This week, the Senate passed a bill that would extend the first time home buyers incentive program, as well as offering a different tax credit for existing homeowners.
The bill that was passed on Wednesday may give the first time homebuyers tax credit a second life, as it is currently set to expire on on December 01, 2009.
The Current 2009 tax credit, which does not need to be repaid, is only available to those who have not owned a home for at least three years and offers up to $8000 to those who qualify.
Under the new law, these benefits would not only be maintained, but also extended to those who have owned a home for five years or more. However, for existing homeowners, only $6500 would be available. Those buying a home would have until June to close on the home, but would have to have singed a sales agreement by April 2010.
In addition to addressing the housing market, the bill also includes provisions to federally fund unemployment benefits for an additional 20 weeks.
Of course, this bill has a long way to go before it becomes law, as it must still pass the House and then it must be signed by President Obama. This is also not the first bill aimed at extending the homeowners stimulus program, with a $15,000 tax credit for homeowners never gaining much momentum.
Before its passage in the Senate, Republicans had wanted to include a provision requiring that those on unemployment be checked using E-Verify, which is a an online service that checks immigration status, before receiving unemployment benefits. They also wanted the stimulus bill to include an amendment prohibiting Acorn from receiving federal aid.
Both of these requests were refuted by the Democratically held senate, but the bill still needs to be passed by the House, so there may still be more changes made to it.
Late last Thursday night, announcements that the Cash for Clunkers program had run out of money sent car dealers scrambling to submit their applications. The following day, Friday, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would allocate an extra $2 Billion to keep the Cash for Clunker program going.
The bill, which draws the extra funds from a U.S. Department of Energy program, still needs to be approved by the Senate, which is expected to vote on it this week.
With its additional $2 Billion budget, the Cash for Program would be slated to continue until its November deadline or the funds run out again.
The Cash for Clunkers program originally set aside $1 Billion to provide an incentive for Americans to purchase a new car. The program allots up to $4,500 to people who trade in an old car for a new one with improved gas millage. Dealers all over the country quickly signed up for the program and by the end of July had expended the $1 Billion Cash for Clunkers Budget.
There has not been an official tally yet, but it is estimated that around 250,000 applications have been submitted to the Cash for Clunkers program, with each of these applications representing the purchase of one new vehicle.
Pundits on both sides of the aisle have been quick to draw conclusions from the Cash for Clunkers expended budget. Some claiming that it is evidence that the government could not handle a healthcare program. However, this conclusion is based more off of a need to find faults with nationalized healthcare, than with an actual correlation between healthcare and the Cash for Clunkers Program.
The purpose of the Cash for Clunkers program was to get Americans spending again, purchasing new cars from struggling auto dealers and that is exactly what the program has done. This economic stimulus program preformed just as expected and in fact exceeded most expectations, generating quite literally hundreds of thousands of new car sales at a time when the auto industry needed it most. A budget was created that had a time limit on it and the budget was simply expended before the time limit was up.
While there are a great number of conclusions that could be drawn by the expenditure of the Cash for Clunkers Budget, not all of them positive, to assert that it is an indication that the government can not run a healthcare program is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst.