Thursday, February 05, 2009

Republicans vs. Republicans on housing

Republican Michelle Malkin hates Republican Senator Mitch McConnell's proposal to effectively have taxpayers pay people $15,000 each to buy a house.
The problem is too much borrowing, too much artificial inflation of home prices.

On what planet should the Republican/conservative alternative be to encourage more borrowing and to prop up prices so they don’t fall “too much?”

This is more of the same old, same old: Kicking the can down the road. Real change — fiscally repsonsible change — means sucking it up, allowing housing prices to fall, and getting the government out of the home-lending business.
Meanwhile, GMU economist Tyler Cowen says the free money won't do what Senator Mitch McConnell hopes it will do:
The tax credit will subsidize the new buyers without propping up the price of homes. Demand will go up, supply will go up, price will stay more or less on the same trajectory, and banks won't be any healthier.

3 comments:

  1. This is a first - I actually agree with Michelle Malkin on something. I never thought I would see the day.

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  2. Even a gibbering xenophobic idiot is right twice a decade. Though if these guys were still in the majority, you can bet she'd be flailing her pom-pons in desperation--regardless of what she believed. Such is the way with the b-list right-wing bloggers.

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  3. ibc,

    Please, no ad hominems.

    If an idea is right, who cares who it comes from. We should all try to review ideas based on their prima facie value, not on what we think of the person delivering the message. That's one of the messages of Nineveh.

    Chuck

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