NAHB Calls on Congress [on Recess] for Action
As always, interesting timing for the National Association of Home Builders. Both Houses of Congress are on recess until September 8, but the NAHB picks today to call on Congress “to extend and enhance the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit due to expire on December 1.”
The NAHB says that extending the deadline by 12 months and opening eligibility for the tax credit to all home buyers would account for an incremental 383,000 home sales, and an added 80,000 starts in the tough year ahead.
- We’ve written here earlier about the initiatives the NAHB is drawing attention to in its release.
Maybe the optimal time to call on Congress to do anything is when they’re home, away from the malarial marsh that is the District of Columbia in August. Away from the cacaphony of their own voices, perhaps they can hear better, and see better, and witness more truthfully what the hell is going on in their own back yards.
That’s what they’ll need to do.
Maybe the NAHB’s timing is deliberate. If not, perhaps it’s inadvertently brilliant. During time off, our elected [yes, here we did typo the word "exected" a couple of posts ago] officialdom may count their lucky stars that we may not be heading for the same kind of September and October we endured in 2008. They may actually try to take the pulse of their constituents on the issues hovering like massive dirigibles that on-and-off blot out the sun light–i.e. healthcare reform, the climate bill, and paying for it all.
If elected representatives actually listen, we wonder what convictions they will return to Washington with after September 8th.
What a fascinating time to believe in a government like ours. We elect Senators and Congressional representatives to serve our collective long-term interests and then spend all our time–deservedly–not trusting them to do just that.
If Senators and Representatives listen during their recess, what will they hear? Will they hear the NAHB calling on them to extend measures the trade group would succor an industry sector that pumps as much as 15% into the Gross Domestic Product?
Will they listen to people who’ve lost their jobs and have little hope of finding new ones commensurate with their skills and experience? Will they listen at all to small businesses–you know, the ones that accounted for all the new jobs added to the economy during the run from 2002 to 2007, that have now been gutted unceremoniously from the economy?
If Senators and Representatives listen to small and medium sized businesses during their three weeks’ recess, how will they feel about health care initiatives that will weigh so heavily on mid-sized and smaller business employers? How will they assess the impact of cap-and-trade measures that will add cost, time, and regulatory obligation to every turn when it comes to construction of anything habitable?
Oddly, the smartest economists cast doubt on our elected officials for not going far enough with their regulatory powers and responsibilities? Here’s Princeton University professor, Nobel Prize-winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman–if economists had tabloids at the checkout counter, he and Nouriel Roubini would be the Brad Pitt and Matthew McConoughey of their covers–waxing on on CNBC today about how the government has only begun the job of righting what has gone wrong with the economy and business.
We find it strange that those who are blessed with the intelligence and technical training to understand the most about how the wheels came off the financial system are mostly ones who say that more government is the answer.
Thing is, more government only means a higher price to pay and more time to wait for regulators and inspectors to finish what they need to do so that business peole can go about the business of repairing what is wrong with the economy, which is that there’s an over capacity of workers and too little consumption.
We find it to be interesting timing indeed that the NAHB–which should live, eat, breathe, and sleep the small to medium-sized business interests the trade group represents–should “call on Congress” for more government when more government only lades more of the onus on home builders that hire people and build carbon-emitting dwellings of one sort or another.
As we said, maybe the timing is brilliant, unintentionally.
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It seems that class warfare extends into the housing market. I have proposed to anyone that will listen, a tax credit for ALL homes, in ALL price ranges. A 10% tax credit for every $100,000 of home purchased, with a maximum $10,000 “tax credit” allowable to be taken per year. A million dollar “luxury home” would therefore have a tax credit of $10,000 per year, for ten years.
This will incentivize the selling of existing homes, so that potential buyers can move “up or down” as their liufestyle changes. This would be a genuine stimulus package without all of the government intervention.
Incentives work, in all price ranges. The problem is the perception of home builders, and the industry in general, but that is a different subject for another time.