will quickly fix the supply and affordability crisis,
[21:10] but the solutions this committee has championed will help the housing market for decades to
[21:14] come.
[21:15] Thank you, Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Warren.
[21:16] I look forward to your questions.
[21:18] Thank you, sir.
[21:19] Next, we'll hear from Dr. Morgan, President of the Century Foundation.
[21:24] You are now recognized.
[21:28] Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Warren, thank you for inviting me to testify before the committee
[21:32] today.
[21:33] As a public policy think tank dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans, the Century Foundation
[21:38] has been acutely focused on how rising costs are affecting working families.
[21:43] While President Trump is calling affordability a hoax or a fake word and confessing that he
[21:48] does not think about Americans' financial situations, families are dealing every single
[21:52] day with the cost-of-living crisis that Donald Trump promised he would fix.
[21:57] From his first days in office, President Trump has gone back on his campaign promises, layering
[22:02] one price hike on top of another.
[22:05] Starting on so-called Liberation Day last April, the Trump administration set off a series
[22:09] of tariffs that have cost American consumers an average of about $1,700, increasing prices
[22:15] on a wide variety of must-have items, from groceries, clothing, and school supplies to
[22:19] building materials and electronics.
[22:22] The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress then pushed through massive tax
[22:26] cuts for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by increasing the cost of health care,
[22:31] higher education, energy, and food for ordinary families.
[22:34] While the wealthiest Americans got a boost, those tax cuts for the ultra-rich cost the lowest
[22:39] income families of about $1,200 a year.
[22:42] In fact, any benefits that average families may have seen from Trump's tax plan were completely
[22:47] wiped out by a war with Iran that is keeping gas prices at nearly $4 per gallon and has cost
[22:52] families an estimated $100 billion to date.
[22:56] On the Trump administration's watch, some of the biggest expenses for ordinary families
[23:00] have become even less affordable.
[23:03] New car prices hit record highs.
[23:05] Health insurance premiums have spiked.
[23:07] Home prices rose again this last year.
[23:10] And rent and mortgage payments both remain alarmingly high.
[23:14] And prices are only one side of the equation on affordability.
[23:16] Wages are the other.
[23:18] Since returning to office, the president has directly cut the wages for home health workers
[23:22] and farm workers, wreaked havoc on the agencies responsible for ensuring that workers can exercise
[23:27] their rights, and in 2025 ushered in the worst year of job growth since 2020.
[23:33] The cumulative impact of these policies has been disastrous for working families.
[23:38] Our research shows that half of Americans report skimping on health care services or taking
[23:42] on debt to deal with their rising health care costs.
[23:45] Half have had to tap into savings to meet their day-to-day expenses.
[23:49] In one survey, one in three respondents reported that they or someone in their household has skipped
[23:55] meals to save money in the past year.
[23:59] Americans are increasingly forced to use debt to make ends meet, but high-cost loans are pushing
[24:03] families further over the edge.
[24:05] Outstanding credit card balances stand at around $1.25 trillion, with delinquency rates of more
[24:12] than 13%, the highest level since the Great Recession.
[24:16] Student loan delinquencies have also shot up under the Trump administration, from nearly
[24:19] zero to about 25%.
[24:22] Auto debt has exploded.
[24:24] Bankruptcy filings increased almost 12% between 2025 and 2026.
[24:29] Home foreclosure filings are up 26% from the last year, and are the highest they've been
[24:33] since 2020.
[24:36] This mountain of debt adds a new dimension to the affordability crisis.
[24:40] Going down the prices of individual goods and services won't fully alleviate the pain
[24:44] that families are feeling or the drag it places on the economy.
[24:47] Lower gas prices next week don't mean all that much when you're still paying off your
[24:52] price at the pump from the last week or last month's groceries at a 24% interest rate.
[24:59] Not everyone is losing in the Trump economy, however.
[25:02] The Trump administration has engaged in a relentless, corrupt agenda of self-enrichment, deregulation,
[25:08] corporate pardons, and sweetheart deals for the wealthy and the well-connected.
[25:12] Some of the beneficiaries are represented here in this room, like the banks that continue
[25:16] to derive excess profits from overdraft and credit card late fees that cost consumers
[25:21] $15 billion a year.
[25:24] This committee has the power to advance legislation that would help save Americans billions of dollars.
[25:29] I applaud you all for starting with housing, an area of critical need.
[25:33] And I saw this morning that Senator Warren and Senator Moreno are working to save Social
[25:37] Security as well.
[25:38] But with 110 million Americans unable to pay off their credit card balances each month,
[25:44] and banks tucking massive profits into historically high interest rates, there is much more to
[25:48] be done.
[25:50] The affordability crisis is not a hoax.
[25:52] It's a backbreaking reality for the vast majority of Americans.
[25:56] This committee must take action to address it, and I look forward to your questions.
[26:02] Thank you.
[26:03] Thank you, ma'am.
[26:04] We'll now hear from Ms. Lindsey Johnson, the Community Bankers Association.
[26:09] Thank you.
[26:10] Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Warren, and members of the committee, thank you for the
[26:13] opportunity to testify.
[26:15] My name is Lindsey Johnson.
[26:16] I'm President and CEO of Consumer Bankers Association, the nation's only trade association
[26:21] exclusively focused on retail lending.
[26:24] For as long as there's been an American economy, banks have helped families and small businesses
[26:27] build within it.
[26:29] That work often begins with something simple, safeguarding a paycheck, and it grows from
[26:33] there.
[26:34] Banks take deposits and put them to work in communities, helping consumers establish credit, finance
[26:39] and education, buy a car, purchase a home, or start or expand a small business.
[26:45] For millions and millions of Americans, a credit card or a small loan can take a family from
[26:50] credit invisibility to financial opportunity.
[26:54] The same is true for small businesses.
[26:56] Many begin with a founder's personal credit card, grow into a small business loan, mature
[27:00] into an enterprise that takes payments, manages cash flow, hires employees, and serves their
[27:05] communities.
[27:06] At every stage, banks are alongside them.
[27:09] But the true measure of a bank is not just what it does in good times.
[27:12] It's what it provides when life doesn't go according to plan.
[27:16] When a paycheck and a bill don't line up, when a car breaks down, or when hours are cut,
[27:20] bank products can be the bridge between a difficult month and a genuine crisis.
[27:24] A credit card, an overdraft service, a home equity line of credit can help a family absorb
[27:29] a shock, stay current, and keep moving forward.
[27:34] Banks also provide another layer of support for consumers that they may not see.
[27:37] Fraud prevention, payment security, and technology that makes modern commerce possible.
[27:42] Banks do well when their consumers, small businesses, and their communities do well.
[27:46] Today's economy and consumers are remarkably resilient.
[27:50] But affordability is a real concern for many families, as essentials like housing, health
[27:55] care, food, and transportation, what we refer to in our written testimony as a four horsemen
[28:00] of affordability, continue to pressure household budgets.
[28:04] As costs have risen, families, particularly those at the bottom of the K-shaped economy, feel
[28:08] it more acutely.
[28:10] Consider the median household making around $68,000 after taxes, or roughly $5,700 a month.
[28:16] Essentials like housing, vehicles, health care, comprise around two-thirds of their budget,
[28:20] and if you add childcare in there, it consumes around 75% of the budget before utilities, gasoline,
[28:25] retirement savings, and other reoccurring costs.
[28:28] By year's end, this household has a net savings of around $540, or roughly $45 a month.
[28:34] It's an incredibly thin margin, where a single unexpected expense can upend a family budget.
[28:40] And 75% of Americans experience at least one expense shock a year.
[28:44] On average, that expense shock is around $5,000.
[28:48] For consumers like this, low-cost financial products from Main Street banks can help manage
[28:52] and smooth out those unexpected expenses.
[28:55] Conversely, credit cards and other products and services that serve as shock absorbers comprise
[29:00] a very small amount of the consumer's budget.
[29:03] As credit card interest accounted for roughly 1% on average of the household budget in 2024,
[29:08] for example, and overdraft and other fees are even less.
[29:11] Congress, this committee, and the administration deserve credit for advancing solutions focused
[29:16] on core sources of affordability challenges, including pending bank capital rules that are
[29:21] going to enhance banks' abilities to lend, bipartisan work on housing expansion and supply,
[29:28] and support for small business lending.
[29:30] CBA also appreciates the focus on fraud and scams, a fast-growing threat costing Americans
[29:35] billions every single year.
[29:37] Combating it requires stronger coordination, accountability, law enforcement engagement,
[29:42] and more engagement across technology, telecom, and non-bank marketplaces.
[29:47] As policymakers consider additional solutions, it is so critical to preserve the financial tools
[29:53] that help families manage those unexpected expenses.
[29:56] Quick fixes like credit card rate caps may seem appealing, but they simply reduce access to
[30:01] credit, and they make it harder for consumers who need it most to access that credit and, instead,
[30:06] pushes them to less regulated alternatives.
[30:09] A better approach detailed in my written testimony is to address affordability challenges at their
[30:15] source while maintaining responsible access to credit.
[30:19] This cannot solve structural affordability and income challenges alone, but we can and do help
[30:25] families manage through it, ensuring access to essential credit and liquidity in a competitive
[30:30] and sustainable way.
[30:32] The last six years have presented some of the most unprecedented challenges to the economy
[30:36] and consumers in modern history.
[30:38] Yet banks' role to support consumers and small businesses during this time led to make greater
[30:42] resiliency for families, for businesses, for communities, and the broader economy, as banks
[30:48] were the driving force in the fastest post-pandemic recovery in modern history.
[30:54] Banks will continue to serve as foundational partners in American life and will support stability
[30:59] and help families achieve their own American dream.
[31:02] Thank you again, and I welcome your questions.
[31:03] Thank you very much.
[31:05] Each member of the committee will have an opportunity to ask questions of any of the witnesses for
[31:11] up to five minutes, and then we'll move on.
[31:15] I'll start.
[31:17] One of the things I said during my opening comments was that because of the working families
[31:23] tax cut bill, 97 percent of Americans saw their taxes go down, and the focus of those tax
[31:32] decreases were on people making less than $200,000 a year.
[31:37] One hundred percent of Democrats voted against the tax cuts for 97 percent of Americans.
