Should Tax Policy Encourage Home Ownership?

For decades, U.S. tax policy has helped to encourage home ownership by allowing taxpayers to write off home mortgage interest, but liberal economist and columnist Paul Krugman thinks this should stop.

Mr. Krugman, who owns the home that he lives in, expresses the concern about home ownership that liberals apply to most issues: it involves risk. As the result of this and other disadvantages (oh, no, people go to the suburbs to buy homes), he argues that the federal government should "try to level the playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting."

In making this argument, he miscontrues statements by both President Bush and an advisor to Barack Obama's campaign, claiming that those statements described renters as "second class citizens." They did no such thing. Both the President and the Democrat quoted meant to say nothing more than that the aspiration of most Americans is to own their own home.

Of course, it is not altogether surprising that Mr. Krugman does not recognize that aspiration. When a person moves far enough to the left, he often does not see much importance in individuals owning anything.