Hypocrites at the Washington Post call out Virginia candidate

I had to laugh when I saw this article in the Washington Post, in which the Post 'outs' a candidate running for the position of Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The Post has uncovered that the Republican candidate (Gary H. Baise) took "nearly $300,000" in subsidies for an Illinois farm over the last 10 years. All of this was completely legal mind you. It's just that the Post felt there was something inherently shameful with a wealthy individual taking a government subsidy.

So what's funny about that? Well, for starters, I'd bet a large chunk of the wealthy Washington Post elite are taking somewhere between $6,000-$10,000 in government subsidies every single year as well. This subsidy is in the form of the mortgage interest deduction. Sorry but it's true - mortgage interest deduction will be a $100 billion tax-payer funded subsidy by 2009. And not only that, but it's a subsidy that disproportionally benefits the rich over the poor. Year 2003 IRS data shows that taxpayers who had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of less than $30,000 received only 9% of the interest deduction subsidy, in spite of filing more than 52% of all tax returns. Yet those having more than $100,000 in AGI claimed 36% of the money. In fact, those making more than $75,000 in AGI claimed more than half of all mortgage interest deductions.

In 2004, the government handed out $89,500,000,000 in mortgage subsidies. 53% of that money (over $48,000,000,000) went to the 11.8% of taxpayers with AGIs over $100,000. And more than 20% of the money (~$18,400,000,000) went to the 2.3% of tax filers with AGIs over $200,000. Some of those people no doubt live in what would typically be called 'mansions'.

Ending this subsidy of course, is not popular. That's because so many benefit from it. But keep that in mind next April 15th. Do you really need that deduction? I'm sure everyone at the Washington Post will keep their pristine hands out of the cookie jar [/sarcasm]

For more info see HERE