“You obviously don’t know many people.”
I tried my hand at doing taxes for other people. Did about 400 total over a couple of years, so I probably have seen more tax returns from average families than you have.
I’ve explained WHY the mortgage deductible actually doesn’t do much for very many people. And that is with the CURRENT $12,600 standard deduction. If Trump raises the standard deduction to $24,000, then almost no one in the middle class will be harmed by losing the mortgage interest deduction.
What is middle class? It depends on definitions, but Business Insider says it ranges from $72,000 - $145,000 in Maryland down to $38,000-76,000 in Mississippi. I’m in Arizona, and I chose a figure about the median for AZ - $50,000.
http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-in-every-us-state-2015-4
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/acs/acsbr13-02.pdf
But if increasing the standard deduction to $24,000 and cutting out the mortgage interest deduction is going to harm you, then you live somewhere very expensive. I don’t know what percentage of families pay both more than 10% of their adjusted gross income in out of pocket medical bills AND pay $1500+/month in mortgage INTEREST - but it isn’t many.
If you live in Maryland...well, MOVE!
BTW - I am not a fan of the EITC. It is welfare, and should be handled as such.
I DO live in an expensive state and so do many, many others, who WILL suffer from not being able to deduct them.
That's an awfully LOW threshold, in Maryland, for what is "wealthy" and even more so, for Mississippi; but then, I did know that Mississippi was a poor state.
Is it really THAT lows in Arizona? GOSH....