Poll of the Day > House Tax Overhaul bill could hurt affordable housing.

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https://www.npr.org/2017/12/15/570595045/how-the-house-tax-overhaul-bill-could-hurt-affordable-housing

With lawmakers in the House and Senate announcing that they've reached a deal, affordable housing advocates are anxiously waiting to see which version of the bill wins out with regard to housing. They say the House bill has a poison pill in it.

"The effect would be devastating," says Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "It would mean a loss of around 800,000 affordable rental homes over the next 10 years."

Critics of the emerging tax bill say it gives huge benefits to the wealthy and corporations and doesn't do much for the working class. But advocates like Yentel say it could be much worse than that when it comes to affordable housing a lot of working families, people on lower incomes and the elderly would lose out on the chance to get a place they could afford to live.

Yentel says for decades there's been this bedrock funding mechanism that's helped millions of affordable housing units get built. It's called a "private activity bond." And it allows banks and other companies to get a tax break if they invest in affordable housing construction.

In the House version of the tax bill, these bonds lose their tax exempt status. So Yantel says this bedrock funding mechanism gets destroyed. "This essentially eliminates nearly half of the affordable homes that can be developed or preserved throughout the country with the low-income tax credit program."

The reason tax credits and subsidies have been so crucial is that they reduce the cost of construction. So the developers, which are often non-profits, can charge less money for the units and that makes them affordable.

So why do some Republicans want to throw a grenade in this system if it's been working? Scott Greenberg, an analyst with the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, says, "Tax exempt bonds are probably a relatively inefficient way of subsidizing projects meant to benefit the public."

Greenberg says you could get more bang for your buck subsidizing affordable housing in other ways instead of using the tax code to do it. So he's in favor of scrapping this tax break even though he acknowledges that would likely result in less affordable housing.

This is of great concern to Chris Mayer, a housing economist at Columbia University, who agrees that this current approach to building affordable housing may not be the most efficient one. "My fear with this tax bill is that we're going to cut the affordable housing subsidies but we're not going to replace them with a more efficient program," Mayer says. "That means what we're doing on net is cutting subsidies for low-income people, making it more expensive for them to live we end up with more people homeless and more families struggling in this country."

Both Mayer and Yentel say with the bill adding more than a trillion dollars to the deficit, it's highly unlikely for years to come that lawmakers will find the funding for some big new program for affordable housing.

And Yentel says she's struck by something else. This affordable housing program has been popular for decades: Liberals get the housing that they want built and corporations get tax credits. It creates public-private partnerships. "And in just the past couple of years where there's been efforts by Republicans and Democrats to expand the program, there's been really strong bipartisan support for those bills." So Yentel says "It's very surprising" that the House tax bill targeted the program in this way.

The Senate bill does not take away this funding mechanism for affordable housing. So as the details are starting to emerge on the House and Senate tax deal, Yentel and other housing advocates are hoping to find out that the Senate version has won when it comes to affordable housing.

What won't the tax bill hurt?
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slacker03150 posted...

What won't the tax bill hurt?

Icoyar

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.
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Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

militarized police can sure do a good job tho

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/08/28/trump-now-wants-to-militarize-the-police-at-exactly-the-wrong-moment/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trump-says-hell-militarize-local-police-takes-jab-at-obama-administration/2017/12/15/1c1c4474-e1b2-11e7-b2e9-8c636f076c76_video.html
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Cacciato posted...

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

Ya, I meant like if things ever get crazy
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The reason tax credits and subsidies have been so crucial is that they reduce the cost of construction. So the developers, which are often non-profits, can charge less money for the units and that makes them affordable.

The better idea would be to cut out City Hall red tape, zoning and land-use bullshit, and union strangleholds, to make it profitable to build a block of low-cost units without having to be bludgeoned or extorted to do so.

https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/09/15/the-affordable-housing-fraud

Maybe it'll encourage some people to look for work. My brother's old apartment building was more than half-filled by people who had the government paying for their rentals, their heat, their electricity, and their food so they never had to work. Humorously, my brother who grown up a hardcore liberal basically 180'd after a few years of seeing how things actually worked in those areas.

Cacciato posted...

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

This is kinda the reverse, though. It's a spending thing not a taking thing. And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.
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Zeus posted...

And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.

Quite a while ago, actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

Questionmarktarius posted...

Zeus posted...

And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.

Quite a while ago, actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

Wow, I didn't know that the first president couldn't even go one full term without breaking their campaign goals.
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Lokarin posted...

Cacciato posted...

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

Ya, I meant like if things ever get crazy

I was mainly referring to taxation being one of the issues that we had, you know, the American Revolution.

Didnt you Americans leave the UK to get rid of taxes?
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Muh representation.
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Ogurisama posted...

Didnt you Americans leave the UK to get rid of taxes?

They left because they wanted their taxes to buy votes in the UK, not houses for them to live in.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Zeus posted...

And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.

Quite a while ago, actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion

Fun fact: A song about the Whiskey Rebellion (entitled "One Last Ride," in which Washingon and Hamilton travel down to suppress the rebellion) was cut from Hamilton: An American Musical and parts were reworked into "One Last Time." There's still a reference to the Whiskey Rebellion in the first cabinet battle ("When Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky / Imagine what's gonna happen when you try to tax our whiskey?")

Ogurisama posted...

Didnt you Americans leave the UK to get rid of taxes?

And to have more say in politics, such as our ability to own slaves, which Britain was starting to ban. Not so coincidentally the abolishment movement was starting in 1772. Of course, that's not the history they teach in schools because it just makes the Civil War look even stupider.
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Zeus posted...

Maybe it'll encourage some people to look for work. My brother's old apartment building was more than half-filled by people who had the government paying for their rentals, their heat, their electricity, and their food so they never had to work. Humorously, my brother who grown up a hardcore liberal basically 180'd after a few years of seeing how things actually worked in those areas.

Cacciato posted...

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

This is kinda the reverse, though. It's a spending thing not a taking thing. And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.

it's not even as much of the work problem, it's more of the problem being renting is too high.
might be a work problem too. 50/50 on each.
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kingdrake2 posted...

Zeus posted...

Maybe it'll encourage some people to look for work. My brother's old apartment building was more than half-filled by people who had the government paying for their rentals, their heat, their electricity, and their food so they never had to work. Humorously, my brother who grown up a hardcore liberal basically 180'd after a few years of seeing how things actually worked in those areas.

Cacciato posted...

Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

The problem is America doesnt have any historical precedent for starting a rebellion over something tax-related.

This is kinda the reverse, though. It's a spending thing not a taking thing. And if taxation was going to trigger a war, we would have hit it decades ago.

it's not even as much of the work problem, it's more of the problem being renting is too high.
might be a work problem too. 50/50 on each.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcsNbQRU5TI
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Lokarin posted...

There's almost nothing stopping people from just forming a lynch mob and taking what they want from the rich... police can't stop a rebellion.

Nothing except the military, that is.

No modern rebellion succeeds unless the military allows it to. The idea of a popular revolt is one that is now several centuries obsolete.
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Can't really be surprised a bill that taxes the poor and gives to the rich is hurting the vast majority of programs.

What is the end goal here, exactly? A bloody coup? Eventually therell be nothing left below the ruling class, and unlike most autocracies, America is full of well-armed, anti-government militias. Take away without putting back and eventually people will have nothing to lose. Source: France and Russia, among others.

Thats obviously pretty far off. I feel bad for you guys.
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affordable housing is just a government handout to people who can't afford housing
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It's sad. Looking like this is actually going to become law
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