[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18251-18252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HOME BUYER TAX CREDIT

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, if we want to revive our 
economy, one thing we can do is to bring back and extend the home buyer 
tax credit we enacted earlier this year. It was for a limited time. It 
has expired, but it was hugely successful.
  It is an $8,000 tax credit for qualified first-time home buyers and a 
$6,500 tax credit for repeat, move-up home buyers. And this tax credit 
that we passed that was law was largely responsible for many of the 
homes that were purchased in States like mine, Florida, where the 
housing market has gone kaput. The mortgages were inflated when the 
housing bubble burst, the property values dropped and you see a number 
of our States that have been hit so hard, albeit, the entire Nation has 
been hit hard by the housing bubble bursting.
  Well, we tried this home buyer tax credit, and it worked. It was 
popular in other States, like California, like in Texas. Texas had a 
more stable housing market, but folks recognized that a good housing 
market provides a lot of ancillary benefits for the economy. It creates 
jobs. It generates consumer spending. The studies have shown, looking 
back on this tax credit we gave for housing, it was in the first 
quarter of this year, it led to a 6-percent increase in all home sales, 
and it led to a whopping 42-percent increase in the sale of new homes.
  Now by contrast, when that credit expired, the home sales plummeted. 
Well, what does it mean in real terms to real people and real families? 
It means jobs. It means jobs selling houses, jobs constructing houses, 
jobs financing houses--anything associated with a person having one of 
their most important assets, their home. And then it means a lot of 
jobs about making all the things that go inside a house. And that's the 
kind of boost we need again.
  We need again to get this economy moving. Now, since it has been 
shown to work because it generates home sales and purchases--in States 
where the real estate industry is a large part of the economy, in 
States where housing values have dropped, where many homes are 
underwater in the value of their fair market value now compared to the 
face amount of their mortgage in many communities that are distressed 
by foreclosures--and what community has not been hit by that?--what it 
does is it turns that around and boosts the home sales. That is a part 
of economic recovery. Now, there are

[[Page 18252]]

those who are out there who are going to say: Well, it is too 
expensive. That it doesn't yield good results in certain parts of the 
country that were not hit with the housing crisis like the rest of us 
were. And some people will claim: Well, we're coming out of the 
recession--by their estimation--and it would be better to target our 
efforts elsewhere.
  Mr. President, the recession's not over for many, many Americans. And 
if something has proven it works, why don't we reinstitute it? It was 
President Franklin Roosevelt who said, during another time of economic 
peril, the Great Depression, he said:

       Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the 
     moment.

  Mr. President, do we not have the ``dark realities of the moment'' of 
what's happening in the State of the Presiding Officer right now, in my 
State, and many others? Indeed, these are dark economic times, and most 
every American knows it. Just look to the elections. In almost every 
exit poll after the election, 60 percent of the voters said the economy 
was the most important issue facing the Nation--that they were 
concerned about as they walked into that polling place. Forty percent 
of those same voters said their families are worse off financially than 
they were just a few years ago. And 33 percent of them said that 
someone in their household had lost a job recently. Is that not the 
``dark realities of the moment''?
  So let's take something that worked. And despite the fact that it's 
costly, let's find an offset. Let's find another source of revenue to 
pay for approximately the $15 to $20 billion that the home buyer tax 
credit cost before that boosted the sales of homes and started to 
revive the housing industry and, therefore, revive the fair market 
values of people's homes. Let's move to quickly bring back this home 
buyer tax credit. It's worked before, and it will work again.
  Mr. President, if I may be recognized again, since no one is waiting 
to speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.

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