Ok, everybody breathe. 

It is a new year and the trauma, anxiety, uncertainty, tumult, advocacy …… of tax reform is behind us. We survived although not undamaged and now we must assess the affect on our programs and game plan an agenda that not only makes us whole again, but enhances the resources for affordable housing.

I will not waste precious finger tapping to relive the final two months of the year which resulted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. I will spend these few strokes to thank you sincerely for your efforts that secured what we all consider a successful end result, especially considering where we were headed in early December. Instead I will use this space to update you on where we are now and what we are working on to expand our resources.

As most of you know, our House Republican champion, Pat Tiberi, retired from the House effective January 15th. Mr. Tiberi was a true champion and shepherd our program to many successes (9% fixed credit) while helping us broaden the base of support for the program. We are very appreciative of his service and leadership. The identity of our future champion remains a bit muddled as pursuant to conversations with Mr. Tiberi we thought our lead sponsor would be Congressman Kenny Marchant (R-TX), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and a long time supporter of the program. He was going to be backed up by Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), a junior member of the committee. To everyone’s surprise, Mr. Curbelo assumed the mantle of lead sponsor of H.R. 1661 by having himself replace Mr. Tiberi on the bill. We are working through this occurrence with both congressmen and hope to have a resolution as to who will be the lead in the House shortly. It is nice being fought over.

In the Senate, we are very excited to have Lara Muldoon fill the shoes left by the premature retirement from Senator Cantwell’s staff of Artie Mandel. Artie will be missed and we hope you fine folks in CA treat him well. Lara is a dynamo and wasted little time getting us energized to get action on the Cantwell/Hatch bill. Our Action policy committee has a weekly call with Lara and we are already working on potentially amending S. 548 to account for the effect of the tax bill and lower corporate rate on the LIHTC. It could be a new bill so stay tuned. We are laser focused on attaching our legislation to any possible tax vehicle that may present itself and Senator Cantwell and Senator Hatch are determined to get this done. As we work on a possible iteration of S. 548 we are also seeking support from Republican Senators both on the Finance Committee and off it so when the time comes to move it as part of another tax vehicle, the support exists to go to Senator McConnell and encourage its inclusion. In short, our advocacy never ends and we need all hands on deck to solidify support for our affordable housing agenda. 

As for the budget, we are somewhat confident they will pass an omnibus budget and believe it will include the Senate numbers for HUD. There is waning support for the Budget Control Act of 2011 and growing support for busting the spending caps and increasing discretionary and military spending by like amounts. There is no predicting how the coming budget (immigration) battle will play out but with the slim Republican majority in the Senate, it is unlikely cuts to the discretionary side will ensue.

So much left unsaid but I am always available if you have questions so until next month, thank you again for being great advocates and housers, and Happy New Year.