By Mike Colpitts
A national consumer advocate’s group is urging the U.S. Congress to adopt a large home buyers federal tax credit in an effort to re-energize home 
sales and stabilize residential housing markets.
America’s Watchdog Homeowners Consumers Center is urging Congress to offer a $15,000 federal “tax credit to anyone who is qualified to buy a house, including investors.”
“It’s pretty apparent President Obama, and his administration do not have a clue about creating jobs,” the organization’s president, Tom Martin said in a statement released Monday following Obama’s jobs speech. “If the U.S. Congress will enact this new robust Home Buyers Tax Incentive Legislation that is open to all qualified individuals, or investors, we will not only see a dramatic stabilization of many to most of our nations major real estate markets, we will also put lots of U.S. citizens back to work.”
In June of 2005 an organization affiliated with the consumer center warned that the U.S. real estate market was headed for a crash. “We are now warning if the U.S. House of Representatives does not step up to the plate, and enact robust residential real estate home buyers tax credit legislation our real estate markets, and our economy could be going places no one wants to go,” the consumer group said in a statement released to the media.
Martin says the U.S. may not be able to withstand future delays to aid the housing market. “As opposed to one of President Obama’s Shovel Ready Jobs Gambles, a congressionally sponsored robust U.S. residential real estate federal tax credit initiative would produce an instant positive effect for the floundering U.S. economy, and it would be enormously helpful in stabilizing the U.S. residential real estate markets,” Martin said.
Like many other organizations, the consumers group says U.S. citizens “are tired of politics as usual in Washington, D.C.” with bitter partisan wrangling that get little done to unclog legislation that can’t even be voted on by Congress as a result of Democrats and Republicans arguing.
“Our suggested U.S. Residential Real Estate Tax Credit legislative initiative will put real estate agents, home inspectors, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, contractors, and all types of people back to work, as well as doing something dramatic to stabilize the U.S. residential real estate markets,” Martin said.
“We have just a couple of simple requests with respect to this legislation. We want a up, or down vote with no earmarks or additions, and we have one other strong suggestion — only qualified individuals can participate in this program. In other words, if you cannot afford to buy a house, or afford to make the monthly payments, this program does not apply to you.”