>I'm not sure this is corruption. Encouraging people to buy a home instead of rent is largely viewed as a positive thing.
A mortgage interest tax deduction rewards people who purchase a home by borrowing money. The more you borrow, the more you are rewarded. It does not reward purchasing a home. It also disproportionately rewards people who are able to borrow money for a home, and punishes those who cannot, such as descendants of slaves who may not have grown up with the necessary resources to establish the necessary income and credit in order to borrow. Or get past the redlining. And last, but not least, it's a handout to the mortgage banking industry who now has a subsidy for the product they sell.
This simple example shows how easily deductions are corrupted. It's not even really encouraging people to buy a home, as that would have been a simple deduction for a home's purchase price. It's encouraging people to borrow to buy a home.
That's all leaving aside the separate debate of whether or not the government should be rewarding home purchases or not.
>Helping people afford to have kids is a good thing.
How is a deduction/credit on taxes anywhere near the optimal way to achieve this? The government can simply give people cash if it wanted to. The government could provide better parental leave if it wanted to. The government could provide healthcare if it wanted to. A $2k tax credit and a $3k deduction for childcare is far down the list of things that make kids affordable.
>Encouraging people to favor green energy is a good thing.
Or we could be more straightforward and tax fossil fuels for the externalities they cause, thereby raising the price of fossil fuels and making green energy a more sensible option to choose. But that would be bad for our resource consumption driven economy that depends on increasing consumption to meet the budgeted increases in revenues to pay for the ever accumulating debt.
>I would pay more in tax (no deduction) and have to wait for the government to pay me for the kids. They would be taking a loan out of every paycheck. Incidentally, the current income tax system where employers withhold and you get a refund for overpayment is a form of banking on taxpayers. Allowing people with dependents to declare them and reduce the amount withheld is very helpful to lots of not-so-wealthy people's personal cash flow.
This is all clerical. There's no reason the government can't electronically deposit money into your account every week or 2 weeks.
I really don't see any value in debating ethics here. Tax policy is no different than spending policy - it's a tool and can be wielded for better or worse. Sometimes, government gets it right. Other times not. Governments, democracies especially, are made of humans.
A mortgage interest tax deduction rewards people who purchase a home by borrowing money. The more you borrow, the more you are rewarded. It does not reward purchasing a home. It also disproportionately rewards people who are able to borrow money for a home, and punishes those who cannot, such as descendants of slaves who may not have grown up with the necessary resources to establish the necessary income and credit in order to borrow. Or get past the redlining. And last, but not least, it's a handout to the mortgage banking industry who now has a subsidy for the product they sell.
This simple example shows how easily deductions are corrupted. It's not even really encouraging people to buy a home, as that would have been a simple deduction for a home's purchase price. It's encouraging people to borrow to buy a home.
That's all leaving aside the separate debate of whether or not the government should be rewarding home purchases or not.
>Helping people afford to have kids is a good thing.
How is a deduction/credit on taxes anywhere near the optimal way to achieve this? The government can simply give people cash if it wanted to. The government could provide better parental leave if it wanted to. The government could provide healthcare if it wanted to. A $2k tax credit and a $3k deduction for childcare is far down the list of things that make kids affordable.
>Encouraging people to favor green energy is a good thing.
Or we could be more straightforward and tax fossil fuels for the externalities they cause, thereby raising the price of fossil fuels and making green energy a more sensible option to choose. But that would be bad for our resource consumption driven economy that depends on increasing consumption to meet the budgeted increases in revenues to pay for the ever accumulating debt.
>I would pay more in tax (no deduction) and have to wait for the government to pay me for the kids. They would be taking a loan out of every paycheck. Incidentally, the current income tax system where employers withhold and you get a refund for overpayment is a form of banking on taxpayers. Allowing people with dependents to declare them and reduce the amount withheld is very helpful to lots of not-so-wealthy people's personal cash flow.
This is all clerical. There's no reason the government can't electronically deposit money into your account every week or 2 weeks.