[31:45] Five trillion dollars is just a mind-numbing amount.
[31:52] But two hundred and fifty dollars a month is something I can understand.
[31:58] Giving Americans 250 additional dollars because of our working families tax cut bill that showed
[32:06] up in tax returns, an increase on average of 11 percent is just another way the Republican
[32:12] majority is working on behalf of the American people, making 2026 the year of affordability,
[32:19] working in the right direction.
[32:21] I'd also add to that comparisons matter.
[32:25] The contrast between the Biden administration years where the average family was losing more
[32:31] than a thousand dollars of purchasing power a month and inflation got as high as 9 percent.
[32:40] And oh, by the way, don't forget gas prices June of 2022, four dollars and 88 cents a gallon
[32:51] on average.
[32:52] On top of all of that, one of the most oppressive regulatory environments in modern history brought
[33:00] to us by the Biden administration.
[33:04] Digging out of that hole has taken time without any question.
[33:09] And when I think about the regulatory burden put on top of the average person in this country,
[33:14] I think about the regulatory options like Basel III, an initiative coming to the table that
[33:21] happened.
[33:22] But fortunately and thankfully, we were able to dodge that really devastating bullet to
[33:27] the American people.
[33:28] Now, most people may not be as familiar, Lindsay Johnson, as you are with the Basel III provision.
[33:39] Let's talk about that for a few minutes, because my understanding is the more money you park on
[33:44] the sidelines, the fewer dollars you have for first time home buyers, starting a small business,
[33:53] changing a car.
[33:54] And yet on top of that one regulatory option, another one through the CFPB spying on businesses,
[34:02] looking for ways to bring more onerous pain into the lives of just working class small business
[34:10] folks trying to make their ends meet.
[34:13] That regulatory pressure on top of the economic uncertainty created an instability that I'm
[34:23] not sure that we fully appreciate or have absorbed completely.
[34:27] Thoughts, Ms. Johnson?
[34:28] Well, I'll start with the conversation around Basel and just capital proposals and regulatory
[34:34] burden generally.
[34:36] You know, your comment is right.
[34:38] We have to get that balance between safety and soundness and allowing a bank to be a bank
[34:44] and wanting a bank to compete with all the other non-banks in the atmosphere.
[34:48] More competition means more safe product options.
[34:51] And what we saw before under the Basel III proposal that was released in 2023 was something that
[34:56] outstripped even international standard.
[34:58] It would have made U.S. banks far less competitive, push banks outside of certain lending segments.
[35:05] And mortgage, you know, banks are already a much smaller portion of that market than
[35:10] they were before.
[35:11] The more we can get that competition in the marketplace, the lower cost will actually lower because
[35:17] competition, that's what it's there for.
[35:20] So that's one example.
[35:22] And then I would say on the CFPB, look, the CFPB, we need a CFPB that's credible and durable
[35:27] and stable.
[35:28] We need a CFPB that does a true cost-benefit analysis, a rigorous cost-benefit analysis to
[35:33] understand how the rules that it's writing are actually going to impact consumers.
[35:38] And oftentimes, whether it was credit card late fee or overdraft, they simply overlooked
[35:43] it.
[35:44] Consumers were going to lose access to these products.
[35:46] By their own admission on credit card late fees, 74 percent of people were going to see
[35:50] their costs go up.
[35:52] And that small portion of people who are frequent late payers were, you know, would see some benefits,
[35:58] but they didn't take into account that their credit score was going to be hurt long-term driving
[36:01] their costs up.
[36:03] We've got to do a better job of having an honest conversation that's apolitical at these
[36:07] agencies so that we can really drive cost savings to consumers.
[36:11] With my time that I have left was just only about 30 seconds because I'm the chairman,
[36:15] so I can't tell time.
[36:17] Mr. Brown, you said that you have more solutions in your written comments in about 15 seconds.
[36:24] Could you provide us with one solution you think would make housing more affordable that
[36:28] you haven't heard so far?
[36:30] Sure.
[36:31] More Homes on the Market Act, which is also a bipartisan bill before Congress, provides
[36:37] for doubling of capital gains, the capital gains exemption from $250,000 and $500,000
[36:43] for a married couple to $500,000 for a single person, a million dollars for a married couple.
[36:49] That would free up.
[36:50] There are people on the sidelines right now just waiting because they either don't want
[36:53] to pay the tax or can't afford to pay the tax, and so that would free up inventory.
[36:57] You don't have to put any shovels in the ground.
[36:59] There would be instant inventory into the marketplace where buyers would come in, buy that property,
[37:06] which would free up some housing also for first-time home buyers.
[37:10] Thank you.
[37:11] And thank you for your work on that, by the way.
[37:12] I appreciate that.
[37:13] Thank you.
[37:15] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[37:16] You know, I'm really glad that we are holding a hearing about President Trump's affordability
[37:21] agenda, and I am glad that my Republican colleagues don't seem to agree with President Trump's
[37:26] claim last week that, quote, affordability is a fake word made up by Democrats.
[37:33] In fact, I want to ask our witnesses about that.
[37:37] So, raise your hand if you agree with the President that affordability is a hoax made up by Democrats.
[37:45] I'm giving you time here.
[37:49] Okay.
[37:50] No hands up, and I assume that means none of you.
[37:54] Democrats or Republicans agree with President Trump that the affordability crisis facing American
[38:00] families is a hoax, and that seems right to me.
[38:04] You know, President Trump's agenda has driven up costs so that families are putting more of
[38:10] everything from groceries to gas on their credit cards.
[38:14] Trump's own top economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, recently bragged that, quote, credit card
[38:21] spending is through the roof.
[38:24] He's right.
[38:25] Over 100 million Americans have credit card debt now, many of them putting groceries and
[38:30] gas on their credit cards just to be able to make it to the end of the month.
[38:34] And delinquencies are at the highest level since the crash of 2008.
[38:39] So, let's talk about affordability.
[38:42] In January, President Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates.
[38:47] He politely asked the biggest banks to put in place a one-year 10% cap by January 20th.
[38:56] Now, Ms. Johnson, your organization represents some of the biggest banks in the country.
[39:01] We are more than five months past Trump's January 20th deadline.
[39:07] Which banks have implemented the one-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates that President Trump promised to deliver?
[39:17] So, thank you for the question.
[39:22] There's a couple of things I'd love to say.
[39:23] One, banks offered 0% APRs today.
[39:27] I'm sorry.
[39:28] I had a specific question.
[39:30] Donald Trump told the banks that they should lower their credit card interest rates to 10% by January 20th.
[39:38] He said that's what he would deliver for the American people, promised it to everyone in America.
[39:43] And I just want which banks have actually lowered their credit card interest rates to 10%.
[39:49] Can you give me their names?
[39:51] There are definitely options that are low-cost APR options.
[39:53] I'm sorry.
[39:54] Which banks have lowered their credit card interest rate to 10%?
[39:59] Are there any that are at 10%?
[40:02] Can you name one?
[40:03] I can tell you that there are options today.
[40:06] Can you name one bank that has lowered its credit card interest rate?
[40:11] As President Trump politely asked, has there been one?
[40:17] Has there been one?
[40:18] Has there been one?
[40:19] One?
[40:20] There are options in the marketplace for sure.
[40:25] So, not a single one has followed through on what President Trump told them to do.
[40:31] So, President Trump and the big banks, they don't provide the 10% cap on credit cards.
[40:37] Ms. Johnson, how much more have Americans paid in interest on credit cards than they would have paid
[40:45] if the cap the President promised had taken effect?
[40:49] What's the number?
[40:50] So, again, I want to go back to the rate card.
[40:52] What's the number?
[40:54] The rate, so we have not done that calculation.
[40:56] I'll bet you haven't done that calculation, but here's the thing.
[40:59] I have.
[41:00] It's $57 billion in credit card interest rate above 10% that Americans have paid since January 20th.
[41:11] By the way, if you just do the math, that's $368 million a day.
[41:17] Now, President Trump promised he was going to make banks lower credit card interest rates for families by January 20th.
[41:26] And so far, families have been paying $368 million a day for Donald Trump's broken promise.
[41:33] Now, we know that families have less money to spend and are falling behind on their bills thanks to Donald Trump's economic policies.
[41:41] Dr. Morgan, if you can tell me very briefly, how are people coping with these tighter finances?
[41:48] I mean, families are really struggling.
[41:50] As I said earlier, you know, one in three are skipping meals.
[41:53] They're skipping medications that are prescribed by their doctors.
[41:56] They're skimping on health care services, and they're turning to debt.
[42:00] I think it's important to know that's a both and, right?
[42:03] We're seeing people both cut back on the things that they need to live their lives and also put their expenses onto high cost debt,
[42:11] both credit cards, buy now, pay later, paycheck advance loans.
[42:15] Thank you.
[42:16] You know, President Trump may love inflation, but it's killing American families.
[42:22] Congress needs to work together to fix the president's failed economic agenda and to make life more affordable for all Americans.
[42:30] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[42:31] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[42:36] Look, I really appreciate the fact that the chairman and the ranking member have come together to have this discussion on where the costs are right now for American consumers.
[42:46] And I think it's really important that we talk about all of the impacts.
[42:51] I noted that there's always a desire to have your cake and eat it, too.
[42:56] Sometimes that's not possible, particularly when we talk about how we go about financing activities in our daily lives.
[43:04] I'm just curious, Ms. Johnson, you represent a lot of banks that issue a lot of credit.
[43:12] How many people today have credit cards in America?
[43:16] A couple hundred, actually almost 282 million people have credit cards.
[43:20] I will say, yeah.
[43:22] 282 million people have credit cards today.
[43:26] Can you imagine not having credit and being able to survive in today's digital economy?
[43:34] I'm just curious.
[43:36] Can you, I mean, we use them to get on an aircraft, but we also use them to literally do digital shopping, anything over the internet at all.
[43:46] Telephones, we pay for with a credit card in most cases.
[43:51] Just thinking back about this thing here, one of the greatest threats to a lot of people being able to survive on a day-to-day basis is if they couldn't get credit.
[43:59] What would happen?
[44:00] I'm just curious.
[44:01] I think the president really wanted to find a way to try to suggest that he wanted the marketing side of things to be able to be incentivizing and to offer people low interest rates.
