00                      SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 31                                                                    
01 Urging the United States Congress to permit the use of tax exempt bonds to fund loans                                   
02 for veterans who served after 1976.                                                                                     
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                               
04       WHEREAS in order to facilitate home ownership by veterans, five states, Alaska,                                 
05 California, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin, have chosen to offer state veterans' home loan                                
06 programs to resident veterans who have provided faithful service while in the U.S. armed                                
07 forces; and                                                                                                             
08       WHEREAS these programs have existed for many years and have assisted hundreds                                   
09 of thousands of veterans to obtain affordable housing and make better lives for themselves                              
10 and their dependents; and                                                                                               
11       WHEREAS current law that governs the use of the tax-exempt bonds used to fund                                   
12 these loans, contained in 26 U.S.C. 143(l)(4) (Internal Revenue Code), limits these programs                            
13 to only those veterans who served before 1977; and                                                                      
14       WHEREAS thousands of men and women have provided faithful service to our                                        
15 nation after 1976, serving in peacetime as well as in hostile military confrontations in                                
16 locations such as Beirut, Grenada, Latin America, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Bosnia; and                            

01       WHEREAS these veterans and their families are being, without basis, denied under                                
02 current law the opportunity to participate in these state veterans' home loan programs; and                             
03       WHEREAS the United States Congress has chosen to ignore the service freely given                                
04 since 1976 by these deserving men and women; and                                                                        
05       WHEREAS the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) administers the                                           
06 qualified veterans' mortgage program funded with the proceeds of tax-exempt debt under                                  
07 existing federal authorization; and                                                                                     
08       WHEREAS since 1983, the AHFC has issued $2,100,000,000 in veterans' mortgage                                    
09 bonds and anticipates the benefit to a new group of veterans to be well over $100,000,000 per                           
10 year; and                                                                                                               
11       WHEREAS the United States Congress is considering measures to extend the                                        
12 authorization to serve a new, large group of veterans that have served our country since 1977,                          
13 but unless the measures are enacted, the veterans' mortgage program will sunset due to a lack                           
14 of eligible participants; and                                                                                           
15       WHEREAS Alaska has approximately 70,000 veterans who could potentially use the                                  
16 lower interest rates from this program toward home ownership;                                                           
17       BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature respectfully urges the 107th                                   
18 United States Congress to support H.R. 959 and S. 97 to remove the discriminatory portion of                            
19 the Internal Revenue Code in order that veterans who served after 1976 and their families may                           
20 enjoy the same benefits as their earlier counterparts.                                                                  
21       COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable Trent Lott, Majority Leader                            
22 of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable Thomas Daschle, Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate; the                               
23 Honorable J. Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; the Honorable                                
24 Richard A. Gephardt, Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives; and to the                                   
25 Honorable Ted Stevens and the Honorable Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senators, and the                                         
26 Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative, members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.