Sen. Michael Bennet on High Housing Costs, His 38% Approval Rating, and Gov. Pol [6:25-11:26]

the credits and other federal and state and local tax incentives that are available to people to build housing in Colorado. I don't think we've done that good a job of aligning that. I described in my plan that we should have a one-stop shop in the state of Colorado to make sure that projects are, people don't have to shop in one agency and another agency and another agency to get the benefit of the state subsidies for housing. I mean, that's something that the state has not done. So I think it's very different from what has been proposed before. I think it's one thing to observe the problem. It's another thing to actually create an ecosystem where we can achieve a goal that I think is achievable, which is to try to get to a place where people don't have to spend more than 30% of their income on housing, which by the way, we are very, very hard from that today. When I was the superintendent of schools in Denver, every day I did a faculty meeting in Denver. And I almost never met a teacher that didn't live in Denver. That was one of the awesome things about teaching in Denver, unlike Seattle or San Francisco or Portland. Our teachers could actually live near where the schools where they taught. That's no longer true in Denver. It's not true in Jeff Cohen. It's not true in Douglas County. It's not true in rural Colorado. We are going to have to take this on as a state. And I think we will. I just want to ask one more question about housing because this is very important to our listeners. You talked about a collaborative approach. And you've also talked about density. And I think that's exactly the problem Jared Polis has run into. As he passed this big package of legislation, he has called on local municipalities to increase density, to do transit oriented development. And then they all, especially some of these South suburbs, I'm thinking about a little bit of Englewood, like all these South suburbs have sued him when he tried to compel them to make these changes with an executive order. What would be your approach to creating this density that you and him have both pursued? I think my approach would be very different from that. I'm not some, but I've spent my entire career stealing other people's really good ideas. And the way you do that is by listening to other people, the way you do that is by spending time with them in their neighborhoods and in their city council chambers and in their schools and on their farms and ranches, taking in their input and their suggestions. By the way, my housing plan itself was the result of a process just like that. My childcare plan that I have introduced was itself a process like that. And in my view, that is fundamentally an exercise in coalition building. And that is fundamentally an exercise in building the kind of collaborative work that has to be done with every level of government in the state and with the private sector and with nonprofits and other organizations. So I think I am friends with Jared. I admire Jared. I think he's done a good job as governor. Our approaches on this question might be aligned in the sense of, you know, seeing the need and wanting to think about how to make it better. I think that our approach in terms of doing the work will be vastly different. And I'm not running for this job to fill a seat. I'm not running this job, running for this job to color inside the lines or nibble around the edges. We can't do that anymore. And be able to look ourselves in the face and know that our kids are gonna be able to afford to live in Colorado. You think he's nibbling around me? I can't do that anymore. We can't do that anymore and believe that these are challenges that actually can be solved in a way that can give people hope that they still have the American dream for their kids. I don't think I'm not accusing him of anything but I don't think we've delivered. Listen, the median family cost of a single family house in Colorado is $650,000. The cost of childcare in Colorado is $20,000 on average. That is a disgrace. We are the fifth most expensive state in America to buy a single family house. We are the fourth, I think, most expensive state in America to buy childcare. That is a fucking disgrace. And we have to address it because people aren't gonna be able to live in this state if we don't. And for me, it's not a problem.