what's middle class to you?
Feb. 26th, 2009 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitouthttp://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-home-front/2009/02/26/mortgage-interest-deduction-on-the-chopping-block.html
The budget proposal phases out (may not be the right terminology) the mortgage interest deduction. As far as I'm concerned, there should not _be_ a mortgage interest deduction. There should be a _rent_ deduction. The current set up is heinously regressive. The commentary in the above URL is truly appalling, in that it quotes a guy from NAR saying:
"this proposal will increase the cost of housing for many middle-class families" in places with expensive housing.
There is also a quote from this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123559630127675581.html
The WSJ is careful to note that this proposal affects "Upper-Income Americans" -- after all, the brackets affected in TY2009 _start_ with an AGI of $208K+.
What do you think -- does the "middle" class include couples making $208,000 AGI?
The budget proposal phases out (may not be the right terminology) the mortgage interest deduction. As far as I'm concerned, there should not _be_ a mortgage interest deduction. There should be a _rent_ deduction. The current set up is heinously regressive. The commentary in the above URL is truly appalling, in that it quotes a guy from NAR saying:
"this proposal will increase the cost of housing for many middle-class families" in places with expensive housing.
There is also a quote from this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123559630127675581.html
The WSJ is careful to note that this proposal affects "Upper-Income Americans" -- after all, the brackets affected in TY2009 _start_ with an AGI of $208K+.
What do you think -- does the "middle" class include couples making $208,000 AGI?
being middle class sucks
Date: 2009-02-27 09:18 pm (UTC)The budgeting-by-payment has been going on for a lot longer than I realized a couple years ago. Before the installment-loan mortgage invention under the New Deal, home mortgages were really weird lump sum loans that were repaid as lump sums (think a balloon payment with no prospect of refi). They were used in conjunction with a co-op scheme and a _lot_ of savings to buy land, build a house on it, etc. That whole house of cards fell apart in the Great Depression (back in the days when calling it a Depression was a nice euphemism for Panic).
I don't know that we'll ever live in a world where most people buy their homes with cash (or, presumbly, rent). I'm not sure I want to. I just want to go back to the Good Old Days of 6% interest on a 30 year fixed. ;-)
It'll never happen? Ha! We're here right now.