Just Politics

[Mariner*]

Rent Increases and Work Requirements for the Poor, Mortgage-Interest Deductions for the Rich

The Trump administration’s proposal to reduce housing assistance for the poor couldn’t contrast more sharply from the housing assistance showered on the rich.

Because the GOP’s tax reform doubled the standard deduction, fewer people will claim the mortgage-interest deduction next year, as Jordan Weissmann writes in Slate. But while that means that the mortgage interest deduction will cost the government less, it also means that the deduction’s benefits will instead be even moreregressive, heavily tilted toward the very wealthiest—24 percent of the deduction’s benefits will go to households earning more than $500,000.

And so it goes in Donald Trump’s America: The poor get more regulation and more sanctions, while the rich get tax breaks.

http://prospect.org/article/rent-increases-and-work-requirements-poor-mortgage-interest-deductions-rich