A Grassroots Shift to Capitol Hill
With Congress back from its August recess, NAHB has entered the second phase of its “Revive Housing, Restore America” campaign, urging lawmakers in Washington to take a number of crucial steps to support housing as the framework for creating jobs and pulling the nation’s economy out of recession.
The NAHB Government Affairs staff is in contact with key lawmakers and congressional staffers to discuss the urgent need to act on our housing priorities. During the past month, our builder members helped to lay the groundwork for these discussions through their meetings with their lawmakers, who were back in their local districts for the summer recess. Builders urged their members of Congress to:
- Extend the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit for an additional year and make it available to all home buyers;
- Correct a faulty appraisal process;
- Improve housing credit conditions; and
- Expand the tax code’s net operating loss carryback provision for businesses.
We’ve held scores of meetings and garnered positive responses from several lawmakers (more than 2,400 letters sent, over 145 meetings either held or in the pipeline, more information to follow).
It remains vital that NAHB receives feedback from every meeting that takes place. As you know, this can be done by sending an e-mail to builderlink@nahb.com or by calling NAHB Government Affairs at 1-800-368-5242, ext. 8475. NAHB lobbyists need this data to ensure that they can continue to target lawmakers who have returned to Washington.
Though Congress is back in session, we continue to encourage all NAHB members to visit, call, write and e-mail your U.S. senators and representatives. As evidenced by President Obama’s Sept. 9 address before a joint session of Congress, lawmakers are preoccupied with the health care debate, which is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead. Our job is to keep sounding the call for housing in order to be ready for when lawmakers start working on new tax legislation this fall.
The best way to get your message across – be it in a meeting, letter or phone call – is to speak in personal terms whenever possible. Whether you are discussing the tax credit, AD&C and appraisal issues, or NOL relief, relate how action in these areas will help your business to survive the current housing and economic downturn.
(Specific talking points on these four issues for those who visit their members of Congress can be found by clicking here.)
To make it easy to get involved, visit www.nahb.org/ReviveHousingNow. This one-stop site contains information to call or e-mail your members of Congress, talking points, banners for Web pages, print ads, op-ed letters that HBA presidents can send to their local newspapers, and more.
For more information on the grassroots campaign, contact Molly Murray at 1-800-368-5242, ext. 8282.
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