Tax breaks we love but can't afford ..

A spot on piece from Money Magazine assistant managing editor, Pat Regnier. Click here to read the entire list or see my personal favorite in the following excerpt:

2007 Mortgage subsidy cost: $85 billion
As every realtor will remind you, you can deduct the interest you pay on up to $1 million in mortgage debt on a first or second home. Does this promote home ownership? Doubtful. As a presidential tax reform panel noted in 2005, our 69% ownership rate is about the same as in Canada, Britain and Australia, which don't have the deduction.

Many would-be buyers enjoy no subsidy because they don't earn enough to itemize - Burman says they may even find it harder to buy insofar as the subsidy raises prices.

If anything, said the panel, the deduction may simply encourage higher-income people to take out bigger loans for bigger houses. This overinvestment in real estate might actually hurt the economy because it soaks up money that could have been put to more productive use.

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More news from the TheHill.com ..

Not surprisingly the National Association of Realtors political action committee is spending big on this election in hopes of maintaining favorable rules for them. Haven't we all seen the horrible consequences of allowing powerful organizations such as this to buy influence in Congress?

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An op-ed from Joe Dowley that appears in TheHill.com ..

lays it all out there. Mr. Dowley is partner in the Washington office of McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP and was chief counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee when Congress last addressed tax reform. His basic message is very similar to what has previously been expressed by this blog and serves as a warning for politicians and citizens alike that we simply cannot maintain the status quo on issues such as entitlements, debt and energy as a few examples.

The new president’s fireside chat will have to be for adult consumption: honest, candid and factual, and it must call upon the best instincts of all us to be willing to share the coming sacrifices for the good of everyone. It should be the moral equivalent of an oral dose of cod liver oil, but it must also leave viewers and listeners some hope that we are really getting our house in order. The new president will have to reach out to strike a chord with citizens such that people will say, “That needed to be said a long time ago. Let’s get on with it!”

Don't forget to check back to Dan's Deep Creek Blog for future updates.