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Kill the Farm Bill

RJKarl said:
afew points:

Myth #1: The mortgage deduction is just for rich people – The mortgage interest deduction helps mostly middle- and lower-income families.
65% of families who use it earn less than $100,000 per year.
91% earn less than $200,000 per year (that’s where most economists draw the line between rich and middle-class).
Only 9% earn more than $200,000 per year.
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"And this has been a relatively stable historical trend, with between 21 and 26 percent of taxpayers claiming the MID each year since 1991." - remember this 21-26% of taxpayers includes every tax return not just families
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How long did it take for you to conjure up this straw man?
 
PhDeac said:
You don't need "everybody" to put something to a vote and approve it in the Senate and House.

But if you want an issue with a lot of agreement, there's is extending the Bush tax cuts for the bottom 98%. Both parties say they agree, but nothing will get done due to arguing about the top 2%.
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Then clearly there is not agreement on extending to just the bottom 98%. It looks like you want to define the issue in a way that benefits your point of view. By the way I think they should extend to just those under $250,000 but this isn't compromise, this is one side getting just exactly what they want and another side getting nothing. This is what happened in the healthcare debate with one side using it's majority to ram a highly contentous bill down the other sides throat and thus creating an environment where no compromise can ever be achieved.
 
Liquid Karma said:
How long did it take for you to conjure up this straw man?
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Typically you seeing my name, going into dick mode and missing the point. The point is the list of stats. The point is 65% of the people claiming MID earn under $100,000/year.

But don't let that get in your way to being an ass.
 
olddke said:
Then clearly there is not agreement on extending to just the bottom 98%. It looks like you want to define the issue in a way that benefits your point of view. By the way I think they should extend to just those under $250,000 but this isn't compromise, this is one side getting just exactly what they want and another side getting nothing. This is what happened in the healthcare debate with one side using it's majority to ram a highly contentous bill down the other sides throat and thus creating an environment where no compromise can ever be achieved.
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What happened in the healthcare debate was trying to achieve a big compromise all at once instead of just doing the things that they could get done. Your approach is exactly why there is no reasonable health care debate. Big reform over small solutions.
 
RJKarl said:
Typically you seeing my name, going into dick mode and missing the point. The point is the list of stats. The point is 65% of the people claiming MID earn under $100,000/year.

But don't let that get in your way to being an ass.
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I don't disagree with your stats at all.

Nobody claimed that the MID was for rich people, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to conjure up that myth before trying to tear it down.
 
I just started listening to an NPR Planet Money podcast from last week in which they put together five economists from across the political spectrum to come up with economic reforms they could all agree upon. They all mentioned the mortgage interest deduction.
 
RJKarl said:
923 I gave you numbers....
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I get it, you don't want all those people who are getting the mortgage interest deduction to lose it. You have made that abundantly clear. I have already responded to that argument about four times on this thread, by stating that eliminating this deduction should be part of an overall simplification of the tax code that lowers rates and has little or no impact on the middle class, and has a phase out period.

As for your specific stats, they conveniently ignore the fact that 25% of the dollars spent on the deduction go to people earning over $200,000 per year, even though those people make up a very small portion of the people who get the deduction overall, and that 75% of the dollars spent go to people earning over $100,000 per year. Which are numbers I posted several pages ago.

I have not verified your numbers, and you did not provide a cite, but they appear to come from a bunch of real estate industry websites. Nonetheless I will assume for the sake of argument they are correct. It appears that these numbers apparently try to justify the deduction as something that assists "the middle class". Your post then proceeds to define the middle class as including people who make more than 100,000 per year up to $200,000 per year. $100,000 puts a taxpayer in the top 17%. $199,000 puts a taxpayer in the top 3%. So you are apparently arguing that the top 17%-3% are in the "middle class". Seems to me that the "middle class" ought to be, I don't know, maybe in the actual middle of the income distribution? The national median is $44,000, but $199,000 is still "middle class"? Source for all numbers in this paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

So, we have a situation where 75% of the cash spent on the deduction goes to people in the top 17%, and a good chunk of that goes to people in the 3-5%. If this is supposed to be a deduction that helps the "middle class", it's missing the target.

