Senate Passes Housing Crisis Package

Bipartisan Measure Loaded With Tax Breaks For Businesses; House Likely To Redraw Plan

(AP)  The Senate on Thursday passed a bipartisan package of tax breaks and other steps designed to help businesses and homeowners weather the housing crisis.

The measure passed by an impressive 84-12 vote, but even supporters of it acknowledge it's tilted too much in favor of businesses like home builders and does little to help borrowers at risk of losing their homes.

The plan combines large tax breaks for homebuilders and a $7,000 tax credit for people who buy foreclosed properties, as well as $4 billion in grants for communities to buy and fix up abandoned homes.

Despite the vote, the bill will be significantly redrawn by critics in the House who say it's tilted toward businesses such as home builders instead of borrowers.

The White House opposes the plan but has not issued an explicit veto threat. It says parts of the legislation would make the problem worse by depressing some home values and the measure inappropriately uses taxpayer money to bail out lenders saddled with foreclosed houses.

The House is likely to reject key portions of the Senate measure, including $25 billion over three years in tax breaks for money-losing businesses such as home builders. A plan adopted Wednesday by a key House panel dropped that idea as well as the tax credit for purchasers of foreclosed homes.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., acknowledged changes will be needed in upcoming talks with the House and the White House.

"This is just the beginning of the process," Reid said. "This bill will go to the House. With the House and the White House we can come up with a piece of legislation fairly quickly."

Before passing the measure, the Senate added $6 billion in unrelated tax breaks for renewable energy producers, despite Senate rules that say tax cuts need to be "paid for" with revenue increases elsewhere in the tax code.

The bill also offers $150 billion for pre-foreclosure counseling and stronger loan disclosure requirements.

The $25 billion tax break the plan offers to homebuilders and other businesses absorbing heavy losses and the energy tax package were both dropped from an economic rescue plan enacted in February. Critics of those proposals said they were overly expensive and would not stimulate the economy.

But deepening public worries about the housing crisis appear to have emboldened lawmakers to swell the $9 trillion deficit to pay for the measures.

The $7,000 tax credit for the purchase of foreclosed homes, opponents argue, would unfairly reward purchases that would have happened anyway while possibly devaluing other homes. It also could give banks an incentive to foreclose on homes by subsidizing purchases of such properties.

The measure calls for a long-awaited modernization of the Federal Housing Administration that would enable more homeowners to refinance into loans backed by the Depression-era agency.

It includes $10 billion in tax-free mortgage revenue bonds to help homeowners refinance subprime loans, a move endorsed by President Bush.

A House bill takes a far different tack, steering tax breaks toward first-time home-buyers and investors in low-income rental housing. The measure is likely to be paired with a broader housing rescue package being drafted by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the Financial Services Committee chairman, that would have the FHA step in to back $300 billion in refinanced loans for 1 million or more homeowners who otherwise might face foreclosure.

Under a similar plan by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman, the FHA would insure up to $400 billion in loans.

The Bush administration countered those plans Wednesday with its own, far narrower, proposal. It would expand an existing FHA program to allow more homeowners who are facing large rate hikes to refinance into more affordable government-insured loans.

[forthepeopl1]

TIME FOR AMERICANS TO TAKE THIS MATTER IN OUR OWN HANDS AND START BURNING DOWN THE RICH CORP. HOME VACATION HOMES WALLSTREET, AND THEN LET GO TO WASHINGTON TIME TO START MARCHING..

[forthepeopl1]

The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Attending the sessions were then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The White House, Justice and State departments and the CIA refused comment Thursday, as did a spokesman for Tenet. A message for Ashcroft was not immediately returned.

Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy lambasted what he described as "yet another astonishing disclosure about the Bush administration and its use of torture."

"Who would have thought that in the United States of America in the 21st century, the top officials of the executive branch would routinely gather in the White House to approve torture?" Kennedy said in a statement. "Long after President Bush has left office, our country will continue to pay the price for his administration''s renegade repudiation of the rule of law and fundamental human rights."

go to jail, do not pass go

[lochlan-2009]

"The measure passed by an impressive 84-12 vote, but even supporters of it acknowledge it''s tilted too much in favor of businesses like home builders and does little to help borrowers at risk of losing their homes."

Sooooo, why did they pass it?

[king77shaw]

PASS YOUR OWN CRISIS PACKAGE %u2026

1) CANCEL YOUR CABLE / SATTELITE TV: let the corporate media moguls (and their advertisers) know that you will no longer pay for their propaganda.

