The United States Senate today sent to the President’s desk a housing bill the Congress hopes will heat up the housing markets and cool down the market deterrents.
The housing market and the economy have been in the doldrums for much of the year causing massive foreclosures and threats of foreclosures.
Among other provisions, the legislation which President Bush is expected to sign includes a $300 billion dollar provision for borrowers to refinance their homes, tax breaks for the homeowners, help for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reforms to the Federal Housing Administration.
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu D-La. also said in an email that the bill includes a provision authored by her to provide $1.3 billion in tax relief to GulfCoast homeowners and businesses recovering from the 2005 hurricanes. The US Senator who is seeking another term but is in an election battle with Republican John Kennedy said, “The Senate voted 72-to-13 to send the bill to President Bush, who said earlier this week he will not veto the bill. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was one of only 13 senators to vote against the bill.”
Vitter is reportedly helping her opponent in the election.
“The Senate today sent to the President a bill with one of the most significant provisions to jumpstarting our recovery since Katrina and Rita devastated the GulfCoast in 2005,” Sen. Landrieu said. “The IRS ruled it could tax Road Home grants for homeowners in Louisiana and Mississippi. After 18 months of work since I first introduced a ‘Road Home Tax’ fix bill, Congress is now eliminating that onerous and unintended tax. Our homeowners will now get the tax relief they need to reinvest in their homes and our communities.”
The “Road Home Tax” relief would apply to homeowners who took a casualty loss deduction on their 2005 federal tax returns to account for damage to their homes following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These homeowners were subsequently required by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to pay income tax on their rebuilding grants.
Sen. Landrieu and Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., yesterday sent a letter to the IRS, urging the agency to expedite guidance in response to the bill so that homeowners can amend their tax returns as soon as possible.
According to Landrieu, the housing bill also includes a Landrieu provision “benefitting GulfCoast businesses. It removes the deadline under which they are required to begin construction of new ventures in hurricane-affected areas in order to benefit from Gulf Opportunity Zone (GO Zone) bonus depreciation tax benefits. Currently, only projects that began before December 31, 2007 are eligible for the tax relief. Under the Landrieu plan, no commencement deadline would exist”.
Ms. Landrieu was so busy introducing pork filled recovery bills right after the storm (as Vitter introdused the same bill), pointing blame everywhere but here, threatening to punch the President, flying over an excavator on a vevee and crying about we only have one crane thing down there working (it was a levee and only one excavator would fit and it wasn't a crane), and playing partisan politics rather than working through the red tape and bureaucacy and helping the people in need. Landrieu and as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the congressional delegation, failed us after katrina & Rita. There was leadership. Mississippi's governor took charge and the congressional delegation worked with the governor to get things moving. We sat in our dirty diaper and pointed fingers! Miss Landrieu failed the test and now she is taking credit and politiking! I've had enough, it's time for her to be fired and for us to try someone else. Written by Sid
on 7/28/2008
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Hopefully our legislators in D.C. have crafted a bill that will eliminate the need for the taxpayer to ever again bail out those who take out and also those who provide questionable mortgages. There should be some "loss" (so as to alter their lending/borrowing practices) to those who do either instead of having those who have not taken out questionable mortgages bailing out both the lenders and borrowers this time and yet again in the future. As always, the "Devil is in the details.” I am glad to see that those who actually recieved Road Home money can use all of it on rebuilding. Those areas that have come back look better than they have in years. Now if we could just fix the streets..... Written by kpf
on 7/28/2008
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