FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 11, 2009

Isakson on Economy: Give Financial Crisis Commission Time to Complete Its Work, Expand Homebuyer Tax Credit

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., urged Congress and the Administration to do two things to help the economy: Avoid rushing into new financial regulation until the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has completed its work, and immediately expand the homebuyer tax credit.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Isakson urged Congress and the Administration to avoid a rush to judgment on pushing for new financial regulation to fix the mistakes that led to our economic collapse. Instead, Isakson said the newly created, 10-member Financial Crisis Commission that he passed into law earlier this year should be allowed to complete its year-long audit and investigation of all the factors leading up to the collapse and then to make recommendations on how to prevent it from happening again.

“There are some who are talking of a rush to judgment in terms of financial regulation. But I hope we will take a pause, give this Commission time to act, and let's find out what a forensic audit tells us of what happened in America in our financial markets, and let's respond to that after we have all the facts,” Isakson said. “I think every Member of the Senate has ideas about what did go wrong last year and what we need to do to correct it. But let's get all the facts on the table. Let's get a forensic audit so when we move we move with due knowledge and in due course.”

The panel is scheduled to hold its first meeting on September 17. Phil Angelides, who served as the elected California State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007, is chairman of the Commission. Former House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas is vice chairman.

Isakson also repeated his call for Congress to extend and expand the current first-time homebuyer tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of November. Isakson is pushing to make the tax credit available as a maximum $15,000 tax credit for any buyer of any home over the next year. He also wants to remove the income caps that currently apply to the first-time homebuyer tax credit.

“If we do this, home values will return, unemployment will go down, our economy will turn, and consumer price confidence will go up. I would submit it is a part of the main solution we need to take an economy that is on the bottom and move it back toward equilibrium and prosperity for America,” Isakson said.

Isakson’s proposal has been endorsed by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors.

Isakson has pushed hard for a tax credit for homebuyers since January 2008 because he knows that it will work. In the mid-1970s, America faced a similar housing crisis when a period of easy credit and loose underwriting flooded the market with new construction. Interest rates rose, the economy slowed and America was left with a three-year supply of vacant homes. Congress responded by passing a $2,000 tax credit for anyone purchasing a new home for their principal residence. Isakson, who was in the real estate industry in Atlanta at the time, says the results were clear and swift as home values stabilized, housing inventory dropped and the market recovered.

Isakson spent more than three decades in the real estate business, beginning his business career in 1967 when he opened the first Cobb County, Ga., office of a small, family-owned real estate business, Northside Realty. Isakson later served as president of Northside for 20 years, presiding over the company’s growth into the largest independent residential real estate brokerage company in the Southeast and one of the largest in America.

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