Push for housing bill takes a holiday
Senate leaders wanted to pass a housing bill before the July 4 weekend that would help 400,000 Americans. But the legislation has been slowed by debate over tax breaks for renewable energy. Steve Henn reports.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: The Senate was hoping to pass a big housing bill before the July 4 weekend, but it's hit a snag. Steve Henn reports.
Steve Henn: The housing bill is designed to help up to 400,000 Americans save their homes by encouraging lenders to write down some of their debt and move them into government-backed mortgages.
The bill's so important that yesterday, Democrats' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threatened to cancel the Senate's planned vacation if it couldn't pass this bill first.
Harry Reid: We are going to finish the housing bill. However long it takes us to do this. It may knock a few people out of parades on July 4.
But Republican Senator John Ensign refused to let the bill move -- unless it included $6 billion in tax breaks for renewable energy. Both Ensign and Reid represent Nevada, which leads the nation in foreclosures, but the cost of the tax breaks was a deal breaker.
By the end of the day, Senator Reid said it was unlikely the Senate would pass anything until late July -- and by then a quarter of a million more Americans will have lost their homes.
In Washington, I'm Steve Henn for Marketplace.
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