[44:13] But a lot of credit card companies offer 0% interest rates for short periods of time.
[44:19] Can you talk a little bit about what would happen if, and I presume you've done the work on it because you represent the banks that really issue these cards.
[44:30] What would happen?
[44:31] What would be the impact if government were to step in and artificially say you have to have an interest rate of 10% less or less on credit cards?
[44:43] What would happen to the number of people that would have availability of credit cards today?
[44:47] So it's such an important question and it's the right question because ultimately it's the best way to make sure that someone only with an 800 credit score has access to credit.
[44:56] You said what?
[44:57] Only people with an 800 credit score would have access to credit.
[45:00] So how many people have or how many people don't have an 800 credit score today out of those hundreds of millions of people that have credit cards?
[45:10] It would restrict credit for around 75% to 80% of the current market.
[45:14] 75% to 80%?
[45:15] We anticipate that that would be around 150 million.
[45:17] I'm sorry, but 75% to 80% of the current credit card holders?
[45:22] Yes.
[45:23] And how would that happen?
[45:25] Would they simply lose them on day one or what would happen?
[45:28] It would be fairly quick.
[45:29] It would be fairly immediate because ultimately risk-based pricing allows issuers, and there's 4,000 plus issuers that compete for consumers' business every single day,
[45:41] to go out there and make sure that consumers have access to this necessary liquidity and source of credit in a very sustainable way.
[45:48] You can't do that for free.
[45:50] And part of this is making sure that we have plenty of options, and you mentioned the 0% balance transfers.
[45:57] There were 60 billion in balance transfers last year in 2024 alone.
[46:02] We are focused on making sure that consumers understand those different options, but to simply take away a source of credit for consumers seems incredibly punitive.
[46:12] You know, in the 1980s, we had a tough time on the ag markets in South Dakota.
[46:19] We had usury rates in place, and because we had usury rates in place, there were banks that simply wouldn't loan to farmers anymore because, well, it had been a tough time.
[46:31] A lot of the guys were struggling, and yet, in order to put seed in the ground in the spring of that year, Bill Jenkel was governor at the time, and he looked at it and he says,
[46:42] Look, I don't care if it does cost a little more interest rates, we've got to get these guys some credit so they can actually put their crop in the ground.
[46:49] It's the reason why South Dakota at that time eliminated their usury rate.
[46:52] In doing so, banks charged more than what the traditional usury rate was, but we had farmers that survived because they could actually borrow them.
[47:02] the money.
[47:03] My concern with this whole discussion is that you say we've got over 4,000 different banks that issue credit cards today.
[47:08] I'm just wondering, it seems to me that these folks that have got these great ideas about issuing 10% credit rates out of the 4,000.
[47:18] I'm sure one or two of them could do that today, but I'm just curious why we don't have some new startups by these folks that have got these great ideas.
[47:25] And they could issue 10%.
[47:27] In fact, they could go to 8% and they could get a lot of people coming in.
[47:31] I wonder how long they would actually be able to continue to offer that rate based just upon the individuals that might not be able to qualify for a regular card but would love to have that interest rate.
[47:44] Is there a reason why we don't have a lot of people offering that 10% interest rate today?
[47:48] It's just simply not sustainable.
[47:50] The worst thing we can do for a consumer is to extend them a product that they cannot afford to pay back.
[47:56] One of the things that I do want to just push back on a couple of the different comments about the overall balances if I've got a second.
[48:03] About 10 seconds.
[48:05] Could you loan me 30 seconds?
[48:07] I loaned myself 30.
[48:08] Thank you.
[48:09] One of the most important things to understand is that through the pandemic over the last six years, really eight years, 40 million new people came into this market.
[48:21] So when we talk about balances being $1.2 trillion, that's because we've got a lot more people who had access to this very important source of liquidity.
[48:31] You did have higher prices.
[48:33] So balances also went up.
[48:35] That is what drove APRs.
[48:38] APRs are not a bank profit.
[48:40] APRs are how we extend credit.
[48:42] Thank you.
[48:43] Thank you.
[48:44] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[48:45] Yes, sir.
[48:46] Senator Van Hollen.
[48:47] Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing.
[48:49] I think it's indisputable that families all over the country are seeing prices and costs go up.
[48:58] In President Trump's first year, families paid $310 more for groceries than they did in 2024.
[49:05] They paid $110 more in electric bills than the year before.
[49:10] Now, I think we all recognize that the economy is complex and price increases cannot always be attributed to the policies of the president or administration.
[49:20] In this case, it's pretty clear they can be.
[49:23] Because of the president's tariffs, families have paid $1,700 more in tariff costs.
[49:30] Gas prices are up 40% thanks to President Trump's catastrophic war in Iran.
[49:37] And so as of last month, inflation now stands at 4.2% annualized rate, which is the fastest growth in three years.
[49:45] Now, we have heard President Trump say recently that he, quote, loves inflation.
[49:51] He's also said that affordability is a fake word made up by Democrats.
[49:58] So, Dr. Morgan, just to sort of level set on facts, is the affordability crisis a hoax made up by Democrats?
[50:07] Or are people experiencing price increases because of the Trump administration policies?
[50:13] It is not a hoax. This is something that families are dealing with every single day.
[50:17] And so I want to talk briefly about the other side of the affordability equation, right?
[50:24] On the one hand, we all face costs and prices.
[50:27] On the other hand, our ability to afford them depends on the income we've got, what money we have in our pockets or bank accounts.
[50:35] And so I do think it's worth taking another look at what was President Trump's signature legislative policy accomplishment.
[50:45] He would call it an accomplishment. I think it was really bad for the country.
[50:49] And that was their what they called their big, beautiful bill, which provided huge tax cuts to the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else.
[51:00] Dr. Morgan, it's correct to say that the wealthiest taxpayers benefited the most from that so-called big, beautiful bill, right?
[51:10] That's correct. The wealthiest taxpayer benefited the most.
[51:13] And the bill actually cost the lowest income families money because of the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and other programs.
[51:21] Right. And just to emphasize the point, I think we should look at this chart that shows that the richest 1% of income earners got 22% of the benefit of those tax cuts.
[51:38] And overall, the top 20% income earners got 72%.
[51:45] I will also say this distorts the picture over time because some of the tax cuts that went to sort of middle class families included things like the no tax on tips,
[51:55] which actually is a good idea.
[51:57] Although I think if you're in that income level and your income is not just in the form of tips, you should also get a break.
[52:03] But those were all sunset, right? Those those tax cuts for working people are going to sunset in a couple of years, right?
[52:10] That's right. And so this will get even worse in terms of the distributional impact.
[52:15] In fact, so bad is the situation that, you know, the White House tried to reframe and re sort of label.
[52:24] It's billed the Working Americans Tax Cut Act. I mentioned that because I have introduced a piece of legislation called the Working Americans Tax Cut Act
[52:33] that gives 100% of the tax cut benefits to people who are not in the top 20% compared to the Trump Republican plan that gives 72% of the benefits to people who are in the top 20%.
[52:48] Let me just turn with my remaining time to overdraft fees because families paid more than $12 billion in overdraft fees last year.
[52:57] They can often be small. I mean, you can go and get a cup of coffee and not realize that your three buck cup of coffee ended up getting you a $35 overdraft fee.
[53:08] And banks love these. I mean, the rates can be as high as 16% effective annual interest.
[53:17] In fact, they did so well that there was one there was one sort of middle bank executive whose bank raked so much in on overdraft fees that they named their boat overdraft.
[53:30] Now, in 2024, CPB tried to work to rein these costs in, but when the Trump administration came in, they lifted it.
[53:41] And the impact has been, as I say, $12 billion in overdraft fees.
[53:45] Isn't it true, Dr. Morgan, that overturning these rules hurt consumers and help boost bank profits?
[53:54] Absolutely. You know, the cost to Americans for dialing back this rule is about $5 billion.
[54:02] And, you know, I think it's really important to put this in the context of what we're hearing from the representatives of the banks here today.
[54:10] You know, the banks will kind of frame overdraft fees as something that's necessary to provide a service,
[54:15] but overdraft actually used to be a courtesy to bank customers, and it's turned into a profit center for the banks.
[54:22] So we see the banks and their lobbyists fighting really hard to keep these fees in place in order to maintain those profits at the expense of consumers.
[54:30] And then we see the Trump CFPB really shifting from an organization that represented consumers to an organization that represents industry interests.
[54:38] Thank you so much.
[54:39] Thank you.
[54:40] Senator Tillis.
[54:41] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[54:43] Mr. Johnson, have you looked at the what I consider to be largely failed attempts to cap credit card rates in other jurisdictions?
[54:55] We certainly have.
[54:58] Give me an idea of how the movie ended.
[55:00] Yeah, look, it never works.
[55:02] We have a ton of data.
[55:03] We've got a ton of history to learn from.
[55:05] Illinois is a great example.
[55:06] I was about to ask you about Illinois.
[55:08] Give me what I've seen in the Illinois example, at least one, I believe Senator Marshall is the other co-sponsor of the amendment on credit cards.
[55:18] So this is not just a Democrat-Republican thing.
[55:20] We have an honest disagreement among Republicans.
[55:22] Go through a few of the things that happened when Illinois did the arbitrary rate cap.
[55:26] Look, they even had a 36 percent all-in rate cap.
[55:32] And what ultimately happened was nearly 40 percent of subprime borrowers simply lost access.
[55:37] Forty-four percent.
[55:39] Let's see, loans to subprime borrowers decreased by 44 percent.
[55:44] Loans to deep subprime borrowers decreased by 57 percent.
[55:48] Forty percent, let's see, financial well-being sentiment dropped by 40 percent.
[55:54] 11 percent reported an improvement.
[55:57] So it doesn't look like it's something that you would consider to be a best practice, does it?
[56:00] No, absolutely not.
[56:01] Has this been implemented in any international jurisdictions or other countries that you've studied?
[56:06] Look, there's the...
[56:07] How were the results there?
[56:10] Again...
[56:11] Remarkably similar, right?
[56:12] Terrible.
[56:13] It's like, my God.
[56:14] Time and time again.
[56:15] It just doesn't work.
[56:16] I don't care which release it is, whether it's Toy Story 1 or Toy Story 5.
[56:21] You know, it's, my God, it's not going to end any differently.
