“Last week, the California Senate passed a bill 35-1 that would provide $30 million in tax credits to about 4,000 additional new-home purchases [up to $10,000 a piece]. The bill now moves to the Assembly floor, which could take it up as early as Monday.”
∙ New-home buyers’ tax credit may return, briefly [SFGate]
Next let’s solve the budget problem by passing a law making California IOU’s legal tender.
Not a bad idea in principle.
Fix the size of the budget and freeze salaries. Make up the difference between taxes and spending with printed up money and wait for inflation to shrink the size of governement and cause tax revenues to go up.
I can’t believe that Schwarzenegger, after vetoing all kinds of spending bills this year, and running on a platform of fiscal respondibility (remember, “I’ll cut up the State Legislature’s credit cards?”) is actually in favor of this huge pander to the new homebuilders in this state.
I hope the Assembly kills this bill, or at least amends it until it’s no longer recognizable by limiting the credit to both first-time home buyers and people with lower incomes. I don’t see how subsidizing wealthy people buying tertiary homes in Mountain House will “facilitate California’s economic recovery”, especially since the state is already looking at another multibillion dollar budget deficit for fiscal 2010-2011.
This is a terrible bill — it will be expensive for a state that can’t afford it, and it won’t save housing prices in the long-run. Should have left helping out the banksters to the feds.