Hello, Real Estate Crash

The all-but comatose Bush tax reform panel evidently thinks cratering the U.S. real estate market is great tax reform. Capping deductible mortgage interest on loans as low as $350,000—down from the current $1 million—will make real estate more expensive to own, and hence, less attractive. And note, this is not in service of real reform of the tax code, like losing all preferences and replacing the current code with a flat tax.

No, it is merely scratching around for money to "offset" the cost of repealing the absurd alternative minimum tax. That is exactly backwards. Junk the rest of the code and keep the AMT and call it a flat tax. There is also nothing radical about proposing to use ability-to-pay standards to soak the "rich" in search of more government revenue. Wow, that's a new one.

This is a horrible idea and needs to be taken out behind the barn and dispatched as quickly and as painlessly as possible before real and lasting damage is done. The Bush spending spree followed by the Bush tax hikes. Like night follows day, people.