[56:24] I don't even know why we're having this discussion.
[56:27] The whole...
[56:28] And then the whole concept of not being able to rate for risk.
[56:31] Yes.
[56:32] In anything.
[56:33] Risky pricing is so important.
[56:34] I mean, you're helping people from themselves.
[56:36] I get that it used to be an overdraft fee, it used to be a courtesy.
[56:40] And you know what?
[56:42] The last time I checked, a lot of the banks still give you one or two passes.
[56:46] But when it becomes a chronic problem, at what point are you expected to actually know how much is in your bank account before you write a check?
[56:52] That's what this is.
[56:54] There's nothing more than that.
[56:56] It's financial literacy.
[56:58] I'll put money into financial literacy.
[57:00] I'll put money into real-time, don't write this check because you're about to get money and you've over...
[57:05] You've gone over the customary limit that banks will actually write off.
[57:09] Everybody's talking about, like, banks get you, it's a profit center.
[57:12] I don't know of any bank that doesn't give you a forbearance on the first two, three, four, five overdraft fees.
[57:20] But folks, at what point do you actually have to own responsibility for a bank account?
[57:24] I mean, to me, it's that simple.
[57:27] But maybe I just don't get it.
[57:30] We talk about affordability as if it's something new.
[57:35] And that's bogus, too.
[57:36] Affordability is always a problem, folks.
[57:39] It's just a matter of who, where it is on the margins.
[57:42] I've said this repeatedly in this committee.
[57:44] I know, I know when I had an affordability problem is when we weren't living in a house anymore.
[57:49] We were living in a trailer.
[57:50] And I saw the overreach of regulatory environment and the Carden administration put me back in a trailer park.
[57:57] Because they were well-intentioned but bad, poorly implemented policies.
[58:01] Every time we try to artificially gloss over some of the problems that we have here with financial literacy,
[58:10] making sure that people really understand to spend within their means,
[58:13] government tries to help me out and I'll be damned if it's not the times it sends me back into that trailer park.
[58:19] When we start paying attention to the people who are really on the bubble,
[58:23] and I'll tell you right now, we've got a real problem because we've got some rich people making a lot of money.
[58:27] But we've got some people on the bubble that are hurting.
[58:30] And instead of talking around all this stuff and coming up with all these artificial constructs
[58:36] that have been empirically proven to fail, point to one.
[58:41] In fact, I've got a minute left.
[58:43] If somebody's got an example of one of these arbitrary rate caps that have worked,
[58:47] I will yield my time and you can explain it to me right now.
[58:50] I've got 45 seconds left.
[58:57] I want somebody who has expertise in this field to explain it to me right now.
[59:00] So when did it succeed?
[59:02] I've got a list of failures.
[59:04] All I've asked was a simple question.
[59:05] Point to the one time in the whole history of the world and credit cards globally where it's worked once.
[59:13] I got it.
[59:14] And that is when the giant corporations.
[59:16] No, you didn't answer my question.
[59:17] No, no, I'm not.
[59:18] All I asked was, I'm sorry, I'll reclaim my time, Mr. Chairman.
[59:22] I just want one.
[59:25] I'll go for a second round.
[59:26] If somebody needs more time, one example of where this precise policy worked.
[59:33] It's going to be a short discussion.
[59:35] As a matter of fact, I've got five seconds left now and there's still no one here that's going to be offering up one successful example.
[59:43] My time is expired, Mr. Chair.
[59:54] Mr. Chair.
[59:55] I will.
[59:57] I just can't bear.
[59:58] Ranking member.
[59:59] Ranking member.
[1:00:00] Ranking member.
[1:00:01] Ranking member.
[1:00:02] President.
[1:00:03] Let's do this.
[1:00:04] Let's let's let's abide by the rules.
[1:00:06] Mr. Chair.
[1:00:07] Rules by the chair.
[1:00:08] Mr. Chair, I've got.
[1:00:10] Senator Smith, if you are willing, I will give.
[1:00:14] Yes.
[1:00:15] The ranking member 30 seconds and I'll give you a 30 second rebuttal and then we'll go to you.
[1:00:19] I'm happy to hear that.
[1:00:20] Well, that would be.
[1:00:21] I would.
[1:00:22] I want to hear the example.
[1:00:23] I was going to defer to the ranking, the ranking member to answer this question.
[1:00:27] And then I would love to have my five minutes to talk about affordability in small towns.
[1:00:32] We are being civil, by the way.
[1:00:34] This is great.
[1:00:35] Discourse.
[1:00:36] A public discussion where there's strong disagreement is actually good for the public to hear.
[1:00:42] Right.
[1:00:49] Okay.
[1:00:50] So I just.
[1:00:51] 30 seconds.
[1:00:52] Thank you.
[1:00:53] I just wanted to remind my colleague that back during the COVID crisis, the financial institutions
[1:01:01] all were given free access to overdraft their accounts at the Fed.
[1:01:08] It saved them literally billions of dollars because they could get free access to money
[1:01:14] when they didn't have money in their accounts.
[1:01:17] And the government politely asked them to extend the same courtesy to their own customers,
[1:01:24] which they refused to do.
[1:01:26] And they raked in billions more in profits.
[1:01:29] So it worked for the big boys.
[1:01:31] It just didn't work for the little guys.
[1:01:33] So it's never worked before.
[1:01:34] But I look forward to somebody presenting the first successful implementation.
[1:01:37] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[1:01:38] All right.
[1:01:39] Senator Smith, it's your time.
[1:01:41] But Senator Smith, it's still your time.
[1:01:44] Well, thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member.
[1:01:48] And I'm going to shift this conversation to, I want to, I want to understand and have a bit
[1:01:55] of a conversation about how the affordable, this so-called affordability agenda is working
[1:01:59] in small towns and rural places.
[1:02:01] And Dr. Morgan, I have a question for you.
[1:02:03] You know, I come from Minnesota.
[1:02:04] This is a place where food and agriculture are economic drivers in my state.
[1:02:09] And farmers are telling me that things are tough.
[1:02:11] That, in fact, it is so much harder to afford to run their businesses than it was just a couple of years ago.
[1:02:19] Farm Bureau says that farm bankruptcies were up nearly 50% last year.
[1:02:24] And Minnesota has some of the, has the most farm bankruptcies of any place in the country in the first quarter of 2026.
[1:02:31] So what's driving this?
[1:02:33] I mean, first, fertilizer prices, diesel prices, input costs for farmers are going, they're the highest that they've been in years.
[1:02:40] And then, of course, the chaotic tariff policy has made it very, very difficult for Minnesota producers to find access to markets that were their markets even just a year or so ago.
[1:02:52] So it's pretty clear to farmers in Minnesota that this is a bad situation for them.
[1:02:57] I'm wondering, could you talk to us a little bit about how this affordability, excuse me, how this affordability agenda looks like for farmers in this country?
[1:03:07] Yes, absolutely. So you hit on many of the main points here.
[1:03:11] Fertilizer prices spiked after the Trump tariffs went into effect.
[1:03:16] In fact, the Trump administration had to actually exempt a number of fertilizers from those tariffs.
[1:03:22] And then they jumped again with the war with Iran.
[1:03:25] So, you know, we're seeing both fertilizer prices up high.
[1:03:30] As you mentioned, diesel prices are up.
[1:03:32] Electricity prices are up as well.
[1:03:35] And all of these are squeezing small farmers who are just trying to stay afloat and who often have very thin margins.
[1:03:42] I think it's really important to point out that for people living in rural communities, that's kind of just the tip of the iceberg.
[1:03:48] Right. So in addition to what they're dealing with in their small businesses, you know, we've found that school districts across the country are really struggling with many of the same affordability challenges that individual families are struggling with,
[1:04:00] including higher electricity prices, higher gas prices, especially in rural areas where busing is a really big component of a school system's budget.
[1:04:09] And then the cuts to the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have made on health care.
[1:04:14] Right. I'm really glad you raised this because this is a huge issue.
[1:04:17] The I mean, I mean, talk about the you think about the economic impact of rural hospitals is just one example on the economic vitality of small towns, not to mention the importance of having access to health care in small towns and rural communities.
[1:04:32] And so, you know, talk a bit about that and what those what those impacts are on rural communities in terms of their ability to afford stuff and get access to the stuff that they need.
[1:04:41] Yeah, absolutely. So we're seeing kind of a double whammy here from the impact of tariffs, which have also had an impact on health care pricing for the services that hospitals offer,
[1:04:50] as well as the impact of the cuts to Medicaid, the failure to extend the ACA tax credits.
[1:04:56] And so, you know, rural hospitals are the ones that are being hit the hardest.
[1:05:00] And what we're seeing is that they're pulling back on services.
[1:05:02] So people are having to drive farther and farther to get access to really basic services like emergency emergency services or maternity health.
[1:05:11] So it's it's turning into a really big crisis.
[1:05:14] It's the kind of situation where people can really feel the affordability crisis every time they try to get a doctor's appointment or seek emergency services.
[1:05:22] And so I want to just take a minute also to talk about the impact on food.
[1:05:26] So first, you've got the question of what is the residual impact on global food prices with the lack of access to fertilizer that's happened because of the Iran war and what that means about food prices going up potentially as we get into the second half of this year.
[1:05:41] And that'll, of course, have an impact on all communities, not just rural communities. Could you address that?
[1:05:45] Yes. The price of food has gone up pretty much across the board.
[1:05:49] You know, the Century Foundation and the Groundwork Collaborative have put out a number of reports tracking the cost of foods.
[1:05:56] We typically tie them to holidays.
[1:05:58] You see the cost of hams going up, the cost of hamburgers going up around Memorial Day, Halloween candy.
[1:06:05] And so you have this kind of rise in price that we're seeing people and I know the CBA alluded to this, putting onto their credit cards.
[1:06:13] You know, but we've also had this enormous dialing back of SNAP benefits.
[1:06:18] Right.
[1:06:19] So four million people have lost access to SNAP benefits and are, you know, really struggling to find food, which is where we see these findings that about one in three people are actually skipping meals in order to try to endure this affordability crisis.
[1:06:33] And if you add on to that, that the so-called one big beautiful bill included this big cost shift onto counties, many of them red counties who are now having to pay for more of those SNAP benefits that they did in the past.
