The most striking proposals were for the elimination of medical debt for millions of Americans; the “first-ever” ban on price gouging for groceries and food; a cap on prescription drug costs; a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers; and a child tax credit that would provide $6,000 per child to families for the first year of a baby’s life.
I can already hear the crabs who didn't get this in the past trying to yank down the other crabs who will qualify for it back into the bucket. Happens every time there's a discussion about minimum wage.
No crabbing here. My kid is entering school and I got my house a couple years ago, but anyone going through that needs the help. It's a shit process in either case.
Fuck them crabs. I bought my first house in April and don't want children (vasectomy ftw), I support these policies 1000%. Improving the lives of the people around me is an improvement to my life.
I'm not particularly for giving out money for something I think is generally irresponsible (having children) but if the majority of people support it then I'm ok with it happening anyway.
Housing is good though I'm all for people owning their own and putting landlords out of business.
Having done some recent research on the possible effects of an aging population, I think we're all better off with a stable population rather than either a large or small one. China is for sure going to suffer for their one child policy in a few decades. Pretty much every 1st world country is on track for a painful time as their population ages out. The key is to make changes slowly so we don't put too much pressure on one generation.
I agree that humanity as a whole could probably do better with a smaller global population, but even a medium shrinking of population threatens an extreme level of unrest and suffering as too many old people have to be supported by too few working people.
Not my point. I'm not comfortable with people who cannot manage their own lives to have children and those are the type that would benefit the most from 6k unfortunately.
Support the children as need dictates not by some arbitrary amount given to everyone rather than those that actually need it. I feel the same way about college though basically wealth based tuition. Can't afford it but meet every other qualification then it should be a token rate or free, if you can afford it then you pay more to help the less fortunate.
The real solution is effective education but that seems a pipe dream at the moment unless someone like NileRed gets a prime time show like Bill Nye to pump everyone up about science.
Most of those crabs (myself included) are benefiting from very low interest rates on their mortgages. Low enough rates to more than fully offset this one time incentive. So they should just chill and be happy they aren't paying 8% interest or whatever it is these days.
Every time I hear these arguments, I remember the analogy with cancer treatment and it makes it so clear what a terrible position it is to oppose this for others.
Imagine if a cancer cure came out today and then making the argument of “that’s not fair, my mom had cancer and she suffered and died last year, how come your mom can get a cure?”
I bought my first house like 2 years ago, i wish i had this proposed 25k assistance. I want it implemented for other people. I know 2 people who cannot afford to buy a house complain about the proposal
What people don't realize, is that at some point you will need to sell your house. Wouldn't it be nice to know you'll have a higher chance to sell when people have a $25k assistance to help with the buying.
I'm not in the US, so I'm a little detached from this but does the US have an issue with house sales at the moment?
I've only heard of buying issues. Why wouldn't this just increase prices by $25k? That's precisely what we witnessed in the UK whenever the government offer assistance, there are always buyers so the market swallows up the extra capital and prices increase to offset.
IANA economist, but I'd kinda expect prices to just go up $25k in popular areas. However, the US is really big and has A LOT of places that are less in demand and have cheap housing. Like, many entire states. And even popular states can get cheap if you just go a little away from population centers. I wouldn't be surprised if those places don't see a $25k increase.
Maybe I'm missing somethng here. I'm not just asking this because I'm upset about the possibility of other people getting money and not me: Wouldn't we expect the home buyers' subsidy to only increase demand and drive up the cost of houses? Then the money would end up in the hands of those who already own one or many houses. Isn't this just giving money to people who are already well-off? Wouldn't it be better to create a program focused on building more houses instead?
Serious answer from a long term economic standpoint.
You want more people to participate in home ownership, it's good for all home owners. Homes are the majority of a family's equity/net worth. It continues to grow and appreciate and allows them to invest into themselves.
In 5-10 years, when they're ready to upgrade, they create a lot of economic activity for everyone by selling their current house, plus additional funds, to upgrade to a new one.
If you ever want to sell your house to someone under the age of 35 who's not a tech bro, this is how it's done.
It's the same logic that the economic stimulus package used to generate economic growth and activity.
The more hands money exchanges, the more valuable it is as a currency to everyone. Counter intuitively, the economy is not a zero sum game. It's unbounded. The more people we help to achieve financial stability and the ability to participate in the housing market, the better it is for everyone currently participating in the housing market.
I'm still not understanding the part where everyone having an extra 25k for a house purchase doesn't just increase the price of all houses by 25k. This is what happens when you increase the demand for something without increasing the supply.
Both can be done. Besides, first time homebuyers are the ones most in need of the kickstart needed to ownership. Consider also that the people with $2m homes likely aren’t going to see a direct increase in demand because of this. It would instead be current owners of so-called starter homes who could then use their existing equity to purchase a forever home.
My friend, in california, every house costs a million dollars. All this is going to do is bump up the value of a house by 2.5% at the expense of taxpayers. Unless we're going to massively increase tax on the rich and cut tax for the poor, I don't see this as a win.