New CBO Report Puts TARP Costs at $19 Billion; Housing Programs at 68% of that Total.

New CBO report is HERE. CBO estimates: 

"... that the cost to the federal government of the TARP’s transactions (also referred to as the subsidy cost), including grants for mortgage programs that have not been made yet, will amount to $19 billion....Costs for mortgage programs were about $1.2 billion through the end of February, but CBO anticipates that the TARP ultimately will disburse a total of $13 billion for those programs. "

Hardest Hit Programs, 42% of TARP Costs?

While mortgage programs total of $13 billion is clear, CBO is not clear whether it expects subtotal of $8 billion allocated to states for Hardest Hit programs to be used; if it is it would represent 42% of all TARP costs.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Termination of FHA Short Refinance Program Clears House, with Oregon's Schrader Joining Republicans.

The House passed a bill (HR 830) that would terminate the FHA short refinance program.  The vote was largely along party lines with some Democrats joining the Republican majority, including Oregon Rep Curt Schrader.  

The Administration says that they will veto the bill if it is passed by the Senate.

The CBO cost estimate for this bill HERE says that the program costs $13,000 per mortgage, that it would eliminate 13,000 possible refinances, and save $175 million from 2011-2021:

As of January 31, 2011, about 40 loans have been refinanced under the program. Based on data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, CBO estimates that the refinanced loans cost the government an average of $13,000 on a present- value basis. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 830 would prevent the refinancing of about 13,000 mortgages under the program. In total, CBO estimates that enacting the bill would reduce direct spending by $175 million over the 2011-2021 period.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Update--Off Topic: CBO Says Military Regular Compensation Higher than Federal Civilian Compensation.

Update--
Officer Level Compensation Comparison Groups
To clarify, for the officer level vs civil service compensation comparison all officers with two years experience were included while civil service group selected only included college graduates. These groupings were apparently selected because report noted that almost all military officers are four year college graduates.
===
New CBO report is HERE; graphs on pages 7 and 8 show comparisons for enlisted personnel and officers. CBO's conclusion: 

For any given number of years of work experience, median cash compensation for enlisted personnel was at least as high as the 75th percentile of earnings for federal workers with comparable work experience. In other words, the typical enlisted person receives more cash compensation than three-quarters of comparable federal civilians...for commissioned officers with two years of experience or more exceeds the 75th percentile of cash compensation of federal workers with four-year college degrees .. That disparity between officers’ and civilian employees’ cash compensation grows with increasing years of experience, and the disparity for officers exceeds the disparity for enlisted personnel.

Non cash and deferred benefits were NOT included in the comparison; If these costs were included, relative military compensation would be even HIGHER: 

[for the military]...the value of noncash and deferred benefits adds 100 percent to cash compensation....noncash and deferred benefits [for civil service members] add about 55 percent to the value of cash pay, or about half as much as military personnel receive....Survey data collected by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in the national income and product accounts suggest that noncash and deferred benefits add about 75 percent to the cash pay of military personnel and about 50 percent to the cash pay of federal civilians.

(Of course, there is that other military /civilian difference of overseas deployment, separation from your family, and getting shot at and blowed up).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CBO Cost Estimate: TARP Costs Now Projected at $25 Billion, Far Below Frequently Cited $700 Billion.

In a prior post in early October HERE I reported that Treasury was projecting that TARP costs would be $51 billion, far less than the $700 billion frequently cited. (Housing costs were projected at $46 billion of that $51 billion).

The CBO has issued a NEW cost projection HERE saying that TARP will actually end up costing only $25 billion, with $12  billion of that for housing programs.

CBO says that their $12 billion in estimated TARP housing costs are significantly below the $46 billion projected by Treasury because: 

The difference between those two estimates stems primarily from disparate outlooks on the number of eligible households and the participation rate among those households.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HIGHEST Recommendation: CBO Releases Mother of All Reports on Federal Housing Spending.