[1:06:45] And that's putting a huge pressure point on county budgets and is forcing counties to think about additional cuts to SNAP, which is also going to make it that much harder to afford your life in small towns and rural communities.
[1:06:56] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[1:06:58] Yes, ma'am.
[1:06:59] Senator Kennedy.
[1:07:00] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:07:09] I have to say I'm a little disappointed.
[1:07:12] You all seem like fine people.
[1:07:17] And here's and Mr.
[1:07:27] I can't see Mr.
[1:07:29] Carbone.
[1:07:30] You're you seem to be here to promote cryptocurrency.
[1:07:33] I love cryptocurrency, but I don't think that's the problem with our economy.
[1:07:38] Mr. Brown, you're here to promote realtors.
[1:07:42] I love realtors, but that's not going to solve our economic problems.
[1:07:48] Ms. Johnson is here to promote banks.
[1:07:51] I love banks.
[1:07:52] Dr. Morgan is here to bash Trump without telling us that she formerly was part of the Biden administration and worked for Mr.
[1:08:09] Chopra to see CFPB and that your policies caused inflation to go to nine percent.
[1:08:17] I think that those would have been relevant things to tell us.
[1:08:22] I guess you thought we were going to look up your background.
[1:08:25] Can we agree that the problem of affordability is the prices are too high?
[1:08:30] Duh.
[1:08:32] Does anybody disagree with that?
[1:08:35] And prices are too high because of inflation.
[1:08:40] Does anybody disagree with that?
[1:08:43] And inflation, despite Dr.
[1:08:51] Morgan's political beliefs, is not just a Trump problem, it was a bad problem.
[1:08:56] Was it not?
[1:09:00] Okay, so here's here's my question to you.
[1:09:03] Let's let's start with you, Ms. Johnson.
[1:09:05] How do you get prices down?
[1:09:07] down that's what we're here for how do you get prices down well we think a lot of the things
[1:09:15] that you all are doing focusing the committee on this the sources tell me how to get prices down
[1:09:20] you increase supply and you make sure you cut the red tape you increase supply okay um some people
[1:09:30] want to talk about deflation are you are you if you believe in deflation as we see it in the world
[1:09:40] at that you need to change your meds china's got deflation how's it going for them they've got
[1:09:48] about a 20 unemployment rate for their young people the only way out of the inflation is to
[1:09:55] grow our way out of it am i wrong you're going to have to increase our economic growth not at the
[1:10:04] top line but so people feel it you're going to have to increase wages and to do that do you disagree with
[1:10:14] mr brown we're going to have to grow the pie right or wrong well senator um first of all i'm i'm here
[1:10:24] to support home ownership uh in in warning homeowner no disrespect whatever i'm sorry if i offended you
[1:10:33] how do you think we can get out of these high prices otherwise i mean you can you can try to
[1:10:40] promote deflation get ready for 10 percent unemployment okay then dr morgan's really going
[1:10:47] to be bashing us okay tell me how we grow our way out of it i don't see any other way to deal with
[1:10:54] inflation i think but but to grow people's wages i i think that we uh increase inventory we reduce
[1:11:02] zoning restrictions we do a lot of the same things that are and how are you how are you going to increase
[1:11:07] inventory by who and who have homes the inventory businesses you're going to have to stimulate the
[1:11:14] economy and help businesses to grow aren't you well i i come from california which is ground zero for the
[1:11:21] lack of housing affordability and it's a little more complicated than that i don't think you want
[1:11:25] to answer my question ms johnson aren't we going to have to grow the economy and therefore increase
[1:11:32] wages in order to help people deal with the inflation if i'm wrong tell me if there's a better way tell me
[1:11:38] i think growth has been a key driver consumer spending continues to be strong it's what's driven us
[1:11:43] through uh one of the most tumultuous times that we've been through including uh bringing you know historic
[1:11:49] high inflation we also do need to address prices and i think the fed's focused on it price stability
[1:11:55] has got to be key okay yeah so we basically have we're for the enterprise in america we're basically
[1:12:02] to grow the economy you've got to stimulate businesses and and and and uh uh try to direct
[1:12:12] labor to share in the growth is that right okay dr morgan are you democratic socialist like your
[1:12:19] colleagues no you're not do you i know to see y'all's new policy is to create a four-day 32-hour
[1:12:29] work week with no loss in pay where are we going to get the money to do that that's not my policy you
[1:12:34] don't think we ought to do that i'm sorry uh you think we ought to have a a federal jobs guarantee
[1:12:40] i think a federal jobs guarantee is a good idea yes no you do okay how do you think we're going to
[1:12:44] pay for that fair you believe in the easter bunny do you i think it's incredibly hard to pay for these
[1:12:50] things when we're giving tax cuts to the ultra rich yeah okay you think you think that all the growth
[1:12:57] in in our economy just goes to the ultra rich i think that we just gave massive tax cuts the wealthiest
[1:13:04] in this country yes yeah yeah you you are democratic socialist don't you i have never used that term to
[1:13:11] refer to myself no i know you have a nazi tattoo excuse me do you have a nazi tattoo i don't have
[1:13:16] any mr chairman okay thank you senator kennedy and we have senator cortez masto thank you
[1:13:23] let let me um put this back on track one so much for for attending today i can tell you
[1:13:29] how we grow the economy and i what a perfect example we got culinary members here in the
[1:13:34] audience culinary are part of our service industry nevada the industry is our tourism trade industry
[1:13:39] which by the way uh posts nearly a 14 billion excuse me trillion dollars in revenue in this country
[1:13:47] but because of the bad policies of this administration we are not growing that economy in fact there's a 14
[1:13:53] billion dollar trade deficit in 2025 why because this administration has cut medicaid they have
[1:13:59] chaotic tariffs the war of choice in iran uh the the barriers put in place of so many that want to
[1:14:06] travel to the united states the bad policies the high costs that leaves less discretionary funds for
[1:14:13] families to travel that is part of the problem so we can eliminate some of the policies of this
[1:14:18] administration that will help grow the economy and i will tell you i believe with the culinary one job
[1:14:22] should be enough in this country one job should be enough and you should be able to afford put
[1:14:27] groceries on your table to pay your energy costs put a roof over your head and so much more and afford
[1:14:32] health care in this country that's what it's about and so i appreciate all of you being here because
[1:14:37] that's a conversation we have and one of the pieces of the puzzle here is housing and a roof over
[1:14:42] your head and i was so pleased to see in a bipartisan way that we passed the road to housing here
[1:14:48] the 21st century road to housing i thank the chairman i thank the ranking member everybody
[1:14:52] here that worked on that in a bipartisan bicameral way but now we have to fund it we have to remember
[1:14:59] there's programs in there that need to be funded one of them is the home program that i was very
[1:15:04] pleased to be able to actually put the legislation and to modernize the home program so mr brown let me
[1:15:11] ask you this question why is the home program so important for building more affordable homes and
[1:15:17] increasing that supply actually i don't know if you have your speaker on we do support the home
[1:15:25] program which section is that senator that is in the road to 21st century housing that's the
[1:15:30] whole program yeah that's the one that actually funds finances federal dollars that come into
[1:15:35] states for the home program to help finance supply uh if you're not familiar with it happy to have
[1:15:40] one of the other no no i i think it's very important um i think that overall this um this bill
[1:15:47] is extremely important to increasing um affordability in in the housing market because
[1:15:54] you know you're cutting red tape you are uh cutting regulatory burdens and you're increasing inventory
[1:16:01] and i think that's the way that we're we're going to be able to tackle the affordability crisis and i
[1:16:06] think that this bill goes a long way it's it's a great start i mean more work can be done but it's
[1:16:12] really there's some really good things in this bill that are really going to help uh the affordability
[1:16:17] housing affordability crisis in america and that's the key right it's one thing to pass it now we
[1:16:22] have to authorize the appropriations for these programs the home program is a grant program through
[1:16:27] hud that brings out those essential dollars federal dollars into our communities to build housing um
[1:16:33] and affordable housing affordable housing that's it's it's extremely important we authorize it thank
[1:16:37] you i appreciate that um let me talk to um dr morgan i have been concerned with what i'm watching
[1:16:45] happening with the cfpb um as the former attorney john nevada i work closely with cfpb to protect
[1:16:51] consumers and now we are uh this administration has systematically eliminated uh the cfpb um and i
[1:16:58] am concerned now um with what that means for consumers in general in americans um nearly 22 million
[1:17:07] families pay more than half their income to keep a roof over the head yet the president's proposal to
[1:17:12] cut funding for affordable housing programs like home and gut the cfpb bureau doesn't help families
[1:17:18] who have seen rents rise 50 since 2020. how does the president's decision to cut and gut the consumer
[1:17:26] financial protection bureau enable landlords to still charge junk fees to renters are they is that
[1:17:33] still happening in this country yeah it's a really good question so you know the gutting of the cfpb has
[1:17:39] taken the cops off the beat so there's really no one kind of minding the store for consumers
[1:17:46] and making sure that financial institutions are following the law um it gives a green light to
[1:17:53] predatory companies to break the law as they see fit and you know when this comes when it comes to renters
[1:17:59] in particular the cfpb had really been watching this kind of like proliferation of products that were
[1:18:05] being put into the market in order to bridge the gap between rent and what people could actually afford
[1:18:11] um rental credit cards different kinds of uh you know innovative payment processing platforms um uh uh
[1:18:19] security deposit replacement products that turned out to be a loan or kind of a shady another kind of
[1:18:24] shady product and so not having the cfpb in place to actually crack down on those practices um is really
[1:18:32] important the other role that the cfpb plays is on the the research and market side there they were
[1:18:38] the organization that was keeping an eye on what was happening with family finances keeping
[1:18:42] an eye on household financial stability raising the alarm when household financial stability became
[1:18:47] a larger problem that threatens the economy overall um and they're not doing that either so
[1:18:52] there are a lot of threats here for renters and homeowners alike thank you i know my time is up thank
[1:18:56] you mr chairman thank you senator and on behalf of the chairman uh senator ricketts well i'd like to
[1:19:04] thank the chair and ranking member for holding the hearing here today talking about affordability now
[1:19:10] i'm going to start with a topic i typically bring up in environment and public works but since we're
[1:19:14] talking about affordability i'm not going to miss the opportunity here and that's about biofuels i know
[1:19:21] senator rounds knows all about this uh biofuels are a win-win-win they save consumers money at the pump
[1:19:27] it actually helps clean up the environment and it's great for our farmers and ranchers in fact
[1:19:32] last weekend i filled up at my local hyvee and save 55 cents a gallon on e10 which is a 10 percent
