[Greenbuilding] ending mortgage tax deduction for houses >3, 000 square feet...

[Chris Green]

Sacie Lambertson wrote:
> Y'all is jus dream'n.
>
> The mortgage tax deduction for a house of any size is a sacred cow in 
> Congress 
Sadly, even if the politicians were all in favour of this, it probably 
won't be passed while the current sub-prime mortgage problem carries 
on.  Foreclosures in the US are up 93% over the previous year, and the 
worries about the sub-prime mortgage problem has the world money markets 
quite jittery. Removing the mortgage deductions would force a lot more 
people into bankruptcy.
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2153519,00.html
While it's a good idea to encourage smaller houses, triggering a 
recession and ultimately putting first-time homeowners back into 
sub-standard rental units or even into the street probably isn't the 
best way to achieve this end.
As it is, house owning costs are going to rise for people if the 
insurance companies do raise the costs for vinyl sided houses.
Maybe increasing the deduction slightly for subdividing the McMansions 
into mini apartment buildings might be a partial solution? That would 
put a lot of currently unemployed and under-employed builders back to work.

Another point to consider if you want: just repeating the Dingell 
suggestion on forums like this and in letters to the editor, etc., might 
put the brakes on the design and construction of new McMansions. :-) And 
hearing about the risk of paying, say, an extra $100 to $200 a month for 
fire insurance or higher municipal mill rates because of the increased 
cost of fire fighting because there's vinyl siding on a house suddenly 
makes other treatments look much less expensive. The art of, um, a more 
gentle kind of persuasion.

Cheers,

Chris Green.