The Middle Class to be screwed again (maybe).

A while ago (March, actually) I wrote a piece entitled "Poor Down, Middle Class to Go," in which I went on about bankruptcy legislation aimed at letting big business screw the middle classes.

Well, they're at it again. A few weeks ago, congressional Republicans (it's strange... there's almost no need to use terms like "conservatives," "liberals," or anything else since the thuggery of the Republican leadership combined with the fear-mongering of the Democratic leadership has given us an era of party-line voting the likes of which have never been seen) were hard pressed to explain why they thought tax breaks for the wealthy (link updated 12/14) were good for the economy mere days after they shoved through a load of slashes to government services for the poor with the explanation that the government just didn't have enough money to afford them, what with the deficit and all. Apparently, the deficit is not so bad that we can't forego a lot of the payments the government would have gotten from the super-rich, however. I guess that when times are tough, the government figures the poor can fend for themselves, while the rich need the government to bail them out. I guess that's an attitude that explains the Katrina aftermath...

But I digress. I really wanted to write about the proposed elimination of the deduction of interest paid on a mortgage from taxable income. This is aimed squarely at the middle classes. The extremely poor don't have a mortgage on a home that they own, instead they're paying rent (which is not even deductible currently). The super rich can afford to buy a home for cash without taking out a mortgage (or shift money around so that they end up borrowing money in some other way that is deductible), so it doesn't apply to them. It applies to people who are able to save enough to put a down-payment on a home but not buy it outright, and depend on a bank or other lending institution to pay the rest of it with a loan on which they collect interest for the next 15, 20, or 30 years. It makes sense that this money should be deductible since the homeowner doesn't get anything for it. The money that goes toward paying off the principal owed on the loan actually does buy them part of their house, and therefore it's reasonable to tax them on it. The interest, however, merely bought them the opportunity to have what only the really rich could afford in this day and age without mortgage loans: a house of their own.

So, from the proposal of a flat tax (which sounds fair... but isn't... but that's another post) to this proposal eliminating the deduction of mortgage interest, the powers that be want to rewrite the tax code to eliminate the deductions that apply to the most people while preserving the loopholes that allow the super-rich to get richer. Isn't this what our ancestors came to this country to get away from?

- "Doctor, question that's always bothered me and a lot of people: Mayflower, combined with Philadelphia - a no-brainer, right? Cause this is where the Mayflower landed. Not so. It turns out Columbus actually set foot somewhere down in the West Indies. Little known fact."