Got some more numbers for me? Would you care to respond to the numbers I just gave you?
 
Liquid Karma said:
I don't disagree with your stats at all.

Nobody claimed that the MID was for rich people, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to conjure up that myth before trying to tear it down.
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I have claimed on this thread, and the numbers unequivocally back me up, that the MID goes disproportionately to the top 17% of earners in the US. If that is what RJ is responding to, I am happy to defend the position.
 
I absolutely will not respond to the numbers you gave me. I find totally insulting and disingenuous that you dismiss any numbers that challenge your position.

No numbers I give you would ever be acceptable to you.

EDIT: By the way ONE family taking a $1M MID equals about SIX (slightly less 5.7-5.9) people at the median (http://www.realestateabc.com/outlook/overall.htm)
 
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Liquid Karma said:
I don't disagree with your stats at all.

Nobody claimed that the MID was for rich people, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to conjure up that myth before trying to tear it down.
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It was from the place I got the numbers. I didn't want to edit it. If I had, that would assailed.
 
RJKarl said:
I absolutely will not respond to the numbers you gave me. I find totally insulting and disingenuous that you dismiss any numbers that challenge your position.

No numbers I give you would ever be acceptable to you.
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I just pos repped RJ for having the incredible chutzpah it took to put this in a public forum. Unbelievable.
 
PhDeac said:
What happened in the healthcare debate was trying to achieve a big compromise all at once instead of just doing the things that they could get done. Your approach is exactly why there is no reasonable health care debate. Big reform over small solutions.
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I disagree, this administration is unique in the fact that there have been no compromise solutions to problems. The right blames Obama and the left blames the Tea Party/Rebuplicans. I blame the Health Care bill and how one side just said screw it and forced it on the other without getting any crossover votes. If they had attacked our economic problems first I think they could have found enough common ground to get some wins that both sides could feel good about. Then maybe they could have made some headway on healthcare, but then again maybe not as it has proved to be such a divisive issue. But I fnd it laughable that you think that looking for "big comprmise" is what caused the healthcare thing to go so badly. No one was looking for compromise at all, I see it as one side just telling the other to shove it, we do not need you as being the problem.
 
I showed you that 31.4% of homes in America are underwater. You totally dismissed by some BS about not paying their mortgages. If 31.4% of Americans weren't paying their mortgages, most banks would be going belly up.

Even if losing the MID would only cost 10% of value (versus what the industry says), even more would be under water and those already there would take years to get back to even. This would hamstring home sales for years.

It would cost others the ability to use equity to start businesses, work on their homes, send kids to college.

We cannot afford to do this now. It would be devastating to the economy. Maybe phased in starting in 5-10 years it could work.
 
RJKarl said:
I showed you that 31.4% of homes in America are underwater. You totally dismissed by some BS about not paying their mortgages. If 31.4% of Americans weren't paying their mortgages, most banks would be going belly up.
.
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Is this directed at me? Because I have not said one thing on this thread about anybody not paying their mortgage.
 
You also don't address how one person taking the MID equals six people taking a $166,000 MID which helps your numbers.
 
olddke said:
I disagree, this administration is unique in the fact that there have been no compromise solutions to problems. The right blames Obama and the left blames the Tea Party/Rebuplicans. I blame the Health Care bill and how one side just said screw it and forced it on the other without getting any crossover votes. If they had attacked our economic problems first I think they could have found enough common ground to get some wins that both sides could feel good about. Then maybe they could have made some headway on healthcare, but then again maybe not as it has proved to be such a divisive issue. But I fnd it laughable that you think that looking for "big comprmise" is what caused the healthcare thing to go so badly. No one was looking for compromise at all, I see it as one side just telling the other to shove it, we do not need you as being the problem.
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That one side was the Republicans as the Democrats pursued a big compromise solution instead of doing the little things they could agree on.
 
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