The Hill Gets To Work On The Uphill Battle To Pass The Fiscal Stimulus Plan
Friday, January 25, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: On Capitol Hill today Senate lawmakers got down to work putting their imprint on the White House fiscal stimulus plan. But President Bush urged Congress to quickly pass the package of tax rebates and tax breaks and to refrain from adding additional spending items. As Stephanie Dhue reports, the $150 billion plan heads to the House floor next week.
STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: President Bush called on lawmakers today to quickly pass the stimulus bill hammered out yesterday.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I understand the desire to add provisions from both the right and the left. I strongly believe it would be a mistake to delay or derail this bill.
DHUE: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made the rounds in the Senate to keep the plan from getting bogged down. The stimulus is designed to boost consumer spending to make up for some of the drag in housing. But Senator Chris Dodd says the package needs to do more to address that fundamental problem.
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD, CHAIRMAN, SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE: The face as I've said before of the economic crisis is the housing crisis. In the face of the housing crisis is the foreclosure crisis in my view and so the short term package clearly needs to provide some relief for people out there who are facing very, very serious economic problems.
DHUE: To address the mortgage crisis, the proposed stimulus plan raises the limit on FHA loans. It also temporarily boosts the cap on mortgages Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy from $417,000 to nearly $730,000 in high cost markets. While the idea is to quickly unlock the market for what are now jumbo loans, mortgage expert Howard Glaser says that could be delayed.
HOWARD GLASER, MORTGAGE INDUSTRY CONSULTANT, THE GLASER GROUP: The housing components could take time to implement or they could be done very quickly and much of that depends on the details of how the proposal is ultimately written into legislation, who is going to implement it and how the bureaucracy does that.
DHUE: Steve O'Connor of the Mortgage Bankers Association is concerned it could take too long to figure out the loan limits for different real estate markets.
STEVE O'CONNOR, MBA SR. VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS: How that's actually going to work, is it by metropolitan statistical area? Is it state level? Is it nationwide? The broader the area affected, from our point of view, the better in terms of impact for consumers and in terms of ease of operation, so we can get it into effect sooner rather than later.
DHUE: Political support of the stimulus package and any changes to it, will be tested next week, when members of Congress have a chance to put their votes behind their rhetoric. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
