President Bush wants to help 5.5 million Americans into homeownership by 2010. Sounds great, doesn�t it? Owning a home has long been considered part of the American dream. I long for the day where I can go out there and buy a house I can consider my own. However, the way President Bush wants to achieve this very laudable goal causes me great concern.
First, President Bush is targeting Blacks and Hispanics for this program. It is true that there is a gap between whites and some minorities in terms of homeownership. President Bush cited statistics that about 75% of white Americans own their own homes there only 50% of blacks and Hispanics own homes. This is a gap that needs to be addressed. Yet, how about the 25% of white Americans that are to be left in the lurch by this proposal? Are they going to be left behind?
Second, I am concerned where the funds are to come from for this program. It is a two-pronged funding program. One initiate is to provide tax credits to developers to build in depressed area. This would be the home construction equivalent of enterprise zones which has been effective in several of our urban areas. I don�t have a problem with this. What I DO have a problem with is the government taking $200 million from us in the taxes that we pay to help people with down payments. Bush wants to take the hard earned money of American citizens and put it into this down payment program. One of the largest factors in America today preventing people from saving for a down payment is the ever increasing tax burden. So, to help minorities with their down payments, money will be taken from us by the federal government, thereby taking away money we can use for down payments on houses, and give it to minorities. How am I going to save for a down payment when the government keeps taking my money? Can I appeal to the government for assistance when I can�t afford a down payment? Of course not, because I am white and my wife is Asian.
Whatever happened to the American notion of equal protection under the law? What about that wonderfully simple but profound statement in the Declaration of Independence that says �all men are created equal.� How about Ohio Representative John A. Brigham (author of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment) who said that the American people would �declare their purpose to stand by the foundation principle of their own institutions the absolute equality of all citizens of the United States politically and civilly before their own laws� through adoption of the fourteenth amendment?
President Bush, please reconsider how you want to do this. Do this in a way that will maintain the ideal of equal protections under the law. Don�t use the power of government to take away money we can use for our own down payments for homes. Don�t proceed in a way that betrays the principles of the Republican Party that calls for less direct government, not more.