National Association of Home Builders pushes H.R. 5409, the Residential Construction Lending Act. More ways for taxpayers to support an industry that took part in creating a housing bubble/bust, while many of its CEOs enjoy multi-million dollar annual pay packages.
EDITED, new material May 28:
More of, Builders against big govt except when they're for it: Building industry economist urges careful regulation, says govt just gets in the way. Except when builders are looking for a tax break, bailout, or govt to guarantee their development loans.
Also, banking industry calling for "less regulation" of itself.
TX judge says Legislature is a "patsy for the homebuilders."
Public Citizen: wolves were guarding the henhouse
NAHB, May 27, 2010
(Excerpts)
Legislation introduced yesterday by Reps. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) and original co-sponsors Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Joe Baca (D-Calif.) would help alleviate the severe lack of credit for acquisition, development and construction (AD&C) financing ...
H.R. 5409, the Residential Construction Lending Act, would create a new residential construction loan guarantee program within the Department of Treasury to provide loans to builders with viable construction projects. ...
Full article: http://www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?sectionID=148&newsID=10826
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Economist urges careful regulation
by Chuck Slothower
Herald Staff Writer
Friday, May 28, 2010
A housing-industry economist cautioned policymakers Thursday against the unintended consequences of regulation.
Elliot Eisenberg, senior economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said regulation always increases costs.
"Government just plain out gets in the way," he said.
Eisenberg spoke for nearly two hours at a Strater Hotel dinner hosted by the Home Builders Association of Southwest Colorado. He mixed a bit of Economics 101 - supply and demand curves, elasticity and mobility - with examples of regulation gone awry.
Eisenberg said a ban on TV liquor advertising has simply driven alcohol ads to the Internet, while restrictions on purchasing products that contain ingredients to make methamphetamine have pushed meth production to Mexico.
The economist urged market incentives as a better tool to change behavior.
"You can almost always set up market incentives to solve problems that are better than regulation," Eisenberg said.
One example he gave was an effort to clean up Germany's Rhine River. Charging companies to pollute has proved far more successful than requiring them to install pollution-prevention equipment, Eisenberg said.
The audience of builders and real estate agents was receptive, in contrast to Eisenberg's speech in November 2007, when La Plata County commissioner Wally White and others took issue with his characterization of regulation. Eisenberg has spoken in Durango at least three times.
He pointed to a local disparity at the Strater talk.
"You are a remarkably expensive city in a remarkably poor county," he said, adding that Strater Hotel employees "aren't going to buy a house here. That's a pipe dream for them."
In breaking a bit of bad news, Eisenberg said housing indicators have declined in May after the expiration of the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit.
Eisenberg encouraged what he called "dynamic zoning," where zoning rules allow denser development over time. But he cautioned that regulation must be well thought-out.
"Be wary of doing these things," he said. "You have to be really careful."
http://durangoherald.com/sections/News/2010/05/28/Economist_urges_carefu...
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May 28 2010
ABA to Treasury: 'Stop the regulations!'
The American Bankers Association (ABA) sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other government bodies, arguing that the regulatory burden faced by traditional banks is reaching a âbreaking point,â and calling on the administration to address the situation.
Full article: (Free today, can't say it will be forever.) http://www.respanews.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=B3A09A2DB2BB4225BF...
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Home Owners for Better Building covers TX issues pretty well and found a local story along these same lines, though it goes on in every state. Nice to see a judge say it so succinctly:
The San Antonio Current
"The Legislature is a Patsy for Homebuilders!"
That's County Judge Nelson Wolff in yesterday's Bexar County Commissioners Court expressing his frustration with flimsy state law that allows for messes to develop like the one currently found in Ventura Heights, an unincorporated subdivision near Converse. ...
Full article: http://www.hobb.org/content/view/3408/1/
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U.S. Chambers of Commerce, which supports many irresponsible business practices that Americans end up paying for in the end, is not surprisingly among those again calling for less regulation regardless of the damage that American industries have been causing.
May 28 2010
U.S. Chamber complaining about regulation before proposals hit the street
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to claim that regulation stifles the economy and prevents businesses from creating jobs. But it seems like the president of the Chamber, Tom Donohue, jumped the gun in complaining about regulations after the BP oil catastrophe...
...
The Bush administration consistently cut funding for the regulatory agencies and put industry-friendly leadership at many of the agencies. As Public Citizenâs Tyson Slocum pointed out, Obama talked around defanged and demoralized agencies in his remarks yesterday: âCongress mandated that only 30 days could be allocated before a yes or no answer was given. That was by law. So MMSâs hands were tied. And as a consequence, what became the habit, predating my administration, was you just automatically gave the environmental waiver, because you couldnât complete an environmental study in 30 days.â Slocum explains that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has plenty of latitude to disapprove plans that could âcause serious harm or damage to life.â
One contributing factor definitely was wolves were guarding the henhouse and granting waivers without giving proper attention to the risks in doing so.
So to talk now about the risk of over-regulating is to completely miss the point of what has just happened. What we need to do is go in and reinvigorate the agencies that protect our workers and our environment, and to make sure that these representatives are serving the American people and not big businesses.
...
Full article: http://citizenvox.org/2010/05/28/u-s-chamber-complaining-about-regulatio..