◼ House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement on the February jobs report:
“Today’s jobs report showing 192,000 new jobs is an encouraging sign that businesses are beginning to hire and people are getting back to work. However, an unemployment rate of 8.9% is still too high and we need to continue our efforts to make sure private sector employers have sure footing to invest in new employees and expand their businesses.You can also check in on the progress of ◼ YouCut - remember, YouCut – a first-of-its-kind project - is designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. It allows you to vote, both online and on your cell phone, on spending cuts that you want to see the House enact. Each week that the House is in session, they will take the winning item and offer it to the full House for an up-or-down vote, so that you can see where your representative stands on your priorities.
“House Republicans are taking decisive action to foster a pro-growth environment in this country. Our Committee Chairmen are engaged in a top to bottom review of job-destroying federal regulations and working on important pro-growth policies like tax reform and trade agreements. This week, we passed a bill to keep the government running while cutting spending by $4 billion. We also repealed the onerous 1099 provision from the ObamaCare law so that businesses aren’t bogged down in paperwork by a needless tax mandate. Interestingly enough, both of these items were passed with significant support from our Democrat colleagues. Hopefully this means they will join us in supporting further measures to fund our government responsibly and ensure that Washington begins to live within its means, but I remain concerned that their only proposals to date have been more status-quo, stimulus-style spending.
“Republicans are responding to voters’ calls in the last election to change the culture in Washington. To put it simply: less government spending equals more private sector jobs. We will continue our efforts to cut spending, overreaching regulations and government waste so that businesses have certainty to grow and create jobs and more people can get back to work.”
◼ On the table this week:
Terminate the Neighborhood Stabilization Program?
Approximate $1 billion in savings - Created in 2008, this program provides funding to state and local government to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes. Congress has appropriated $7 billion for the program, including $2 billion in the Obama Administration’s stimulus bill. This program encourages government purchase of private homes and some critics have argued that it does not benefit at-risk homeowners facing foreclosure, and may instead create perverse incentives for banks and other lenders to foreclose on troubled borrowers – arguably worsening the housing crisis. This proposal would terminate the last installment of funding which was included in the financial regulation bill in the last Congress, savings taxpayers up to $1 billion.
Terminate the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)?
The Obama Administration’s signature anti-foreclosure effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), has failed to help a sufficient number of distressed homeowners to justify the program’s cost. According to the Administration, HAMP was supposed to help 4 million homeowners. Instead, only 521,630 loans have been permanently modified under this program and the re-default rate is high. Far from helping at-risk homeowners, HAMP has actually made many worse off, according to the non-partisan Inspector General’s report. The Inspector General also concluded that the program “"continues to fall dramatically short of any meaningful standard of success."
To date, the Administration has spent approximately $840 million of the $29 billion earmarked for HAMP from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). This proposal would prohibit the government from incurring any additional obligations under this program, thus generating significant savings for taxpayers.
Terminate the Emergency Mortgage Relief Program?
Last year, Congress reauthorized the long-expired Emergency Homeowners’ Relief Act of 1975 and provided $1 billion to authorize the Department of Housing and Urban Development to make emergency mortgage relief payments to homeowners facing foreclosure for up to 12 months, with a possible extension of another 12 months. These loans will serve to increase the amount of the borrower’s indebtedness, so a borrower who is unable to pay back either the original amount of principal or the additional loans made under the program will be worse off in the long run. This proposal would terminate this program generating savings for taxpayers.
Weigh in.
Progress report: 112th Congress YouCut Votes - a list of winning items from the 111th Congress.
◼ Week One: End Duplicative Government Printing
◼ Week Two: End the Presidential Election Fund ($520 Million Savings)
◼ Week Three: Obtain Refund of U.N. Tax Equalization Fund ($180 Million Savings)
◼ House Republicans have passed a Continuing Resolution that will reduce spending by at least $100 billion in the next seven months – a historic effort to get our fiscal house in order and restore certainty to the economy.
