Good points, but personally (even though I choose to rent) I think it's fine if governments use the tax structure to encourage worthy behavior like investing in a home.
I just hate it when the recipeients of these tax deductions refuse to acknowledge that they are benefitting from government entitlement programs, which are really the same as welfare. These middle-class recipients are either ungrateful or hypocritical when they rag on poor people for accepting handouts, then turn around and accept much larger handouts for themselves.[/QUOTE]
It seems like nobody is better at getting government handouts than Wal-Mart.
And there is no end to it in sight. Yet they won't build stores in poorer areas of America because there is not a big enough profit in it for them.
Many of the NEW low income or poor people got where they are now because of Wal-Mart outsourcing from poor countries. So they have to buy at Wal-Mart or a similar type store just to survive. They used to make good money in manufacturing jobs. Maybe the work for a big box store now at 1/3 the pay and benefits or less. In the county I live in-population 250,000- the average income has decreased 15% in the last ten years due to loss of good paying manufacturing jobs.