It’s the second paragraph.
Not the end of his summary.
And he doesn’t clarify anywhere in the article that the statement is ‘wrong’.
How about this? Do you think he’s right about taxing capital gains and mortgage interest?
“Prominent among these wrongheaded advantages are the mortgage interest tax deduction and the exemption of real estate capital gains from taxable income.”
It's a comment that flows from his summary: he gives the "consensus" (which he knows is wrong) and comments that the left loves it (the "consensus") because it gives them the wedge they've been waiting for.
"Prominent among these wrongheaded advantages are the mortgage interest tax deduction and the exemption of real estate capital gains from taxable income. These policies create unnatural demand for home purchases and a (tax-free) incentive to speculate in real estate."
He merely points out that the governmment policies have been distorting the housing marking for a long time and that this is where it started. I doubt that he would advocate getting rid of them now in one fell swoop -- far too many people have done their planning and made sizable financial decisions and commitment based on them. But -- as Rush has pointed out -- it's still gov't interference in what should be a free market.
(Rush further speculated that housing prices would be significantly lower without the mortgage deduction; demand would be lower, for one thing, without the buyers who make the commitment not because they want a house, but because the mortgage deduction is too good too pass up, and -- of course -- real estate speculation would be much less attractive.)
You're free to like and approve of the tax advantanges, but you can't rationally deny that they're government manipulation of the market. Getting rid of them now would be widely unpopular and they're probably the main obstacle (in practical terms) to getting to a flat tax.