The House Financial Services Committee voted last week to risk thesolvency of the FHA mortgage insurance program and taxmoderate-income homebuyers in order to spend the money on newsubsidized rental housing program layered on top of the severalthat already exist.
Among the many factors driving environmentalists to discourage suburban development is the belief that such growth is consuming America's undeveloped land at a pace that jeopardizes the availability of open space, wilderness, and farmland.
The Senate Republicans' 4 percent housing stimulus and mortgagerelief plan (proposed earlier by Chris Mayer and Glenn Hubbard ofColumbia Business School) would be a costly initiative and amassive new government intervention in housing and finance marketsthat would yield few if any of the promised benefits.