[1:19:37] blend of ethanol compared to the regular 87 octane gasoline if we pass e15 that would allow for even
[1:19:45] more savings for americans put more money back in americans pockets i was glad to see the house pass
[1:19:51] my congressman adrian smith's e15 bill so i want to work with senator fisher on getting that passed in
[1:19:57] the senate side so i'll put my little plug in for that but uh one of the other things we're talking
[1:20:01] about is the road to 21st century housing bill that we passed and why that was so important you
[1:20:07] know one of the things that we saw was that home ownership 10 years ago the first time home buyer
[1:20:11] was 31 years old and today it's 40. and addressing this it's not a new problem when i was governor of
[1:20:17] nebraska we had the same sort of issues with regard to enough housing stock i think mr brown that's one of
[1:20:23] the things that you referenced is we got to have more houses you have more houses you bring the the
[1:20:28] cost down so that's one of the things we can do and so one of the things we did when i was governor
[1:20:34] was create the rural workforce housing fund to be able to create this fund that would work with
[1:20:38] communities and developers to create more housing stock and that is the goal of what we're doing
[1:20:43] here with the 21st century housing bill is to try to find more ways to create more housing stock
[1:20:48] so working with chairman scott and the rest of the banking colleagues here we're working on making
[1:20:53] housing more affordable for nebraskans the house passed its bill we voted on ours i've put a number
[1:21:01] of common sense 21st century road to housing act bills into this so we can build more homes it includes
[1:21:07] priorities to be able to help break ground quicker one estimate regulations for example count for about 25
[1:21:14] percent of the cost of a single family home for an apartment building it's actually 40 percent it's
[1:21:19] even more this is burdensome and duplicate regulations that add to the cost of homes but also extend out
[1:21:26] project type lines the longer it takes to build a house the less available those units are going to be
[1:21:31] as well in nebraska housing projects often draw both hud and usda money for a portion of their funding and
[1:21:39] those processes both those agencies have their own processes for reviewing and inspection and they can
[1:21:47] also be very overlapping creating confusion bureaucracy so one of the things that i put in the 21st century
[1:21:53] road to housing act was a streamlined rural housing act which will require hud and usda to work together
[1:22:00] so they can instead of doing duplicative processes and serial trying to put them in parallel to be able to
[1:22:06] make that more efficient the bill also directs the agencies to work together on cutting other red tape
[1:22:12] eliminating those delays will help get that money out faster which means then that money will get go to
[1:22:17] building homes homes faster so that's an important part of what we're trying to do here
[1:22:22] another issue is breaking ground on a project for nepa reviews on land that's already gone a past review
[1:22:28] for example sometimes the national environmental policy act or nepa requires a view for power water lines and
[1:22:34] development areas that have already had them these are known as infill sites the rural housing regulatory
[1:22:41] relief act that i introduced would streamline nepa reviews for projects that pull funding from both
[1:22:46] from usda and are located on infill sites again eliminating this duplicative and unnecessary
[1:22:51] regulations is a common sense will help speed up housing construction so mr brown i've talked about a
[1:22:58] couple of these what kind of impacts do these kinds of reforms have on project costs timelines and completion
[1:23:05] so you you you just hit the top three zoning regulatory and environmental those are the things that
[1:23:11] really delay projects that add to the cost your your your estimates are spot on adding about 25 to 26 percent
[1:23:19] of regulatory costs before you even break ground which is is really a huge barrier for a developer or
[1:23:26] builder in the marketplace 40 for multi-family before they even break ground so this bill does a tremendous
[1:23:35] job at cutting some of that red tape and i think it's it's going to be a great step in terms of
[1:23:42] producing more housing inventory multi-family and single-family dwellings in this country
[1:23:47] so by cutting some of this red tape then we'll be able to reduce the timelines is that accurate yes
[1:23:53] reduce the timelines streamline the process which means it's going to be less expensive to build great
[1:24:00] well these are the kind of common sense reforms that we want to put in the package to be able to help
[1:24:03] make sure this got done which is exactly the point so thank you very much uh mr brown and to all of
[1:24:08] our witnesses thank you thank you chair thank you sir senator reverend doctor brother warnock well
[1:24:15] thank you so much your your introduction was pressing you'll see why brother chair according to a recent
[1:24:22] fox news poll more than half of all voters feel that president trump's economy only helps rich people
[1:24:32] with an additional 15 saying his economy helps quote no one and that same fox news poll found that three
[1:24:43] out of five voters feel pessimistic about the economy doesn't matter much what those of us on this panel
[1:24:50] feel what the american people feel consumer sentiment is near record lows ordinary americans know donald
[1:24:59] trump's economy isn't working for them dr morgan you're an expert on the economy i don't know your faith
[1:25:08] tradition or if you uh share a particular faith tradition at all but i'm a matthew 25 christian
[1:25:17] meaning i like to center my work on the least among us the poor the most marginalized
[1:25:27] isaiah whom i've been reading a lot lately says who are you to crush my people to grind the face of
[1:25:33] the poor so i want to dig into that verse from matthew 25 to assess the trump economy it says
[1:25:41] for i was hungry and you gave me something to eat i was thirsty and you gave me something to drink
[1:25:48] dr morgan how have the president's policies been for hungry americans um senator warnock the the
[1:25:55] president's policies have pushed more and more americans into hunger we've seen actually four million
[1:26:02] people lose their snap benefits under this administration as about 700 000 of them were children
[1:26:09] um and the century foundation's own polling shows that one in three americans have skipped meals
[1:26:16] um in order to deal with their uh their cost of living crisis you said four million americans
[1:26:23] and you said 700 000 of the americans kicked off of snap our children that's right because i i've met
[1:26:31] with the the speaker and others and you know they're saying that they're that you know these are
[1:26:35] well by able-bodied men who are kicked off a snap but you're saying these these cuts are leaving
[1:26:43] children food insecure let's try another one um the text goes on to say before i need it clothes and
[1:26:50] you clothed me dr morgan how have the president's policies been for poor unemployed or unhoused americans
[1:26:57] the president's the tax cuts alone had um a massive effect on low-income families uh low-income families
[1:27:05] actually lost money under hr1 um to the tune of about 1200 that's the one big beautiful bill that's
[1:27:12] right um but the trump administration has also taken other actions that directly target poor and
[1:27:18] unhoused families you know the trump administration has attempted to impose time limits and work
[1:27:23] requirements on rental assistance um they've proposed cuts and changes to programs that support
[1:27:28] the homeless and then rising utility costs are also hurting the poorest families as well
[1:27:33] matthew 25 says where i was sick and you looked after me what about the president's health care
[1:27:40] policies especially when it comes to health care affordability this is really an acute problem for
[1:27:45] families right now we've seen cuts to medicaid that have taken insurance away from families we've seen
[1:27:52] the failure to extend the aca premium tax credits that has jacked up the cost of health insurance
[1:27:58] premiums for many american families we're also seeing increasing costs on employer-sponsored plans
[1:28:04] so people are really faced with the choice right now of being uninsured or choosing you know kind
[1:28:09] of like a skimpier health insurance plan in order to get coverage and at the same time the trump
[1:28:14] administration and washington republicans cut one trillion dollars out of medicaid they call it
[1:28:20] waste fraud and abuse is it fair to say they cut more than waste fraud and abuse that is correct
[1:28:25] they cut care for american families before i was a stranger the text says and you invited me in how has the
[1:28:31] trump economy been for law-abiding immigrants and dreamers living in the shadows we've seen a kind of
[1:28:40] xenophobic attack on our immigrant neighbors we're seeing families who are um afraid because of the
[1:28:47] actions of ice to go to work and to send their families to school um it's incredibly crushing both
[1:28:54] for those families and for their communities and those of us who who live among people and then we've also
[1:29:00] seen this um these attacks to try to take away benefits and programs from law-abiding immigrants
[1:29:06] so it's hugely concerning so who served by this economy that's a long range of people who seem to
[1:29:11] be suffering who served by the economy the trump economy i mean it serves the rich right it serves
[1:29:17] donald trump itself himself it serves his um his uh billionaire colleagues and um it serves you know the
[1:29:25] banks who are represented here at this hearing who have gotten the trump administration to roll back
[1:29:29] protections um for working families in order to maintain their profits all right i'm a few seconds
[1:29:35] over and so i'm going to bring this to to closure brother chair but donald trump has been president
[1:29:41] for 18 months and while he and his advisors love to blame joe biden uh joe biden joe biden for rising
[1:29:48] costs americans elected him the lower cost he's been at it for 18 months he's raised costs for everybody
[1:29:55] shredded the safety net meant to catch people during tough times this trump economy isn't just bad
[1:30:02] for me it's a moral abomination this is bigger than politics it's about humanity thank you so much for
[1:30:08] your testimony senator banks thank you mr chairman uh mr brown as you know the road to housing act passed
[1:30:17] the senate yesterday we expected to pass the house today and hopefully be signed by the president very
[1:30:24] soon uh there there are many important parts of the bill uh i think i think the bill is significant
[1:30:30] there are some who say that it's not but i think it's a significant bill that will go a long way to
[1:30:35] help uh solve the housing crisis and help your members do what they do to serve families one one part
[1:30:43] of the bill that i authored along with senator warner on the other side is called the reside act that's
[1:30:50] fairly common sense but it would allow communities to compete for grants and take empty warehouses
[1:30:56] old factories dead strip malls shuttered hotels and then turn those structures into housing i had a lot
[1:31:05] of mayors across indiana republican and democrat mayors of small towns big cities um all agree that
[1:31:13] that would that would be a new tool for them that they could use to solve the housing shortage in their
[1:31:18] communities but i i wonder if if you agree that that would be helpful what are some other parts of
[1:31:24] the road to housing act that you think are significant that will go a long ways to helping
[1:31:29] us address this issue you know i do agree in that i think that's a very important provision there there's
[1:31:35] lots of underutilized commercial structures throughout america they're just sitting there vacant in fact
[1:31:41] in my own business i we sold a commercial warehouse in an opportunity zone to um to a buyer who then
[1:31:51] developed it into residential units and i think that that is a great example of how you can take an
