Homeownership has come to be viewed as an integral part of The American Dream, and tax policy is just one way that politicians have sought to promote it. The mortgage interest deduction is the second most expensive tax subsidy, second only to the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance. In this week’s Tax Policy Podcast, Dennis Ventry, a law professor at the University of California-Davis, discusses the history of the mortgage interest deduction, its problems and why the politics has made reform all but impossible. As Gerald noted last week, Ventry recently authored an article on the mortgage interest deduction in the law journal Law & Contemporary Problems titled “The Accidental Deduction: A History and Critique of the Tax Subsidy for Mortgage Interest.” Related: “Oh, give me a home without a subsidized loan,” by Chief Economist Patrick Fleenor, Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 2009 Listen to the full podcast here, or check out all of the Tax Foundation’s Tax Policy Podcasts.
