YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT BUILD BACK BETTER
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
Last week we asked you for your questions about Build Back Better, the extensive Democratic agenda bill which passed the House of Representatives last week. And you delivered. If only Congress worked as quickly.
Let’s tackle a couple.
What’s this about down payment aid?
Charlotte Rae wrote: "A question immediately came to mind when I read that one part of the bill involves grants of 10,000 to 20,000 dollars to enable people to put a down payment on a home. How would this be different from the experience we had before the crash in 2008? Wouldn't it increase the chances that people would buy homes they cannot afford?”
First, some quick background.
What is this about? A program called “first-generation downpayment assistance.”
Where is it? Section 40201. That’s page 820 of the original committee print of the bill.
What does this program do exactly? Lay it out, please. Of course. This portion of the bill offers to fund downpayment for people who are first-time homebuyers and whose parents do not currently own a home. The government will provide either $20,000 or 10 percent of the purchase price to help the buyer raise the down payment.
What does “first-generation” mean?: The term, while used in the title of this program, is not a perfect descriptor. The bill, as currently written, would fund down payments for first-time homebuyers whose parents do not currently own a home.
Who else would it help? Anyone who has ever been placed in the foster system. Overall, this program aims at equity, expanding the opportunity for family wealth and especially housing wealth to groups that have faced either discrimination or hurdles specific to their status in gaining homeownership in the past.
Any other criteria? Yes. This is means-tested for income. This means buyers would need to earn no more than 140 percent of the average local income.
How much would this cost? The bill sets aside $10 billion.
This brings us to Charlotte’s question.
Could this program increase the risk that people who cannot afford mortgages will get them, and -- as the question implies -- end up not paying? This is a new program, and as such, it is not clear how it would ripple across society and the economy. That said, legislators considered this issue when creating this benefit and added some guardrails. To qualify for the down payment help, homebuyers would need to complete a housing counseling program. In addition, this program targets down payments. Banks would still need to approve that borrowers have the finances to handle monthly mortgage payments. Any miscalculation there would be on the banks’ part. And finally, the bill also funds $5 billion to subsidize the loans for these buyers.
What happened to dental care?
Lee Kodel wrote on a different topic: "Was dental included? I know not one single person that has decent dental! That’s healthcare too!”
What is this about? Millions of American adults over 65 years old do not have dental coverage. It is not covered by Medicare. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has pushed unrelentingly for a change so that Medicare would cover some, if not most, dental benefits.
But was it included? No.
How much would it have cost? In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that coverage of dental needs for everyone on Medicare would cost $238 billion over 10 years.
More details, please: Progressives who wanted this expansion, including Sanders, simply could not get enough swing members of Congress behind it to make it a legislative reality. As Democrats shrank their $3.5 trillion initial vision down to the current $1.75 trillion, dental coverage was among the cuts.
What about hearing benefits? That did make the House draft. There is an expansion of these benefits in Medicare so the program would cover visits for hearing checks and a new hearing aid once every five years.
WE WANT YOUR QUESTIONS!
What do you want to know about the current draft of the Build Back Better plan? You can reach us at [email protected].
