People also forget to factor in the standard deduction. A couple years ago my situation wrt mortgage interest, state taxes, and so on, was that by itemizing I would end up with a couple hundred more dollars in deductions than if I took the standard. So if I had paid off my house that year, it would have cost me say $200 in deductions and $60 in taxes, while saving $6000 in interest and several hours working on the deductions. Dave never seems to mention this point on the air and I think it would make it truly a no-brainer for a lot of people if he did.
Yep. A few years back, our mortgage interested dropped below the threshold where it made sense to itemize. Now tax time is extremely easy for us since we just take the standard.