[1:31:56] underutilized commercial structure that's not producing anything housing or income or anything
[1:32:03] converted to actual uh living unit units where people can live um i think that there's a lot of
[1:32:10] provisions here especially the streamlining um of the process to reduce cost um helping out with zoning
[1:32:19] helping out with an environmental reducing the environmental um layers of environmental in
[1:32:24] terms of developing housing i think that's very important it this just hits so many areas that's going
[1:32:30] to reduce time and reduce cost and streamline processes but back to your original comments
[1:32:36] um i think that's a very important part especially as it pertains to opportunity zones not not
[1:32:43] maybe the bill's not a silver bullet but we'll go a long way you believe that yeah i think it will
[1:32:48] over time i think it will is there a silver bullet out there that the committee should be looking at
[1:32:51] that would address the um housing there there there i we haven't come up with a silver bullet yet but
[1:32:57] next i hope that um that congress really looks at more homes on the market act i think that you know i made
[1:33:04] a comments when i uh first started the hearing that i i really believe that if um we can double the
[1:33:13] capital gains exclusion it's going to add instant inventory to the marketplace and in doing so it's
[1:33:19] going to re reduce some of the housing prices yeah i which i fully support miss johnson can you talk
[1:33:24] about why mortgages are costing more i mean what are the what are the rules and regulations and fees that
[1:33:30] are being added that that's making mortgages so darn more expensive than what they used to be
[1:33:36] thank you for the question you know the last 10 to 15 years in particular it's really been a combination
[1:33:43] of heightened capital requirements there's regulatory scrutiny that banks non-banks all have to go
[1:33:48] through there's litigation risk there's operational burdens uh and so there's been a focus on one the
[1:33:55] supply issue which we think is first and foremost the most important thing but there's also been an intent
[1:33:59] focus from the administration of increasing bank participation i think that there is a real need
[1:34:06] to increase bank participation in this market so that you have more competitive options for borrowers
[1:34:11] and we're excited about the executive order we've been very uh pleased that there's a recalibration in
[1:34:16] the basel proposal on mortgage i think that that'll go a long way to reduce costs any big ideas we're
[1:34:21] missing here i think your focus on supply and using a carrot stick approach is absolutely the right one
[1:34:27] and mr carbone um in plain terms can you explain how dollar backed stable coins lower everyday cost
[1:34:35] for people who are underbanked or paying too much in transaction and remittance fees absolutely thank
[1:34:42] you for the question senator right now the average remittance fee in america takes 6.5 so for every
[1:34:48] hundred dollars an american is sending overseas the recipient is only getting 93.50 and it takes three to
[1:34:54] five days to get there with a dollar backed stable coin they can send it instantaneously and almost
[1:34:59] for free that is a huge example as well we're already seeing through the gene after the genius act
[1:35:04] passed cheaper more competitive payment options for americans we're starting to see merchants start to
[1:35:10] incentivize users like gas stations incentivize users to pay cash instead of credit incentivize
[1:35:15] users to pay with dollar backed stable coins regal cinemas right now is giving 10 off all tickets
[1:35:20] and concessions if you pay in dollar back stable coins instead of using credit or cash so the genius
[1:35:25] act is working we're seeing more competitive payment options for payments and for remittances good to
[1:35:30] know thank you i yield back thank you sir senator lbr thank you mr chairman and thank you also to the
[1:35:39] witnesses for being here today i want to start off by just expressing my deep gratitude to the chairman and
[1:35:46] the ranking member for your leadership and all of my colleagues on the passage of the
[1:35:52] bipartisan 21st century road to housing bill this landmark legislation is something that
[1:36:01] i think america has been waiting for for over three decades and so i am just grateful to the members
[1:36:07] here who worked on it i think we took a great step forward in addressing our housing supply crisis many
[1:36:14] of the bills that i secured in the package will empower local communities to tackle housing affordability
[1:36:20] by encouraging zoning reform reducing red tape and unlocking innovation looking very forward to
[1:36:28] to seeing that become law and also looking forward to road point two 2.0 just putting it out there
[1:36:35] manifesting that and finally i want to extend appreciation as well to the house members for for passing
[1:36:43] because we're going to speak that they're passing it and we will see it signed into law and today
[1:36:50] as we talk about the housing affordability crisis we also think about the broader crisis of affordability
[1:36:58] and i know the chairman talked about the one big beautiful bill putting forward 250 a month for
[1:37:06] many american families but all i could think of were the calls and the people that i see in my own state
[1:37:12] folks who are paying 50 to 80 to fill up their gas tank constituents who have written in and said i because
[1:37:23] of the lack of aca tax credits i now have chosen to just give up insurance which means that health insurance
[1:37:32] could roll into medical debt and it has an impact on all of our costs i think about folks who are food
[1:37:40] insecure right now and um and the cost of food whether it's at the supermarket or if you could
[1:37:45] even go to a restaurant and i don't think that that covers what people are feeling and so um for me
[1:37:55] yesterday i was able to uh with my congressional delegation senator coons and congresswoman mcbride
[1:38:02] we held a round table for veterans in our state it was a veterans round table and um at the round table
[1:38:10] we had representatives from you know different um veterans organizations and then we held a resource fair
[1:38:17] in addition to the round table and we kept coming back to this issue of cost and them not being able
[1:38:26] to afford to live these are people who are our neighbors these are people who have served this
[1:38:31] country and who are serving this country and between um the issues of homelessness the issues of suicide
[1:38:40] um the issues of again just being able to make ends meet uh it really became clear that
[1:38:48] they are feeling the brunt in a way that many of us don't even feel and so dr morgan i i wanted to
[1:38:54] ask you about the cfpb which has historically played an important role enforcing the military lending act
[1:39:02] and protecting service members from predatory financial practices has the cfpb reduced its enforcement
[1:39:12] of the mla um the cfpb has reduced its enforcement of the mla yes and has reducing that enforcement
[1:39:20] hurt affordability for military families and can you talk a little bit about how yes absolutely and i
[1:39:26] just say to your earlier point you know there is research that shows that those tax cuts are really
[1:39:31] wiped out by the cost of the the war with iran so you know when people are coming to you and saying
[1:39:37] this doesn't add up it doesn't add up um but in terms of um you know military members the cfpb has
[1:39:43] stepped in over the years many many times to protect military military service members sorry from predatory
[1:39:49] practices by lenders by allotment processors um student loan servicers and others and then under the
[1:39:56] trump administration you know you've seen this massive dialing back of enforcement and supervision to
[1:40:01] the point of non-existence um and people don't even have a place to file a complaint anymore and this
[1:40:06] really lands hard on military service members and in fact the cfpb has actually walked away from
[1:40:12] lawsuits and settlements that would have put 80 million dollars back into the pockets of military
[1:40:17] service members who were suffered uh subject to illegal illegal practices it's it's my understanding
[1:40:22] that since 2011 service members from all 50 states and every military base have filed more than 400 000
[1:40:30] complaints um to the cfpb and that there there was a complaint database um can you just tell us why
[1:40:38] was the office of service member affairs at the cfpb created in the first place and what are the
[1:40:44] consequences of weakening the protections as well as lessening the staff and shuttering offices it's a
[1:40:51] really good question um you know you only have about 15 seconds to answer this question financial
[1:40:57] could i have the time that um louisiana had no ma'am a little bit longer i will just say very quickly
[1:41:03] that financial readiness is a critical component of military readiness so when people are distracted
[1:41:08] by dealing with predatory lenders at home or when their security clearances are held up based on a debt
[1:41:14] collection they shouldn't owe that affects our ability to fight wars and to keep our country safe so
[1:41:19] this is a really critical component of the overall picture on defense thank you these are the people who
[1:41:24] protect us we deserve and they deserve to have our protection as well thank you and i yield back
[1:41:30] senator moreno well let me uh just start my uh portion by complimenting uh you mr chairman and
[1:41:36] actually our ranking member i think what we got done here in road housing act was uh monumental
[1:41:42] uh it obviously also is an indictment on the person who used to occupy your chair because obviously
[1:41:47] he was unable to get anything done so to both of you kudos and to your predecessor shame on you
[1:41:53] in terms of uh where we've been hearing a lot about today is the word hoax now i learned english
[1:41:58] uh as a second language when i was about six seven eight years old some would say i still haven't
[1:42:02] learned it completely the word hoax can uh sometimes be made to see that something's not real
[1:42:08] but it actually means deception that there's a deception going on uh mrs johnson what was the average
[1:42:16] inflation cumulative inflation during the biden years do you know i know it reached a peak of 9.1 it did
[1:42:22] so cumulatively is 21 and a half percent under president trump it's cumulatively five percent
[1:42:28] your represent bankers is five less than 21.5 yes it is so when somebody creates 21 and a half percent
[1:42:38] of cumulative inflation inflation and then the next person creates five percent cumulative inflation
[1:42:45] and the people who did the first part blamed the second one for price increase it's a hoax so let we
[1:42:51] got that out of the way now uh mrs johnson i do want to talk about um some of the things that have
[1:42:57] been brought up about banks why do you post deposits after withdrawals at most of your financial
[1:43:05] institutions most banks for example in ohio that receive deposits those deposits don't credit the
[1:43:16] person's account until after withdrawals and a lot of that results in overdraft fees that's something
[1:43:23] that you guys can either do voluntarily or you're going to make us pass a law to do that because it's
[1:43:28] crushing working in americans and it's fundamentally unfair well thank you for the question look there is
[1:43:36] there is a lot of technology on the back end and a lot of just just do it the right way though just
[1:43:40] do it the right way you shouldn't you shouldn't have people whose paychecks are coming in uh and
[1:43:45] you don't take that into account until after you've counted all through it's just bad practice just
[1:43:49] don't do bad things and make us have to uh uh do that in turn you you were talking about also these
[1:43:54] zero percent interest offers nothing has crushed working americans more than zero percent interest offers
[1:44:01] where now you have uh compounding interest that's due as a result of these offers and these people get
[1:44:08] absolutely destroyed and crushed don't do things like that and certainly don't take a victory lap
