The home mortgage interest deduction should eventually be eliminated in the United States

To recap Pro's arguments, there seems to be three premises that Pro argues support the resolution:P1: Income inequality is caused by the MIDP2: MID does not create an incentive for home ownershipP3: MID is one of the largest federal tax expendituresP1: Income inequality is caused by the MIDPro fails to show how MID causes inequality. Sure, according to her sources there is inequality but that hardly makes MID the sole or even proximate cause. There may be a correlation but definitely not enough proof that it is the cause. Pro also states, "the average value of the home mortgage interest deduction increases greatly with income." Of course, it does; someone who makes more will spend more and some of the spending is offset by tax deductions. Other tax deductions such as charitable giving are likewise progressive in that higher income returns get more back [5]. Pro misses the obvious here – that the deductions are larger for high-income individuals because their houses are worth more. Furthermore, the issue of inequality itself is hardly far from settled. Mr Gordon, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, states that improved use of income datasets "shows that there was no increase of inequality after 1993 in the bottom 99 percent of the population…" So, for almost a decade there has been no rise in inequality [3]. In fact, another paper from economists at the University of Chicago, Christian Broda and John Romalis, shows that real inequality may have actually fallen between 1994 and 2005 [4].Now, if inequality has not increased and might have actually fallen while MID has been in place for all those years (1993-2005 specifically), then there would have to be another cause for inequality and most likely multiple causes. P2: MID does not create an incentive for home ownership Pro makes the mistake of thinking that if homeownership rates remain level, then that is a good reason to eliminate MID. While the data seems to support this premise, the premise fails to support the conclusion.In addition, the percentage of itemizers would barely budge if the MID was eliminated. For example, medical expenses, charitable contributions, business expenses, educational expenses, disaster losses are all deductible [1]. People making $75,000 or more would still itemize as they tend to have more items that are deductible than those making less than $75,000. While it may be true that only 23% of those making less than $40,000 itemize they are less likely to own a house [2]. And as that would be a major source of deductions for those making less than the median income and owning a home, the loss of MID would impact them the greatest. Moreover, for low-income individuals that do get the MID, it would likely very much be an incentive for them to own a home. Let us assume that there is no incentive at all currently, eliminating the MID would hardly create incentive to buy in and of itself. How does eliminating a deduction that's been in place for 100 years make people want to go out and buy a home?P3: MID is one of the largest federal tax expendituresThis is an accounting trick. Tax deductions are not expenditures of the Federal government. That would be the along the lines of a business treating sales that were not made as expenditures. In order to be an expenditure, the money would have to actually come from the government's coffers. And before you say that the MID caused spending in other areas which has the same effect, thus making it an expenditure, let me say that there is no direct correlation to any budget item so proving it's cost would be merely guesswork. Both spending and revenue need to be looked at, if the Federal Debt is ever to be controlled, I just do not think it should be on the backs of homeowners.Conclusion:The only point Pro makes that goes to the elimination of the MID is that it is a large "expenditure" for the federal government. Interestingly, this is the point she spends the least amount of time on. But if I look at it as an expenditure (which I don't), there are many large expenditures (real ones) in the government that shouldn't be phased out such as Social Security and Defense spending. Just because an expense is large does not mean it should be eliminated. To the other two points raised, MID causing inequality and the MID not incentivizing home ownership, even if accepted as true are not good reasons to eliminate or even phase out the MID.I'd like to thank my opponent for this insightful debate and eagerly await their response.Sources:[1] http://www.irs.gov...[2] http://www.census.gov...[3] http://www.nber.org...[4] http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu...[5] http://www.irs.gov...