U.S. home buying applications sank for a fifth straight week to a fresh 13-year low, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday, suggesting that tax credits had robbed more from future sales than expected.
Demand for loans to purchase houses fell 5.7 percent in the week ended June 4 to the lowest level since February 1997, even after adjusting to account for the Memorial Day holiday.
"Purchase applications are now 35 percent below their level of four weeks ago, as homebuyers have not yet returned to the market following the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit at the end of April," Michael Fratantoni, MBA's vice president of research and economics, said in a statement.
And why would they? There's a major recession out there, if you haven't noticed. With the deficit hawks stripping as much spending as they can from any attempts to help the market, we're about to go down the path of Herbert Hoover once again.
Don't think the American public hasn't noticed this as well.
Citing deficit concerns, Democrats in both chambers of Congress have said it's time to start thinking about how to wrap up the extended unemployment benefits put in place to fight the recession. But 74 percent of people surveyed said they agreed with the statement that "it is too early to start cutting back benefits and health coverage for workers who lost their jobs."
And yet that's exactly what Congress plans to do. The GOP is more than eager to hand the Dems the knife to slit their own throats with. Somehow, they believe the Republicans are serious about deficit reduction and won't turn around and attack them for cutting off job benefits in a recession, running on a platform to "help the American middle-class."
Sixty-seven percent said they either "strongly favored" or "somewhat favored" continuing federal unemployment benefits. The poll did not mention the fact that federally-funded extensions, in combination with the initial 26 weeks of state benefits, give the unemployed up to 99 weeks in some states. (There is no proposal on the Hill to help the "99ers" -- the hundreds of thousands of people who've been through all available benefits and still haven't found work.)
And people wonder why home sales are at 13-year lows. The deficit hawks are about to pull the life-support plug on the economy and all but assure a double-dip recession if not a full-blown depression, and Dems seem to believe the Republicans will take credit for yanking the cord out, and not bash them over the head in November with it.
Playing to lose is a funny strategy when you're trying to win, Donks.
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1 comment:
Clearly bigger Government is the solution.
Like Barney Fife..Frank said
"You can reach out to your fellow young people and make it clear to them, that when [sic] they may not be satisfied with everything we've done -- we're not satisfied with everything we've done. The way to cure that is to give us more authority and more ability."
Clearly lets spend more, ignore what's happening in Europe and spit in the face of reality. I'm all for keeping some unemployment benefits because yes it's terrible out there. My father lost his job at January 2009 and still hasn't found employment. I understand the desire to help but in life tough decisions have to be made. So if you don't want a cut here, where will you accept a cut? More spending is not the answer. If the Dems are going to live up to their word and keep it deficit neutral then we need them to start running the Government much in the way that we run our household budgets. Tighten the belt and weather the storm.
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