First they started taking about "nationalizing" people's 401(k)'s, now they want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction. From
QandO:
You crank up Turbo Tax and you begin doing your taxes. About half way through, the sweat is beginning to form on your upper lip. You wonder, after all that’s been withheld during the year, how you could owe what TT says you owe at the top of the screen.
Then you get to the deduction phase and you plug in your mortgage interest deduction. Suddenly your angst disappears. The amount owed tumbles, in fact, it might even go in a positive direction. Thanks goodness.
Well, Bunky, if the President’s commission on have their way, that sweaty upper lip will be a permanent fixture for your tax preparation work day. They don’t like it, they’d rather eliminate it than any spending, and they’re talking about doing away with it:
And now that sentiment has turned against all the federal red ink — and cost-cutting is in vogue — Democrats on President Barack Obama’s financial commission are considering the wisdom of permanent tax breaks such as the mortgage deduction and corporate deferral. Calling them “tax entitlements,” senior Democratic lawmakers have argued they should be on the table for reform just like traditional entitlement programs Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.
I can’t imagine a more unpopular thing to do for a citizenry and electorate that already feels hard pressed when it comes to taxes. And comparisons with the taxation levels in other countries really has no bearing, since it is the level of taxation the citizens of this country are willing to bear that matters. And they’ve made it plain that they feel they pay plenty in that department.
First off, Social Security and Medicare are not "entitlement" programs, they are social insurance programs, which is the reason why there is a separate FICA withholding from everyone's paycheck. Entitlements are means tested payments, while social insurance benefits are determined by the payments we make into them. To treat Social Security as if it were the government giving everyone charity is simply false. However, pro=government thugs want to dispense with such legal niceties and make everything income tax and thus make everyone beholden to the Federal government. They want power, as usual.
Which, of course, is the reason why they are turning against the idea of home ownership for average Americans as well. It used to be we valued the ability of Americans to be self-sufficient, at least as an ideal. Thomas Jefferson held up the model of the yeoman farmer, a self-sufficient individual who took care of himself and, when dire circumstance called, defended the country as a citizen soldier. An integral part of such a vision was the idea that the citizen would own property including his own home.
This ideal is, of course, a difficult one to realize universally, but the incentives in the tax code were put in place to make it more of a reality than it otherwise might have been. This is a reality which is anathema to the current "liberal" understanding which no longer believes in the abilities of average Americans to be free upstanding citizens. To the new overlords, the average American is something like a wild untamable but fundamentally weak beast which must be managed, much like a herd of bison. If people begin to believe they can and should look after themselves, well, that is the great danger for this view. It threatens everything the Democrats hold sacred. Namely power.
