The Senate Should Pass Cornyn's Housing Bill

The current exemption of $250,000 single and $500,000 married has not been updated since 1997 and is not indexed for inflation.

Stephen Moore: Unleash Prosperity Hotline – The House and Senate are at loggerheads over the Senate- passed housing bill and its controversial provisions that restricts building single-family homes for rental purposes. The president is now urging the House to act, but Speaker Johnson is insisting on changes.  

Whether that bill advances or not, there is another bill we like better: Senator John Cornyn's More Homes on the Market Act, which would double the capital gains tax exemption for primary residences and index it for inflation moving forward. The current exemption of $250,000 single and $500,000 married has not been updated since 1997 and is not indexed for inflation.

That's similar to an idea Jeff Yass and Steve Moore proposed in the WSJ several months ago.

But even the Cornyn bill misses the heart of the strike zone. The bill should index ALL home sales for past inflation. This would incentive millions of home sales and RAISE $100 billion for the government, while allowing young families to buy from a larger inventory of homes,  at lower prices. It also isn’t fair to tax older Americans on inflationary gains.

Cornyn's bill has strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate. We would prefer a broader capital gains inflation indexing bill, but this one at least should be an easy lift.