This idea that mortgage interest should be tax-deductible because interest income is taxed is quite silly, since it only reinforces the notion that the mortgage interest deduction is nothing more than a government subsidy. It is inherently unfair to provide a homeowner with an interest deduction that is not available to someone who pays other forms of interest on loans (auto loans, student loans, etc.).
If you have one penny in credit card debt you are an economic moron and your silly opinion on economic matters is worth the same as a roll of used toilet paper.
How much credit card debt do you have?
Meanwhile, I'm paying for a $200 million bridge to Nowhere, Alaska. I think the gov't can find the money between the couch cushions, but it's easier to screw us.
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Nonsense. home ownership is the single most important factor in any community's economic and societal stability. This has long been recognized and encouraged through the tax code.
Letting someone keep their own money is not a subsidy.
It is inherently unfair to provide a homeowner with an interest deduction that is not available to someone who pays other forms of interest on loans (auto loans, student loans, etc.).
If the tax only affects people who don't have the sense to structure their finances to avoid it (by paying the deductable type of interst instead of the non-deductable type), it's like the lottery -- a tax on stupidity. Since you get less of things you tax, a tax on stupidity is a social good.
Of course the bank would own the property because the decrease in value put the owner upside down just like the S/L debacle.