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SENATE
JOINT MEMORIAL 8019
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Passed
Legislature - 1998 Regular Session
State of Washington 55th
Legislature 1998 Regular Session
By
Read first time 01/19/98.
Referred to Committee on Financial Institutions, Insurance & Housing.
Requesting
federal funds for housing finance.
TO
THE HONORABLE WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO
THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS
ASSEMBLED:
We,
your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of
Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and
petition as follows:
WHEREAS,
The policy of the state of Washington is to assure the health, safety, and
welfare of its citizens; and
WHEREAS,
An adequate supply of tax-exempt private activity bond volume cap is essential
and critically important in financing affordable, decent first-time home
ownership opportunities and low-income and moderate-income rental housing in
this state and the nation, as well as several other critically important
purposes that contribute to the well-being of the citizens of the state; and
WHEREAS,
An adequate supply of low-income housing tax credits is essential and
critically important to financing affordable, decent, rental housing units that
contribute to the well-being of the citizens of the state; and
WHEREAS,
The United States Congress, in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, established
restrictions on tax-exempt private activity municipal bonds, effective January
1, 1988, that imposed a limit, based on each state's population, not to exceed
the greater of fifty dollars per capita per calendar year, but failed to
include an automatic inflationary multiplier to ensure that the purchasing
power of this resource did not become diluted; and
WHEREAS,
The amount of tax-exempt private activity bonding for this state is inadequate
to meet the tax-exempt private activity financing demands of the state of
Washington, and its agencies and political subdivisions; and
WHEREAS,
The United States Congress, in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, established
restrictions on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit that imposed a limit based on
each state's population to be equal to one dollar and twenty-five cents per
capita per calendar year, but failed to include an automatic inflationary
multiplier to ensure that the purchasing power of this resource did not become
diluted; and
WHEREAS,
Since 1987 the effects of annual inflation have diluted the purchasing power of
Washington's tax-exempt private activity bonding cap and the low-income housing
tax credits by forty-six percent; and
WHEREAS,
Such loss has been devastating to the ability of this state and the nation to
provide adequate, affordable housing opportunities to its lower-income
constituents by reducing nearly in half the number of single-family housing
units and multifamily rental housing units available and affordable to the
ever-increasing number of lower-income, first-time home buyers and renters in Washington,
thus causing many of these families to remain in substandard or expensive
housing, among other negative impacts; and
WHEREAS,
If the state and its agencies and political subdivisions continue to be unable
to provide adequate levels of tax-exempt private activity bond financing and
low-income housing tax credit financing for these purposes, the health, safety,
and welfare of the citizens of the state of Washington will be further
negatively impacted;
NOW,
THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the United States Congress
increase immediately the tax-exempt private activity bond volume cap and the
allocation of low-income housing tax credits available to each state, including
Washington, to levels that would fully restore the tax-exempt private activity
bond volume cap purchasing power and the low-income housing tax credit
purchasing power of each state, including Washington, to levels that would
offset the diluted effects of inflation since 1987, and index increases for
these resources to inflation in future years.
BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately
transmitted to the Honorable William J. Clinton, President of the United
States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.
