Is it realistic when Harris says that her administration is going to pay $25,000 for all first time home buyers and $6000 in new tax credits for all newborns?

Realistic to say, of course.

Will it turn to reality, fairly slim chances especially the credit for newborns. I do not believe it is pandering for votes. This is something that is needed as a reality for the country.

Is it similar to FDR’s New Deal? Yes, in a small way.
Government intervention is necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy.

You know the answer already. That said if it’s only 66 billion, it’s not completely unreasonable, but it’s pandering all the same. The question is will $25K be enough to entice new homebuyers and is $6k enough to entice people to have kids? IMO it’s not enough to make any real difference. Most people can still do math and won’t buy in a bubble with high interest rates. They won’t have more kids for a $6k tax credit either. The housing crisis and demographic collapse are larger problems that you just can’t throw a little money at to make go away. Since this is essentially a pointless exercise, it’s just pandering.

It won’t happen unilaterally – congress will have to vote on it.

Knowing the republican party that will do anything to thwart any initiative that will help the common people, it won’t become law. Even if it’s a good idea.

On a financial basis, it won’t mean a thing. Builders and home sellers will simply raise prices by $25000 because they can.

I saw an article (but didn’t read it) where a realtor said that the subsidy raise the cost of houses

I haven’t looked into her plan or how it’s going to be funded.

I can’t imagine the 6k for parents will be an incentive to have children, as daycare alone is way, way more than that per year for parents who work. It’s throwing a bone for parents, which I’m sure will be welcome, but it doesn’t pay for the major expenses (like childcare).

Does the US have the money to pay for this? Yes.

The real question is do Americans want to live in a society that supports first time buyers and tries to prevent children being born into poverty? (not saying this will stop that but that is the idea I presume)

It is realistic and reasonable. The wealth inequalities in the US are grotesque and this will go a little way towards alleviating grassroots childhood poverty. If 40% of children qualify then 1.5 million children will benefit at a cost of 9 billion dollars or less than 0.15% of the federal budget.

Though the tax credit won’t make people decide to go ahead and have more kids and can make it so a double income family becomes single. Say mom’s job doesn’t really make a difference. Most of her money goes to paying for child care for 2 and the rest in taxes because its just enough to be taxable. So if she gets 6 k per child that equals to a savings of 12 for two. If she finds she’s pregnant with a 3rd child, she may decide to have it vs getting an abortion because she can just stay home and have a savings off their taxes of 18 k. Also without her added paycheck her taxes are even lower still. Now a family of 5 might be able to live off of dads single pay check or moms, depending who is making more.

As for the 25 k, there are always a lot of ifs. You qualify for this if, you are within this bracket and have excellent credit. So many people have crappy credit. Also as stated above, a lot of people won’t take the offer if interest rates are high.

What they really need to crack down on is HOA’s and condo fees that are more than a freaken mortgage in some cases. I remember when I first went to buy a my home I had to lower the amount I was willing to buy for a home because of HOAs. Luckily I found a home within my price range and the HOA was reasonable. The interest rate was a little high at the time but I refinanced at half what my interest rate was. But for a few weeks I couldn’t find a home I wanted because HOA’s or Condo fees were like 600 a month to start up to 900. I didn’t want to feel like I was renting my home. I would’ve been still cheaper to rent.
Without tackling the HOA’s that are ripping people off, this will continue to be a problem. As for pandering. All of them do it, but really, how can you propose to help people in areas and then not say how you plan to do it? Then people say you are all talk and have no real ideas.

Next let’s talk about what is realistic. I don’t believe anything is feasible because Congress does more to obstruct than create and when they do finally agree on some proposal both sides are more concerned about getting something out of a deal that makes them look good but does nothing for the people. So no matter how good or harmless something was to pass by the time it passes it is a quarter of what was promised after they fight to make each side happy.
People’s misconception is that presidents are all-powerful. Congress controls the purse strings. Presidents can stop the ball rolling but you never know which side is going to kick it into the winning or losing net.

correction^ I meant, Presidents can start the ball rolling.

A couple of questions about how the $6000 is paid.

Situations:

1) child is born, immediately adopted by someone else. Who gets the $?

2) child is born, dies 10 days later of ??? some defect. Is the money paid?

3) child is born, dies at age 6 months of ??? – do the parents pay the money back?

4) child is born, parents divorce after 3 months. Who keeps the $?

5) Baby is born to non-citizens (aliens). Do they qualify for the $$?

6) etc.