[1:44:15] for offering those types of things all you do is you give an opening to the people who think that that
[1:44:19] kind of bad behavior is unnecessary could i give just a quick quick response here sure so a couple of things
[1:44:25] one aprs are comprised of a number of different things cost of funds credit risk fraud operation
[1:44:31] i i i get all that increase in aprs has been driven primarily i'm talking about compounding interest
[1:44:36] the fact that you send people magic checks that make them think that zero percent interest they miss
[1:44:41] the the the payment by one day and you pay retroactively for every single month yeah just
[1:44:47] i'm just telling you look if you want to have if you if you want to have good cooperation
[1:44:53] from people who care about working americans which is republicans and democrats don't do things
[1:44:57] like that that's just my advice you can take it or not take it uh in terms of uh you mr brown what
[1:45:03] is the position of the national association of realtors when it comes to the institutional investor
[1:45:07] ban institutional investor ban yes prohibiting large giant wall street firms from buying homes in
[1:45:16] the mls competing with ordinary americans is that a good thing about that um i i think that um
[1:45:21] institutional investors are a problem in some communities they're certainly not the cause
[1:45:26] i'd say there's a cause do you support not having institutional investors compete with
[1:45:31] individuals to buy a home yesterday yes you do good okay perfect and i'll turn over to you mr
[1:45:36] mrs dr morgan sorry what does a dozen eggs cost today uh the last time i bought them where i
[1:45:43] lived it cost about seven dollars oh my god you need to move uh you would fail the prices right
[1:45:48] dramatically uh the average price of a dozen eggs is two dollars and 19 cents we are going to send
[1:45:55] the police after the grocery store where you do business uh do you know what it was under biden
[1:45:59] obviously you don't because you didn't know now it was 265. is 219 less than 265 it is okay perfect
[1:46:06] so then prices for eggs have gone down from biden to trump uh what's the price of a barrel of oil today
[1:46:14] i don't i don't know off the top of my head i think it was a hundred dollars a barrel it's 73. okay
[1:46:18] what was the average price during the biden years i don't know it was 82. so the price of a barrel of
[1:46:24] oil has come down what is the price of the most what is the most commonly used fertilizer for
[1:46:29] farmers i don't know it's nitrogen what is the cost per ton under biden for nitrogen fertilizer i
[1:46:36] don't know but can i so it was it's a thousand dollars a ton it peaked out at 1600 and now it's
[1:46:41] 800 half of the peak under biden let me just just you're good you are not the contestant on the next
[1:46:47] prices right you would not do well okay in terms of electric vehicles do you think it's good public
[1:46:51] policy to offer 7 500 to multi-millionaires to lease foreign luxury vehicles i don't believe
[1:46:58] i don't believe that's happening no it's not happening you're exactly right uh that when you
[1:47:01] got correct it's not happening because republicans got rid of that in working families tax cuts it was
[1:47:06] absolutely happening under the biden years in fact 250 000 people got 7 500 to lease luxury electric
[1:47:14] vehicles was that a good decision or a bad decision i senator moreno i think these questions are very
[1:47:19] important but i just have to say donald trump is the president right now and prices are extraordinarily
[1:47:25] high people are not not eggs not oil not fertilizer and now we have i just i just think that we have
[1:47:31] people that prices are not prescription drugs going to work prescription drug prices on trumprx.com are
[1:47:36] down 85 to 95 percent for 836 of the most commonly used drugs we've tried so my my point is that when
[1:47:43] people create a forest fire and then blame the other person for said forest fire i would call that
[1:47:50] a hoax thank you mr chairman senator you now have six minutes thank you so much mr chair uh to you and
[1:47:57] felice cumpleaños to our ranking member who just had a birthday yesterday um you know this was the saddest
[1:48:03] exchange um that i've seen and with all due respect i think it really does underscore the problem that we
[1:48:09] have in our country right now too often in these bodies i think the people who sit here don't shop
[1:48:15] like uh the people that we represent they clearly are so out of touch you know with all due respect
[1:48:21] my colleague just said that the price of eggs is two dollars and something i don't know what in the
[1:48:27] world grocery store i don't know that people even grocery shop apparently for themselves because i was
[1:48:31] in i'm in the grocery store every week and i'm paying seven dollars uh for a dozen eggs and that
[1:48:36] is the issue that we face right now so i appreciate the opportunity to talk about affordability
[1:48:42] because the reality is that this in this administration we are now in an economic
[1:48:47] disaster in our country and this is not hyperbole the people in america are tired of being told not
[1:48:52] to believe their lying eyes those who shop like who buy gas who pay for utilities we are living a whole
[1:48:58] different existence apparently than the people who are supposed to represent us these are the facts
[1:49:03] 4.2 this was may's inflation rate and the prices have risen steadily under president trump's uh
[1:49:11] administration they are the highest as a matter of fact that they have been in three years almost
[1:49:16] four dollars this is the average national price for a gallon of gas gas is the most expensive that it
[1:49:23] has been literally in three years two two thousand five hundred dollars this is the estimated cost
[1:49:29] every american family is paying because of president trump's tariffs in 2026 one-third this is the
[1:49:36] wealth controlled by just the top one percent of american households so the american people do remember
[1:49:42] a year ago when this president did promise to end inflation on day one imagine how ridiculous that was
[1:49:49] he promised energy and electricity prices would be slashed this is not hyperbole go pull back the tape and we
[1:49:55] can see what he said he insisted that housing prices would decrease he said that he would make america
[1:50:01] affordable again and he said the cost of groceries would go down on day one but instead it's harder
[1:50:07] to afford a down payment purchase health insurance take your family on vacation put food on the table or buy
[1:50:13] back the school supplies this is the reality for the average american americans should know uh that this
[1:50:21] isn't coincidental they understand it it's because of the chaos cruelty and corruption that they have
[1:50:25] seen with their own eyes the trump tariffs continue to make groceries and other goods more expensive for
[1:50:31] business and for families and last summer despite rising prices republicans rubber stamped trump's cruel
[1:50:37] and callous bill that ripped health care and food assistance away from millions of americans and this
[1:50:44] failed war of choice in iran has sown more economic chaos it has raised gas and fertilizer
[1:50:50] prices and if you look beyond the chaos and the cruelty you also can see in plain sight the blatant
[1:50:57] corruption the trump family has made over 1.4 billion dollars from crypto schemes often leaving regular
[1:51:05] american investors with losses a trump family business is on the fast track now to become a bank
[1:51:11] saddling everyday americans and community banks with more risks and fraudsters and scammers continue
[1:51:17] receiving presidential pardons because they are friends of this president the loot i have to tell
[1:51:24] you the smashing grab that's happened with this administration means the loot is literally hanging
[1:51:28] out of their pocket and they're betting that americans won't pay attention but while this administration
[1:51:34] continues to fail we're working to make bipartisan progress i'm so proud to be on this banking committee i
[1:51:39] want to thank our chair and ranking member for the tremendous work that they have done
[1:51:45] uh on the road to housing act which the senate passed last night what a miracle it was to see it passed by
[1:51:51] such a large margin and the road to housing act is proof that congress really can rise to the occasion and
[1:51:58] do what's right and i am particularly proud of provisions that i champion which will make it easier for
[1:52:03] banks to invest in affordable housing and create a federal grant program for people to make essential
[1:52:08] repairs to their homes so they're not forced to sell or to foreclose while families are priced out of home
[1:52:14] ownership and the dream of a stable house is slipping away congress took a big step forward to expand the
[1:52:20] housing supply reduce red tape and make home ownership more affordable now this is worth celebrating
[1:52:26] our kids deserve it they deserve it my 21 year old daughter who is so different than her grandparents
[1:52:32] my parents married at 21 and 22 and within five years of their marriage they could buy a modest home
[1:52:37] the average age of a first-time home buyer is 40 years old so congress should continue to step up
[1:52:45] and while this administration's chaos cruelty and corruption is occurring at every juncture i will
[1:52:50] never hesitate along with my colleagues who are willing to roll up our sleeves and to work in a bipartisan
[1:52:56] fashion to address our shared goals thank you senator you're done yes you gave me an extra minute i
[1:53:09] didn't even need it but thank you so much sounds good let me just say for senators who wish to submit
[1:53:16] questions for the hearing record those questions are due one week from today tuesday june 30th witnesses
[1:53:22] have 45 days from that day with answers i will say that this has been frankly i think a constructive
[1:53:30] hearing not always positive but always constructive however as it relates to the the regular member and i
[1:53:37] looked up the price of eggs so that we would be on the same page literally the price of eggs
[1:53:41] go from about a dollar 79 at wegmans in my neck of the woods which i didn't have to look up because
[1:53:50] in south carolina you can get eggs for about three bucks a dozen elizabeth ranking member did find some
[1:53:58] for as high as nine dollars for eggs i will simply say that the ability to compare prices from the trump
[1:54:06] administration to the bite administration i'll take that comparison even now almost any day
[1:54:12] of any week on any topic the fact of the matter is that uh senator warnock and i had a conversation
[1:54:19] about having a matthew 25 hearing at the banking committee which i actually look forward to it
[1:54:24] because if you start and read the entire chapter it does give you some responsibility for those who
[1:54:28] have talent to do good things with that talent from one two and five uh it also goes into bridesmaids
[1:54:34] and lots of other conversations but it does get to the place where we are asking ourselves really important
[1:54:38] questions about how we treat each other really important i'm not sure that we always remember
[1:54:43] that when we're having a conversation with others but i think it's incredibly important for us to
[1:54:47] recognize the importance of loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you at the same
[1:54:51] time taking a look at those who are struggling there are multiple ways to try to address the issue i
[1:54:57] think both sides try to do so sometimes i i became republican as a guy who grew up in poverty in a single
[1:55:02] parent household because after taking a serious look at the consequences of good policy and bad
[1:55:07] policies not good intentions and bad intentions i decided the best way for me to impact communities
[1:55:13] that were struggling was by being republican however on this committee we should continue to have the
[1:55:18] type of engagement that allows the public to see disagreement without being disagreeable and
[1:55:23] ultimately i think that we achieved that goal today however i do look forward to the opportunity to
[1:55:28] have a discussion about matthew 25 sometime in the near future hearing adjourned