Bush Touts Low - Income Homes Plan

AP ^ | 15 June 2002 | AP

[SBeck]

Bush Touts Low - Income Homes Plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush pitched a plan to make it easier for black people and Hispanics to become homeowners through government incentives and grants to help on down payments.

In his weekly radio address Saturday, the president said he wants to remove obstacles ``that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream.''

Bush noted that while three-quarters of white Americans own their own homes, fewer than half of all black and Hispanic Americans are homeowners.

``We must begin to close this homeownership gap by dismantling the barriers that prevent minorities from owning a piece of the American dream,'' said Bush, spending Father's Day weekend at his own home on his Texas ranch.

Bush has proposed giving developers almost $2.4 billion in tax credits over five years for building affordable single-family homes in low-income areas. The White House estimates the tax incentive could translate into construction of 200,000 lower-cost homes in the period.

Addressing his radio audience, Bush proposed a $200-million expansion to the American Dream Down Payment Fund, first outlined in January and awaiting action by Congress. It would provide grants to help about 40,000 families a year pay down payments or closing costs on houses. Most grants would be less than $5,000. The money would be distributed by state and local housing programs.

The radio address was a preview of a speech Bush is to make Monday in Atlanta to promote his broad housing agenda, which he summarized as ``empowering people to help themselves and to help one another.''

Bush plans a stop at south Atlanta's Pryor Road area, where housing development is replacing dilapidated and crime-ridden strip malls.

The program currently has a budget of $50 million and is to begin offering grants in July.

``The single greatest hurdle to first-time homeownership is a high down payment requirement that can put a home out of reach,'' Bush said Saturday. ``When a low-income family is qualified to buy a home but comes up short on the down payment, the American Dream Down Payment Fund will help provide the funds.''

Bush also urged better consumer education to help would-be buyers avoid pitfalls that often arise to obtaining affordable mortgages.

``Education is the best protection for families against abusive and unscrupulous lenders,'' Bush said.

``Financial education and housing counseling can help protect home buyers against abuses, greatly improve the loan terms they are offered and help families get through tough times with their homes intact.''

[winodog]

The reason wages are so low is because of the massive immigration in the past ten years and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Gov.org has no business mandating a wage of any sort. They just create two more problems for the one they try to solve.

[Mo1]

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[Torie]

Well, if I had to choose spending money on the farm bill, or this one, I choose this one. If you accept that the government is in the business of making transfer payments, this one has some merit. It's cost isn't that high, it helps a lot of folks, and it encourages home ownership, particularly in worn out neighborhoods. The farm bill on the other hand, tends to take from the more modest income many, and give it to the higher income few - sort of a Robin Hood in reverse program.

[orfisher]

>>Once the "passion of patriotism" subsides, this man will have nothing<<....Not so. He could always switch parties. Smooth transition I must say.

[L_Von_Mises]

The government has created the problem by keeping minimum wages at a less-than-subsistence point. (Something even Karl Marx never thought capitalists would fall below!). The gov't has to do something to fix some of the problems it has created. parsy.

Huh?

It has been shown that a very small (almost imperceptible) percentage of American families live on minimum wage. The vast majority of minimum wage earners are school age or people entering the job market for the first time. One has to start somewhere. Additionally, the marketplace determines the value of the existing wages with the exception of the artifical floor created by the minimum wage laws.

Also, how does one define "subsistence wage." Is it enough to support oneself, a family, live-in lovers? Should everyone be able to afford a home, a car, a television, a VCR, cable, etc?

I started out at 16 earning minimum wage and slowly worked my way up. It gave me an opportunity to gain job experience and a sense of pride from earning my own paycheck. If I am unhappy with my present situation I can look elsewhere. If additional skills are required to move upward, I can do something to attain them. Of course this requires motivation. If I am guaranteed an unnaturaly high salary there is less incentive to advance myself through hard work and dedication.

A "living wage" is one of the standard mantras of the socialist left. it completely defies the basic laws of economics. If you price someting above equilibrium it results in loss of supply. In this case it is jobs. Additionally, it causes samll business owners to make decisions regarding levels of employment. If they can no longer afford to pay what some bureaucrat dictates, then they will either have fewer employees, or resort to the underground economy to meet their labor needs.

The only thing that government meddling in the laws of of supply and demand does in the long run is cause people to find a way around it. It creates additional costs to doing business in the marketplace but the market will always prevail. A simple example is the CAFE standards that removed the family station wagon from the American landscape. The market responded with the huge growth in ownership of SUVs. Would we be better off with people driving Vista-Cruisers or SUVs?

The governmet's role is not to ensure that everyone earns a specific wage, but that playing field is level. Discrimination is wrong and is also not economically viable. There are also laws that prohibit that practice. The governemts should not be taking the role in determining outcomes, only that the rules are consistent for everyone.

[monkeywrench]

"Welcome to post-constitutional America, I guess."

2002 P.C. Yup.

[parsifal]

"A "living wage" is one of the standard mantras of the socialist left. it completely defies the basic laws of economics. If you price someting above equilibrium it results in loss of supply."

