WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Several senior House lawmakers expressed support Thursday for extending an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers to continue providing assistance to the still fragile U.S. housing market.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said an extension of the credit, which is set to expire on Dec. 1, along with other measures to help the fledgling economic recovery, are being considered by House leadership.
Pelosi said there is some consideration of extending the credit to all buyers purchasing a principal residence, but that no decisions had been made yet.
Two other members of the Democratic leadership team both said they would support an extension of the existing credit, but hadn't made up their minds as to whether they wanted to extend to a larger group of buyers.
Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and John Larson, D-Conn., said they wanted to see how much a wider tax credit would cost first.
Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the House's top tax writer, also said Thursday he supports extending the credit.
However, he said he doesn't believe eligibility should be expanded beyond first-time home buyers. "There's no question I think it should be extended. How long, I haven't discussed," Rangel told reporters outside his Capitol office.
A top Republican said the party would also be willing to consider measures that would help to create jobs.
Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the minority whip, said he had long supported both an extension of the home buyer credit to all principal residences, and he said he favors increasing the value of the credit to $15,000.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, said she wasn't in favor of an extension, saying it would cost too much taxpayer money and wasn't the most effective means of creating new jobs.
Instead, Slaughter said she thought Congress should pass a long-term extension of the Surface Transportation Board authority, which would direct hundreds of billions of dollars to road, bridge and sewer system construction and repair projects.
Other lawmakers, including Larson, echoed this call.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he supports an extension of the existing home buyer credit. It is unclear whether he would also vote for an increase in the its size or scope.
Pelosi said that other measures being considered include increasing the net operating loss carry-back for small businesses from two to five years, and allowing businesses to write off equipment purchases more quickly.
She said the list isn't an exhaustive one of the components lawmakers are considering, but illustrated the types of measures they are looking at to boost jobs.
Rangel said he was waiting to receive further guidance from the White House before talking publicly about other job-creation measures.
Every Democratic lawmaker interviewed for this article insisted they hadn't given up on the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed by Congress in February, saying they believed it had saved jobs, and would continue to create or save new jobs.
Cantor, on the other hand, said the fact that Democrats are considering spending more money to boost the job market was convincing evidence of the failure of the first stimulus plan.
(Martin Vaughan contributed to this article.)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-08-091515ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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