Editorial missed the mark

In advocating trimming the mortgage-interest deduction, The Seattle Times in its Aug. 5 editorial perpetuates the false stereotype that the deduction primarily benefits millionaires living in McMansions [“It may be time to limit mortgage deduction,” Opinion].

In reality, the biggest beneficiaries are younger households and middle-class homeowners. Nearly 70 percent of the tax benefits go to homeowners who earn less than $200,000 annually.

Suggesting that curtailing the deduction would only affect homeowners living in the more expensive urban markets across the land, The Times failed to recognize that its proposal would lower home values, placing even more homeowners underwater and exacerbating the foreclosure crisis.

Further, the mortgage-interest deduction is one of the few elements in the tax code that takes into account differences in local housing prices, and limiting it is an anti-family, anti-middle-class and regressive approach to dealing with our deficit challenges.

Home building generates a wide range of jobs that extends into areas such as furniture, appliance, architecture and real-estate finance.

Limiting the mortgage deduction is a double whammy: It would raise homeowners’ taxes and keep badly needed jobs for construction workers and other Americans in short supply.

— Bob Nielsen, chairman, Board of the National Association of Home Builders, Reno, Nev.