Nearly every politician says they want tax reform, but it’s hard to imagine many having an appetite for curtailing today’s biggest tax expenditures — particularly the home mortgage interest deduction.
Or maybe that’s wrong.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that limiting tax breaks for home mortgages was one of the most popular solutions to lowering the deficit among respondents. Big caveat: like most options offered by the pollsters, it wasn’t very popular: Just 47 percent backed the idea, while 43 opposed it.
What’s notable, though, is that limiting the deduction was the third most popular option, behind raising taxes on affluent earners and closing tax loopholes for corporations.
Interestingly, going after the home mortgage deduction was a more popular way to reduce deficits than cutting defense spending, raising the Social Security retirement age, or messing with Medicare. This option was even slightly more popular than raising taxes on investment income.