Rare Congressional hope

This week’s unusual round of bipartisan effort among members of Congress toward avoiding fits, starts and shutdowns in setting federal budgets has potential for boosting confidence in the overall economy. That would be a welcome development in Pitt County, where home sales and average values were down in October.

In a story Wednesday that detailed Pitt County’s lower averages regarding existing home sales, values and the number of building permits issued in the past year, an East Carolina University economist tied the numbers to unemployment and the divisive nature of politics in Washington.

“Mortgage rates are still at low levels, but we haven’t had the demand for housing to take advantage of those rates,” said Jim Kleckley, economist with the Bureau of Business Research at ECU. “People tend to be very conservative now, waiting to see what happens with the employment situation and the overall economy.”

Despite some upward movement in home sales across the state, Kleckley said Pitt County is on the low end of that activity. He cautioned residents here not to expect significant growth in home sales until the political climate changes in Washington.

Kleckley’s analysis barely preceded the most encouraging sign of bipartisan cooperation to come out of Washington in recent memory. A budget plan worked out by a special committee would ease automatic spending cuts known as sequestration by $40 billion in 2014 and $20 billion in 2015. The plan announced Wednesday sets spending at $1.01 trillion for this fiscal year and projects to cut the federal deficit by $23 billion over 10 years.

Tea party-backed Republicans in Congress are fighting the plan, however, arguing that it commits the cardinal sin of increasing the size of government. They are right to argue for cutting the size and waste of government. They are wrong to be uncompromising in their efforts toward reaching that objective, setting a pace that threatens to effectively keep hard-working families on their heels financially by preventing stability.

Too many dual-income families are working hard — against the tide of inflation — just to pay down little more than the interest on home mortgages. Some remain “under water” on mortgages from the housing bubble collapse while most are looking at break-even prospects at best.

The housing market is, of course, only one area in need of positive economic movement. Progress on all economic fronts will continue to stagnate if Congress fails to seize upon this window of opportunity for restoring confidence — in government and the economy — among taxpayers.