Washington Update - 06/20/2008 (Plain Text Version)

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Full Court Press to Pass Housing Stimulus Bill

With the Senate debate on housing stimulus legislation H.R. 3221 now running into next week, NAHB has initiated an all-out effort to get Congress to pass the measure before lawmakers adjourn for the July 4th congressional recess. The bill would help stabilize the economy and housing market and assist millions of current and potential home owners. A central component of this legislation is a temporary home buyer tax credit to stimulate home purchases by qualified first-time purchasers.

NAHB is waging its battle on several fronts, including a grassroots lobbying effort among the association’s 235,000 members and an ongoing national advertising campaign. NAHB issued a Legislative Alert urging our members to phone their federal lawmakers, share their stories on how the housing downturn has affected their businesses and local communities, and call on their representatives and senators to pass a housing stimulus bill before the Fourth of July holiday.

In conjunction with the grassroots push, NAHB ran ads this week in USA Today, Roll Call and Politico under the headline, “America is hurting.” The ads convey the following message: Families are losing their homes in record numbers. Unemployment is rising, and millions of Americans are seeing the value of their homes fall. Congress can help reduce this downward spiral by enacting housing stimulus legislation now. The USA Today ad calls on concerned citizens to call their members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to adopt stimulus legislation before the Fourth of July.

In addition, NAHB is running “An Open Letter to Congress” next week in The Washington Post, USA Today, Roll Call and Politico. In the letter, NAHB President Sandy Dunn will call on Congress to complete work on the housing bill before the Fourth of July. “This is not the time for demagoguery or partisanship. It is the time for flexibility and compromise. It is the time for action,” the letter says.

To get the message out to the media that builders are hurting and stimulus legislation is vital to jump-start the economy, NAHB did not send out its highly anticipated monthly Housing Market Index to reporters this week. Instead, NAHB held a media teleconference announcing the HMI report and featuring NAHB CEO Jerry Howard, Chief Economist Dave Seiders and Vincent Napolitano, a builder from Virginia Beach, Va.

Howard provided the NAHB policy perspective on events on Capitol Hill, Seiders talked about the HMI and its economic ramifications for housing and the economy and Napolitano discussed the dire conditions that home builders are facing. Since noticing the beginnings of a housing slowdown in the summer of 2005, Napolitano said that his company has reduced its annual housing production from the 200 to 250 range to about 70 homes this year. And, as a matter of survival, he has had to cut his employees from 60 to 25.

To hasten consideration of a stimulus package, Howard announced that NAHB was dropping its support for a net operating loss carryback provision. He said that Congress must focus on quickly passing a housing bill whose signature provision is a home buyer tax credit. The tax credit is the best stimulative measure to shore up home prices and stabilize housing and financial markets. Because it is so important, Howard urged Congress to adopt the biggest and broadest tax credit possible.

This one-time strategy on the release of the HMI was successful. In their coverage of the HMI report, Reuters, Associated Press, Dow Jones, MarketWatch, Fox Business News, CNN Money and CNBC all posted stories on NAHB’s push to achieve badly needed housing legislation and on how builders are hurting in the current economic climate. Ordinarily, these major media outlets would have confined their coverage to the index number.

The teleconference and grassroots effort were highlighted in this week’s Nation’s Building News, as all NBN readers were asked to call their members of Congress and urge them to enact legislation to jump-start housing and the economy. In short, NAHB is mobilizing the entire association membership, members of the public who visit the NAHB web site and key industry partners to contact their federal lawmakers and ask them to act now.

Senate debate on the housing stimulus bill should conclude next week. NAHB continues to work with lawmakers and congressional staff in both chambers to achieve the best possible bill for housing. The goal is for the Senate to pass a bill next week that the House will approve without changes so the measure can go to the President’s desk. However, the House is indicating that a few outstanding issues need to be resolved before it can approve the legislation. For more information, contact Greg Brown at 1-800-368-5242, x8421 or Scott Meyer at x8144.