Reply #4: I've seen the theory other places, on this,

[Philostopher]

that they're floating really outrageous trial balloons in effort to make some lesser piece of crap look better. I don't know if people who are suggesting this are right or if they're naive -- I'm not sure this crew thinks there's anything they can't do to shake our pockets out, destroy the middle class and the working class, and funnel yet more money into the richest people's pockets.

This is gonna piss off their constituents in red Ohio -- we pay a relatively high income tax rate, here, and lots of people buy houses above their means hoping to get that personal interest deduction the first few years; it's often the difference between affording a house and not affording it. While it's not wise to buy a house you can't afford, lots of people do it. I look for the bottom to drop out of the housing market and foreclosures to spike, if they take away the mortgage and state tax deductions, at least in states that have an income tax.

But I look for lots of people to get battered in the next four years, and I put nothing past this passel of thieves. I think we're going back to the feudal era -- serfs and landowners, and the serfs guided by superstition, believing in the divine right of kings. Hello Dark Ages! Wonder if I'll float or sink, and which will have me burned at the stake?