President Donald Trump said Friday morning he would not sign federal legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing, but the bipartisan package became law at 12:01 a.m. today anyway.
In a post to his social media site, Trump again said that as a protest against Congress not passing an elections bill known as the SAVE America Act he considers a top priority, he would not sign the housing bill that both chambers of Congress passed with wide margins.
If the president does not sign or veto a bill passed by Congress, it becomes law in 10 days, excluding Sundays, after it reaches the White House. The constitutional provision does not apply if Congress is adjourned, resulting in what is called a pocket veto, but the current July Fourth recess does not count as an adjournment, experts agree.
The housing package, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, overhauls several areas of housing policy in an effort to make it easier for builders to construct new units and potential buyers to secure federally backed loans.
Trump in his post targeted the SAVE America Act.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” Trump wrote, overstating the bill’s level of support.
Liked, but not universally
Public polling on the SAVE America Act, which would impose photo ID requirements for voters and limit mail-in voting, among other provisions depending on the version of the bill, is scant. But surveys that are available show the bill, while generally popular, is much more divisive than Trump represented.
A May Politico survey showed that, when pollsters did not describe the bill’s provisions, more voters supported than opposed the bill, 37% to 21%, but that a 42% plurality of voters had no opinion. Even among the sample of respondents who voted for Trump in 2024, only 62% said they supported it.
Asked about particular elements of the bill, the most popular in the Politico poll was a requirement to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, with 52% of respondents saying they supported it compared to only 18% who opposed.
In the U.S. Senate, Democrats are universally opposed to the bill. And not enough Republicans support abolishing the chamber’s legislative filibuster, which would allow the chamber’s majority Republicans to pass bills along party lines.
Consensus housing measure
The housing legislation, on the other hand, registered barely any opposition.
The measure passed 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House. Many of the no votes in the House came from a group of conservatives who took Trump’s cue and opposed the package not on its merits but as a protest of the Senate’s inaction on the elections bill.
The housing overhaul packages together many earlier proposals sought by various interests involved in housing policy. It would reduce some regulatory hurdles to home construction and expand the possible uses of federal housing funds.
The bill would also allow money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program to be used for construction of affordable housing.
It would in addition tie the amount some cities and states receive from the $3.3 billion grant program to their rates of affordable housing construction and expand the eligibility for some federally backed low-income mortgage programs.
The White House initially said Trump supported the bill, and scheduled an unusually prominent signing ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in late June.
But the president changed course just hours before he was scheduled to sign the bill and canceled the event. He has since dismissed the housing measure as unimportant compared to the SAVE America Act.
–Jacob Fischler, Florida Phoenix
Laurel says
“But the president changed course just hours before he was scheduled to sign the bill and canceled the event. He has since dismissed the housing measure as unimportant compared to the SAVE America Act.”
In other words, the baby and his baseless lie about election fraud is more important than you having affordable housing, even though one bill had nothing to do with the other.
Whatta guy! Still like him?
Jack Gallagher says
“make it easier for builders to construct new units”
You anti-Trump marks will spite your faces. Tell me how all this new construction has helped Flagler County. Yet you
are in favor of more cause Trump is against it.
Smart.
Laurel says
That was not the point at all, sorry you missed it.
Let me spell it out for you: Trump doesn’t give a shit what Americans want or need. His only priority is keeping his felonious butt out of prison, and stealing from us much as he can.
How that appeals to you is stunning.
JimboXYZ says
Yet everything Affordable housing over the past 6 years has been everything but affordable. So signing off really means little, results matter. The last one did this. So everything Affordable Housing really wasn’t affordable. What about the STF’s is affordable for existing home owners ? Those that worked all their lives in a different era of salaries & wages. Lower interest rates, lower listing prices. If anything Clinton-Bush should’ve taught anyone, that the Housing Industry is for profit, that’s not affordable. The economy had to collapse to bailout levels, record breaking home foreclosure rates that 2001-2012 were low compared to post-Biden affordable housing. The affordable ship sailed a long time ago, touting this as landmark is just more of the same BS the masses get for anything affordable. Just as Trump-Vance was sandbagged by Biden-Harris, that same unaffordable cancer persists with higher interest rates, higher listing prices, higher maintenance & repair costs, property taxation. DeSantis Homestead Exemption is a relief, comes at the cost of quality of life for the growth. What happens when police & fire budgets for services is reduced for the Biden-Harris growth isn’t hard to predict that future devastation. Overpopulation was, is & will always be the problem. All of the transient renters & permanent relocations that are troublemakers, regardless of where they land next. They’ll continue their same behaviors for ordinance violations & crimes. There is no solution(s), growth is not the answer when it’s end user demand. Social Media content isn’t a product that matters for anything like affordable housing. The data centers to service that content isn’t worth the water to cool the servers they are stored on.
https://www.hud.gov/news/hud-no-25-146
Independant voter says
All Trump goal now is to cheat at all upcoming elections since he knows he destroyed the Republican party and they can’t win fair and square any longer.
Voting is safe and has been for a very long time. You can do mail in voting and drop you ballot off at the Election Board if you don’t trust the mail.
Trump and his family all vote by mail so no reason you can’t either.
Don’t fall for his propaganda lies about voting it is your right to do so, research who the runners are and vote accordingly.
Skibum says
You made some excellent points and are absolutely correct about the illegitimate and false assertions from the convicted felon con man about mail-in voting. Even the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation’s own investigation and research into actual, verified voter fraud cases since the year 2000 concluded that the percentage of voter fraud is infinitesimally minute… 0.0001166%, or one hundred sixteen hundred-millionths of a percent from more than 1.2 billion cast ballots.
It is all an intentional effort to confuse American voters, distort the truth, and ultimately disenfranchise a significant portion of legitimate American voters, but only those that the GOP believe favor democrat candidates. In other words, this “voter fraud” movement by the con man president and his allies is in itself, an undemocratic election interference fraud scheme.
Here is the link to the Heritage Foundation’s own research results:
https://uomod.com/heritage-foundations-election-database-undermines-gop-voter-fraud-narrative/