[Alberta's Child]

This kind of measure would really screw a lot of homeowners. The ones who stand to lose the most are those in suburban areas of the Northeast where property taxes are the highest. Eliminating the interest deduction would mean that these people would lose an enormous tax benefit at the same time escalating property taxes make these homes damn near "worthless" (from a net income/cost standpoint) anyway -- which means a lot of these homeowners are going to find themselves owing a lot of money on homes they can't sell.

[Senator Bedfellow]

Thank Uncle Sucker for that. My point is that the home-interest subsidy, as all subsidies do, artificially inflates the price of housing beyond what it would be in the absence of such subsidies - mortgage lenders are not fools, and as soon as they figure out that you can pay more, you will pay more.

Anyway, what do I care? That's someone else's problem, since I don't own a house or have a mortgage at the moment - I'm currently shopping, and the prospect of shaving 20% off the front end sure sounds fine to me ;)

[chris1]

I live in NYC and am in the process of trying to relocate my business down south. The writing is on the wall. Both parties have declared war on the taxpayer.

[fuzzthatwuz]

Ah yes, property taxes. The ripple effect of this proposal will deflate real estate values, whereby an informed property owner has no recourse but to challange the current assessed valuation of property.The assessor will be hard pressed to maintain the current level of valuation. Local government is going to suffer.Their budgets have kept pace with the inflated housing market.We should expect employee layoffs and a marked reduction in services if this ridiculous proposal is adopted. No politician who wants to remain in office will support such madness.