Mortgaging Away Our Future: An Examination Of U.S. Congressional Opinion Regarding The Home Mortgage Interest Deduction

The goal of this project is to summarize what sort of benefits and costs the mortgage interest deduction creates for the economy and society in the United States, and to research how lawmakers have treated the deduction in light of these effects. Ultimately, this project found that scholars and commentators of all economic and political stripes are virtually unanimous in their opposition to the deduction. In fact, they contend it has myriad negative effects on the economy and society, serving only to help some taxpayers buy bigger and more expensive homes. Congress for the most part has ignored these facts. Legislators of both parties from states with high home prices predominantly oppose any changes, casting the deduction in hyperbolic terms as a gift to the entire nation when in fact it mostly serves to please their own constituents and fund their own campaigns. While the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 includes much needed reforms to the deduction, the nation's tax code is still a long way from treating home ownership in a sensible manner.