The desire to encourage home ownership to encourage savings was addressed in the article, I think. They pointed out that lower income people usually rent (becau

The desire to encourage home ownership to encourage savings was addressed in the article, I think. They pointed out that lower income people usually rent (because they can't afford to own, maybe particularly the down payment) and middle income people who own their homes are often still better off taking the standard deduction (rather than itemizing to include the mortgage interest deduction at all), so the overwhelming majority of the mortgage interest deduction's benefit goes to people who are wealthy enough that they would almost certainly own their own homes regardless. I'd be interested in seeing a careful study of the degree to which the mortgage interest deduction actually plays a significant role in home ownership rates. But at least based on this article, it sounds like it's noticeably less significant than I'd thought.