I love how they always talk about how much these things are ‘costing’ the government. It’s not costing the government ANYTHING to give this deduction to home owners–it just means that they can’t collect that much additional tax.
The presumption by some folks in government, as well as on main street, is that everyone’s entire income belongs to the government initially and anything they give you back (e.g. by reducing taxes) is a ‘gift’ that is costing them money.
I for one would probably sell my house and rent if they remove the mortgage deduction. Owning a home is expensive; maintenance costs are very high. If I lose the write off on that $28k I’m spending every year on mortgage interest that makes maintenance that much more cumbersome.
Screw it…no mortgage I don’t need to earn as much money so I can afford to take a much lower paying job….which of course means that it will probably be a wash WRT total tax they extract from me. Seems that they never consider this angle.