WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate will likely drop a measure to issue additional tax-exempt mortgage bonds from its fiscal stimulus package, but the bonds will appear in a future bill, the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress told Reuters on Wednesday.
Schumer said members of the Republican Party oppose changing the bond program, even though President George W. Bush has also suggested modifying it to spur the economy .
State and local governments can use tax-exempt mortgage bonds to provide low-interest-rate new mortgages, but they are limited in how many bonds they can issue each year.
The House of Representatives did not include the bonds in the stimulus package it passed last week. Bush, though, suggested lifting the cap by $15 billion over three years in the budget he sent to Congress this week.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