2) DIVEST FROM WALL ("WAR") STREET : the banking ELITE are systematically selling out the middle class to the lowest global bidder yet they still demand the average taxpayer to bail them out when times are tough.. start your own HEDGE FUND and invest in land, GOLD and SILVER.

3) START YOUR OWN BANK - buy a fire safe and fill it w/ cash/coin etc.. don%u2019t empower the banking ELITE to do funny things with YOUR MONEY.

4) SUPPORT & DEVELOP LOCAL ECONOMIES !
- if possible, BURN WOOD for heat;
- support local ORGANIC growers or grow some of your own food;
- implement alternative energy sources (solar, hybrid autos etc ..)
- develop local means of commerce not based on fraudulent Federal Reserve Notes.

5) AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE BEGINS WITH YOU - healthy eating habits and exercise will create less demand on the system meaning lower costs. You%u2019ll have plenty of time to work out once you UNPLUG THE TV DRUG.

6) STOP UNNECESSARY CONSUMPTION & STOP USING YOUR CREDIT CARD !

7) DECENTRALIZE ! - the global economy is nothing more than a ploy to centralize power, control and wealth into the hands of an elite few - blinded by misinformation, the American people are buying right into it - the rich get richer and the middle class is quickly becoming the working poor.

[naucoming4u]

Okay... now how about legislation to help middle class Americans weather the...

...gasoline cost crisis

...(lack of) livable wage jobs crisis

...food cost crisis

...crumbling infrastructure crisis

Without addressing the above... the folks in Washington might as well not even bother with the "housing crisis"... because all of the above has just as much of an impact on the long term health of our economy as does falling home values and mortgage defaults.

[heraldtkel]

We blame the democrats www.theoandavirus.com

[hungry1968]

Veterans Department Creates Roadblocks to Voter Registration for Injured Vets



The VA Secretary says registering voters in VA facilities is a "partisan" distraction. On the same day the Pentagon''s commander in Iraq told the Senate that new troop withdrawals could not considered be for months, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake told two Democratic senators that his department will not help injured veterans at VA facilities to register to vote before the 2008 election.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041008O.shtml



Apparently, they''re worried that these injured veterans might vote against the "values party".

[mcv57]

Hang the Bush and his administration, then the American people can jail and execute its cancer - the U.S. Government. Right now, it is only a story about the rich trying to save the rich . . . with self induced Cemo and radiation - nothing will become of it. The infection of corruption has spead to deep and wide in the body of government and its law establishment.

[timdgrim]

Abraham Lincoln (my favorite Republican..has not been on since) said this a long time ago and it fits even today: "These capitalists generally act harmonousily and in concert, to fleece the people."
Wise man.

[cyberus-2009]

The bill is loaded with pork for business ... its an election year and people are surprised why?

[hungry1968]

LOL! - The democrat senate loaded it up with tax breaks for businesses. Now the democrat House has it''''''''s turn to load it up even more.

Now come campaign time they will say that the Republicans are for big business.

Posted by Trapbreak at 03:34 PM : Apr 10, 2008




Nice try loser. This is the white house''s proposal that was submitted to the Senate as it is. It came out of the white house with most of the bailout benefiting businesses.

This came out last week - where were you?

[walt1944-2009]

Congress has passed a bill to help homeowners hold on to their homes, as well as "bail out" home builders (???).

Although the Great Emperor will not say so, it is highly anticipated that the Great Emperor will veto the bill, especially if it does not involve enough federal "help" for the home builders, banks and mortgage companies who created this mess in the first place.

As far as those home owners in danger of losing their homes, the Great Emperor has only 3 words to say to them: THAT''S TOO BAD!!!!

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, (more of the same) McCain!!!!

[gomanny1]

TAXPAYERS TO THE RESCUE (FHA)!!!!!
WHY AM I NOT SURPRISE!!!!!

[stevador39]

%u201CWHEN THE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE FAIL TO REPRESENT THE PEOPLE; THEY HAVE DECLARED WAR ON THE PEOPLE." John Locke

[forthepeopl1]

i hope and pray that all americans right now reading this s/h/i/t/, they will only save the wealthy, so i hope everyone in trouble BURNS ALL THE HOUSE THAT THESE BIG CORPS HAVE..AND ANYONE IN FORCLOSER GO AHEAD LIGHT IT UP..F-THEM ALL. TIME TO BURN BABY BURN, THEN LETS SEE WHAT THEY WILL DO WHEN MILLIONS OF HOMES AND BUISNESS GO DOWN IN FLAMES..YA NOW WHAT ARE THEY WORTH, A HOLES..