Done. I'm buying my first home, and any little bit of deduction helps. Homeownership is a big responsibility, especially financial. And homeownership drives this economy, like it or not.
This is a tax break for the upper reaches. Your ordinary civilian will never hit the threshold to itemize, whether or not they're paying on a mortgage.
If taxes must go up, limits on the deductions for mortgage interest make sense as a way to raise taxes. Too much is being spent on housing as it is. Houses are too big, too energy intensive, and too far flung. This is not the fault of the poor; it's a feature of upper and upper middle class life.
If you want to preserve a tax break that sometimes trickles down to helping the upper middle a bit, there are other and better ways to do it.
I think there should be a homeowner's mortgage deduction - within certain limits. Purchasing a house as a primary residence would get the full tax break, and even a second "summer" home I would have no major problem with some tax relief on.
That being said, currently there are tax loopholes that allow people like mortgage "flippers" or other property investors to pay little to no taxes on what in some cases is hundreds of millions of dollars in annual transactions - which in turn gives those individuals six to seven-figure incomes with next to zero tax burden. This type of "gaming" of the system needs to be addressed.
edit:
Ugh. Looking at the poster's history, it appears that the account was created yesterday specifically to hype their own webpage.
This is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title and text already filled in.
All of which brings you back to one central point: if you care about the integrity of elections and people actually being able to vote, the supposed cures for vote fraud are vastly more destructive than the problem. All evidence suggests that vote fraud is a minuscule, minuscule problem. Voter ID and most of the other nostrums are solutions looking for a problem. ...
More: Fox News Host Tells Listeners to Punch Obama Voters 'In the Face' A host of the Fox News show The Five was so angry that the Justice Department had investigated one of the network’s reporters that she told her viewers on Thursday to find anyone who voted for President Barack Obama and “punch them in the face.” “Fox said, we’re targets, clearly ...
Here's a disturbing story out of Josephine County, OR. A woman calls 911 to report that her abusive ex is trying to break in to her house to hurt her. 911 dispatcher says "Sorry, no cops, can't afford..." seattle.cbslocal.com “Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there,” the 911 dispatcher told the woman. “You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and ...
Only the best of leaders dare to reduce the powers of their office or government. I applaud the effort in the strongest terms. Please support these changes with your own Congressman or Senator. While Obama would not declare an end to the war on terrorism, Obama offered to work with Congress to constrain some of his own authorities for waging it, reflecting what he ...
. . . and that is why he is so sure of the 'miracle of the emaculate conception'". The Atlantic's Hugo Schwyzer has a theory: that masturbation, as the most common sex act, is the heart of modernity's war between Christianity and secularism. Many progressives were bewildered by Antonin Scalia's blistering 2003 dissent in Lawrence v Texas, in which he warned that state laws ...
This wooden trestle was 103 years old but, hey, we're fired up about business in Texas, thanks to low taxes and minimum regulation. A fire toppled a railroad bridge like it was made of dominoes outside the small town of San Saba, Texas. Members of the Lometa, Texas, volunteer fire department arrived on the scene, but they could only contain the fire and ...
LA RUANA, Mexico -- The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror. The Knights Templar cartel is extorting protection payments from cattlemen, lime growers and businesses such as butchers, prompting some communities to fight back, ...
Pope Francis rocked some religious and atheist minds today when he declared that everyone was redeemed through Jesus, including atheists. During his homily at Wednesday Mass in Rome, Francis emphasized the importance of "doing good" as a principle that unites all humanity, and a "culture of encounter" to support peace. Using scripture from the Gospel of Mark, Pope Francis explained how upset Jesus' ...
While remodeling his newly purchased home in Elbow Lake, Minn., David Gonzalez noticed something unusual amid the old newspapers that had been used as wall insulation. It was a copy of Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, the very first comic to feature the granddaddy of all superheroes, Superman. StarTribune.com spoke with Gonzalez about his amazing find as well as a subsequent family ...
"The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don't trust the Republicans," Cruz said. "
More: Ted Cruz: 'I Don't Trust the Republicans'
. . . before the trial? Calling attention to this material and playing it up in the press is a public-relations strategy, law experts say. "No judge will allow this to be a trial of whether the victim is a bad person," O'Donnell says, "but it can color the whole trial - it can color the judge's view of the victim and can affect ...
Ignore all the comments on the YouTube site
Between Jesus Christ Superstar and Jesus of Montreal (check out those movies!), I got a better feel for a blessed man than some weird-ass demigod...
The editing of the Ben Stein interview with Richard Dawkins is analysed in my video "Golden Crocoduck nominees 2012 (Part 3)" at Youtube Video
The uncut version of the Comfort interview shown in this video can be found at:
"I would murder for free" Youtube Video
The dishonestly edited version of the same video is at:"Genius -- the movie"Youtube Video
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) brushed away a question about Latinos working in his administration during a roundtable discussion at The Union League in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Friday, telling the moderator, "If you can find us one let me know": MODERATOR: Do you have staff members that are Latino? CORBETT: No, we do not have any staff members in there. If you can ...
Tesla haters just lost another quiver in their dwindling arsenal. The upstart electric automaker has paid off the entirety of its Department of Energy loan -- a whopping $451.8M -- and did it nine years ahead of schedule. "I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the [Advanced Technology ...
More: $40 for Case of Bottled Water? 'Preying' on Oklahoma Tornado Victims Investigators with the Oklahoma Attorney General's office have already uncovered evidence of businesses taking advantage of the recent tornado's devastation by price-gouging in the weather-ravaged region, including a grocery store accused of charging consumers $40 for a case of water. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told ABC News that 30 investigators from ...
Duke University engineers have developed a novel method for producing clean hydrogen, which could prove essential to weaning society off of fossil fuels and their environmental implications. While hydrogen is ubiquitous in the environment, producing and collecting molecular hydrogen for transportation and industrial uses is expensive and complicated. Just as importantly, a byproduct of most current methods of producing hydrogen is carbon monoxide, ...
"Christians should stop wielding religion as a tool of oppression, write Evette Dionne at Clutch magazine." The following is from a link from this article at The Root: YouTube She continued, "That is not a godly energy you're giving off now! I don't understand being so saturated in a dogma and a theology that you would not embrace your sister in her deepest need ...
It has long been part of the Washington game for officials to discredit a news story by playing up errors in a relatively small part of it. Pfeiffer gives the impression that GOP operatives deliberately tried to "smear the president" with false, doctored e-mails. But the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes ...
Obesity is on the rise-- as is the incidence of Heart Disease, Diabetes, Stroke and various forms of Cancer. And, shockingly, diseases that had in the past begun in old age are now appearing at much earlier ages. A groundbreaking scientific study showed how easily (and inexpensively) the rate of occurrence of these and other serious illness could be greatly reduced-- but this information ...