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Originally Posted by Rajoo
So why give a tax break to those who don't need it since you argue that my second home, or for that matter primary home need not be subsidized? Even worse is calling it a "Middle class tax cut" while only the top 1%, actually the top 0.1% benefited. And where did the money come from?
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I'm not espousing or denigrating favorable tax treatment of mortgage interest. It's an example of using the tax code for social engineering, period.
At some point, it was determined in DC that incentivizing home ownership was a good thing. Fine, it's a nice idea. But to use the tax code as the vehicle for incentivizing home ownership is crazy. That's not what the tax code is for. Using the tax code in this manner begets arguments about who "needs a tax break" and who doesn't. Those types of debates are the symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
The disease is the tax code itself, and the carriers of the disease are our elected representatives. They've convinced us that taxes need to both fund the government, but also "use" the tax code to accomplish specific objectives, most of which are self-serving. They then invite debates about "tax fairness" because such debates distract from the bigger picture issue of the dysfunctional tax system.