The CBO has released what will I hope will be one of the most widely read reports ever on Federal spending for housing. The report focuses on FY 2009 and provides a detailed listing of programs and spending from the various sources of funding for home ownership and rental housing. The reports money conclusion:

In fiscal year 2009, the federal government devoted almost four times the amount of budgetary resources to supporting home ownership (about $230 billion) as it devoted to improving rental affordability ($60 billion).

The CBO report, the underlying data (an Excel worksheet) and a blog post from the CBO Director can all be found on the CBO web page for this report HERE.

I will update this post if anything specific results from after I fully digest all the data.

I cannot recommend this report to you more highly--it is the most current, comprehensive, objective, concise summary of federal spending for housing I have ever seen. (and I ain't no spring chicken).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Housing Related Items from New CBO Report on Budget Options.

The Congressional Budget Office has published a new volume for Congress showing possible budget options (spending reductions and revenue increases) that could help reduce the budget deficit.

From their 284 page document HERE, I have culled 12 spending and revenue options related to housing. The resulting 15 page PDF is HERE.

Biggest 10 year housing savings would be from converting home mortgage deduction to a tax credit: $387.6 Billion. (See "Option 7").

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: 3 Health Care Items.

Maybe something will finally happen with health care this year.
Three most recent developments.

1. Walmart supports mandatory employer coverage.WaPo story HERE.
   
2. AMA says a "public option" could be part of solution and suggests using federal employees health plan instead of creating new plan. (Editorial comment: FEHB really isn't public plan, but a version of of employer provided health care plan with multiple private sources offering packages at differing costs/features within overall minimum guidelines). CNN story HERE.
   
3. Leak says new CBO letter projects health care reform costs, with public plan, about $600 billion, NOT a trillion. AP story HERE.

Originally created and posted on the OREGON HOUSING BLOG.

CBO on Federal Budget: COLA's Will Cost 1/2 Trillion LESS Over Next 10 Years ; No COLA's at ALL for 2010-2012.

Yeah, I know this is NOT exactly a housing post, but it's a weird factoid related to deflation that I picked up looking at the most recent CBO budget projection HERE and it will impact future rent affordability for seniors with fixed incomes.

CBO report says (pg.20 ):

" CBO has reduced estimated outlays by $500 billion for federal retirement and benefit
programs, including Social Security, because projected cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) have fallen since January. No COLA's are currently projected for such programs from 2010 through 2012; the COLA would amount to less than 2 percent in all future years (an average of 0.8 percentage points below CBO’s previous projections for years after 2011). "

This all is triggered by some good or bad timing for the 2009 COLA's (depending on whether you are receiving or paying), which were computed based on summer 08 quarter when gas prices spiked. The resulting 5.8% COLA increase was the largest since early 1980's.

In re lack of future COLA's for 2010-2012, idea is that future adjustments will not occur until costs exceed summer 08 levels, which CBO apparently projects will not happen until summer of 2012 (resulting in a modest 2013 increase).

Full Recovery Bill Conference Report from Congressional Record.

The recovery bill Conference Committee Report (111-16) from the Congressional Record HERE is the first in which text can be searched (it's 200+pages); it does not include the bill text itself, which is yet to be available on Thomas.

(CBO Cost Estimate for final bill is HERE).

Cross Post: GI Educational Benefits Now 54% Below Vietnam Era Inflation Adjusted Benefit Level.

Cross post from my Open Government News and Issues, Oregon Blog HERE.

CBO Director Blogs on Cost of H.R. 5830--It's $2.7 Billion Over 6 Years.

Correction: Earlier post indicated five year estimate, 2008-2013 is six years, not five.

Turns out that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director has a blog, and a recent post HERE summarizes the CBO cost estimate for H.R. 5830, the FHA Stabilization bill recently approved by the House Financial Services Committee. Post says total cost of bill is $2.7 Billion over 6 years and that 500,000 families would be helped over that time period.

The CBO blog post includes a link to the detailed 10 page CBO cost estimate, in a PDF file HERE.