Guest columnist Matt Towery put forth a weak argument in favor of extending the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that was set to expire at the end of month, claiming that it and the costly Cash for Clunkers program are “in no way the same” (“A conservative ‘stimulus’ that worked as promised, Rome News-Tribune, Oct. 24).

Towery claimed that in contrast to the income redistribution of Cash for Clunkers, the homebuyer tax credit “let[s] taxpayers keep some extra dollars in their pockets, instead of having to send them to the government.” 

Yet, according to estimates by the Brookings Institute, taxpayers are actually shelling out $43,000 for each sale generated by the tax credit. This is because more than 85 percent of the 1.9 million homebuyers who received the tax credit would have bought a home without it.  Thanks to the program, taxpayers are stuck with a $15 billion bill — twice what Congress intended — for only about 350,000 home sales generated solely by the tax credit.

In short, Cash for Clunkers and the first-time homebuyer tax credit are both poorly-targeted subsidies towards purchases that would have been made anyway. 

Sen. Johnny Isakson, sponsor of a new proposal to increase and extend the tax credit, would do well to cut taxpayers a break and scrap the proposal.

SHAWN REGAN, Mount Berry