I would say that dismissing the concept of "living wages" as "socialism" is one of the mantras of the idiot right. I shouldn't say idiot. Its an inertia thing. Most right-wingers just haven't thought much about it or parrot what they hear smart guys like Milton Friedman say.

What defies the basic laws of economics is not paying a person enough to live. I tried to explain that once here with chickens. If you don't feed a chicken enough to live, it dies. Freepers still wouldn't listen. But, never giving up, I try again. The same would happen to American workers except that the gov't steps in and pick up the pieces. Forget "altruism" for the nonce, and forget simple human compassion and basic logic. Forget fairness and equity. Just think GREED. Why should the gov't(the taxpayers) pick up the difference between crap wages and what it costs for food, housing, and medical care? Make employers pay a floor wage that is livable and save your own pocketbook parsy the really logical freeper.

[Torie]

You still prefer employers to subsidize low productivity, low value added, workers rather than the government, despite the hideous attendant economic inefficienies associated with doing it that way. Oh well. "Idoits" like Milton Friedman prefer the government doing it via the negative income tax. Actually, I heard Milty on the Limbaugh show last Friday, with guest host Walter Williams. The guy was still going strong at 91. He didn't sound like an idiot to me.

[parsifal]

No. Miltie is far from an idiot. He is a very intelligent person who just happens to be completely wrong about living wages. But he grew up in a time when a person could live/survive on minimum wage. If he had to work for $3.35/hour in the 80's, he would have come around real fast. parsy.

[Torie]

Actually, Milty grew up in a time when there was no minimum wage at all. And his parents worked in a garmet industry sweat shop.

[parsifal]

Quit confusing me with facts. parsy.

[dfwgator]

The minimum wage is mainly for people who don't need a job for their existence, i.e. high school students and college students who still get support from Mom and Dad. It is also meant for entry-level personnel. If you increase the minimum wage, it reduces opportunities for young people to get their foot in the door. If you still earn the minimum wage after several years on the job, perhaps it's time to find a new career, or if you're an illegal alien, to get back to the country you came from.

[parsifal]

A living wage argument isn't strictly a minwage argument. A person making $7.00/hour is above minwage, but still can't survive very well in American society. I am all for "student wages," but sadly too many adults are making "student" wages.

The best, fairest, and easiest way to jack up these sub-subsistence wages is to pass across the board wage hikes over the next few years. That way Wal-Mart isn't put at an competitive disavantage vis a vis K-Mart, and vice versa. parsy.

[thirst4truth]

The American Dream down payment program is a cool thing for people that have good credit but not enough for down payment and closing costs to buy a house. You know with 3% to 5% lender programs out there all you need is 3k-5k on a $100,000 home. But then they find out that closing costs on that same home are also about $3,000.

Now the scam on the American Dream program is it is not 'free' it comes out of the seller's pocket. At closing, the down payment, the 3K-5K, is deducted from the sellers money. So alarm bells go off, why do they need this grant money? For pencil heads to administer the program!!!

[Righty1]

It is clear that not only is he not a conservative, he has also never been a landlord.

[Rowdee]

Easiest thing to do is spend someone elses' money!

When I see these bleeding heart socialists digging in their pockets, whether its Larry "We don't pay enough in taxes" King to George 'taxpayer funded stadium so I can be a multi-millionaire' Bush, to provide low income housing assistance because of their own damn 'compassion' and not some government forced down a citizen's throat concept of compassion, I'll be interested in reading it and helping.

[Flyer]

Most grants would be less than $5,000.

If you can't save up five grand, you don't have any business buying a home.

[oline]

You know what's funny...I heard a local talk show host this morning who is a died in the wool liberal making the same remark (obviously he left out the "base" remark that you made). I suspect he wouldn't be saying that if Clinton or Gore were in office -- but I do agree this is a disapointment.

[L_Von_Mises]

What defies the basic laws of economics is not paying a person enough to live. I tried to explain that once here with chickens. If you don't feed a chicken enough to live, it dies. Freepers still wouldn't listen. But, never giving up, I try again. The same would happen to American workers except that the gov't steps in and pick up the pieces.

So if I use your analogy, we should all be kept like chickens. They have no control over their own lives except when to defecate. They are fed when the farmer decides and they die when the farmer decides. It sounds very much like a system that was in place in the former Soviet Union.

As far as people espousing the negative impacts of minimum wage laws (or any price floor for that matter) because some "smart guy like Milton Friedman said it" is not accurate. Sure, he believes in the free-market system, but I have yet to come across any introductory college econ textbook that does not take the same position. It is basic supply and demand. I would be happy to transcribe the wording verbatim from my college micro 101 textbook if you are still in doubt of the negative impact of minimum wage laws.

The only people that promote minimum wage laws are politicians on the far left, labor union leaders (from the far left by definition), Marxist (or socialist) college professors, and readers of the popular press (including evening news viewers) who have never taken an econ course in their life who are basically regurgitating what Ted Kennedy and his ilk are promoting.

[parsifal]

"The only people that promote minimum wage laws are. . .etc.

Me. You forgot me. parsy