@elbanditoroso This made me read up on it. Apparently, its only for the first year of the newborn. But she also wants to revive a tax credit of 3600 per year per family on top of the already child tax breaks and it’s only 3000 for children over 6 years of age. So its like an added tax credits. It says for the first year of the child life, so I guess you can’t apply for it till the child hits a year old. As for resident aliens, I suppose their taxes may work differently since they may be taxes on money they make from abroad. For non resident aliens, like students or visitors who maybe earn some money in the states I think their tax status would also be different. As for illegal, they are usually paid under the table so I doubt they get taxed at all and would bother to file for anything.

The USA has a $25 trillion economy. That’s 25 followed by 12 zeroes.

$66 billion is about 0.0025% of that.

There’s also the fact that the Federal government has no revenue constraint. Its spending is the source for taxation. Tax payers don’t create money, as that would be illegal and called counterfeiting, and therefore cannot be the source of any government spending.

The proposal is not bad, and a step in the right direction. I would prefer more universal mortgage relief, and have mortgage lending strictly regulated and possibly only done by mutual organisations like the UK used to have with building societies.

@Kropotkin The government only pulls in around $4T – $5T in tax revenues each year. You can say we have a $25T economy, but that isn’t where these proposals are being funded from. And that tax revenue has to pay for everything. And right now they are spending about $2T more than they are bringing in. So $66B is nothing to sneeze at.

@seawulf575 The federal government has no need to bring in more money than it spends. It practically never has done, except in the 1920s, and we all know how that worked out.

@Kropotkin Of course it does. When they spend more than they bring in, that creates massive debt which then adds to their operating costs. They can get away with it right now because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. But if the debt gets too large to where they can’t even make the interest payments on it, the country basically defaults. At that point it will be the wild west in the world. Many countries would push to move away from the USD and onto something else. The USD then loses value massively and we end up in a huge depression that would make 1929 look like a hiccup. Look at the Weimar Republic, Argentina, Rwanda…all these countries basically defaulted and then had to print money like crazy…money that actually cause the valuation of itself to go down. The fact you want to avoid this discussion tells me you are not in for an honest and serious discussion.

@seawulf575 “When they spend more than they bring in, that creates massive debt which then adds to their operating costs”

No. It doesn’t. The accumulation of debt is based on the sale of bonds, treasury notes, etc, which are themselves created by fiat by the Department of Treasury, with any value they want. These financial assets act as a savings scheme for the private and foreign sectors. You have had this explained to you before.

This sale of assets in order to “finance” spending is itself a convention, as we know from recent history the central government can sell them to the central bank for money, and then have the central bank return or write off any interest payments on them.

“They can get away with it right now because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency.”

This has no bearing on anything. Every other major developed country in the world does exactly the same thing. The US has consistently run deficits since the end of the Great Depression. The UK has done for about 300 years.

” Look at the Weimar Republic, Argentina, Rwanda…all these countries basically defaulted and then had to print money like crazy”

Completely irrelevant examples. The US isn’t a country paying massive war reparations, nor does it have a poorly diversified economy, nor is it a poor African country relying on agricultural exports. The discussion isn’t even about external debt. The Weimar Republic also did not default, they resumed repaying reparations after they introduced a new currency and resolved the inflation issues.

The irony of the Weimar Republic is that their real problems came in the late 1920s with deflation, and Hitler, for all his terrible ills, understood macro economics (or at least his economic advisors did) better than any conservative politician today, and knew they had to have large deficit spending to get everyone employed and for the economy to grow.

“The fact you want to avoid this discussion tells me you are not in for an honest and serious discussion.”

Attempted goading and flame-baiting on your own question in general is pretty poor form. I’m having this discussion now, and I’m more than happy to address all your misconceptions and explain anything you want in detail.

@Kropotkin Yes, they sell bonds, t-notes, etc. But each of those has an interest to go with it. All you are doing is trying to split hairs. How they borrow the money (which is what bond’s etc are) is insignificant. They spent more than they made, hence a deficit.

Bury your head in the sand if you like, but don’t expect me to believe you. I have to turn a fan on…your hot air is too much.

You’ve not addressed anything I’ve written in any serious manner.

To summarise:

$66 billion is a drop in the ocean for the world’s largest economy.

Deficit spending is the historical norm for all developed nations for most of the last 100 years, and is actually a good thing.

Obama managed something like $10k, for 1st time buyers.
And that DID cost us money, but the economy was crashing, and the housing market was a big reason why.
It helped a LOT of Americans.

Trying to get a republican to back the program, would be the only real obstacle…