[PEN-L:11488] Re: Home Mortgage Deduction

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It seems like more than an interesting observation. It could be the topic
of a scholarly book like the one just published on automobiles by the
Nation editor (can't recall her name.) Somehow I suspect that the big push
into suburbia--which was facilitated by stepped-up automobile production
and highway construction--was a political calculation. The ruling class
understood that workers who owned rather than rented tended to adopt
petty-bourgeois prejudices more easily. I imagine that a foray into the
policy statements of the legislators of home mortgage interest deduction
legislation would reveal some interesting ruling class attitudes.

Louis Proyect


At 05:20 AM 7/29/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Interesting observation that the home mortgage interest deduction is
>an anti-environmental subsidy. One reads so much about the anti-environ-
>mental subsidies of the Brazilian government regarding settlement in
>the rain forest, I wonder why the same commentators never talk about
>one of our own favorite ways to induce ourselves to misuse the environment.
>
>