We're from the government and we're here to help.
If this thing gets to be law it should be called the Elect Democratrs Act of 2006.
This provision, providing a 15% credit on reduced mortgage interest amounts, is bull---- and is effectively a tax increase. My wife and I bust our rear ends, working on average 60 to 70 hours a week each, to make 200K.
With private school tuition of 25K per year, which we get NO tax credits for, while at the same time saving the public school system $ by not having our two children in their system, one of the few breaks we get for being in an effective 50% tax bracket (state and federal) is to take a mortgage deduction on our office, home, and vacation home.
For years we have been subsidizing other folks by paying at the top end scale of the graduated tax rates, BUT we haven't been making HUGE amounts of money. I consider ourselves, given the amount of time that we bust our tails, "upper middle class"
This proposal would appear to be a tax HIKE to us. Our real estate has been our chosen retirement plan. We are self-employed and by the time we were planning on slowing down (i.e. 40 hour weeks) we were hoping to have it all paid off.
Our investment decisions were made on the basis of getting this one, time honored, tax break.
Why they don't just simply go to a national sales tax (ala Bortz) is beyond me. I have not done a final number crunching, and I don't want to sound anti-rich, but this proposal seems to favor both the lower and higher income brackets but unfortunately, squeezes once again the middle class.
And yes, 200K per year in combined income for a professional couple in this day and age is middle class, albeit upper-middle class. People have to remember, many individuals make this income later in life because they spent years in graduate school foregoing income in their twenties, and racking up student loans.