Why are rich people’s houses so big? Because Uncle Sam pays for extra rooms
These data are from the National Association of Home Builders and research by economists Andrew Hanson, Ike Brannon and Zackary Hawley.
Helping the wealthy live in more luxurious homes is worse than a waste of taxpayers’ money. Larger houses require more energy to heat, and urban sprawl has been a disaster for the world’s climate.
What’s more, the financial crisis of 2008 might have been as bad as it was partly because of the tax code. “To the extent that it encouraged debt over savings use to pay for housing, it could have exacerbated the problems that we saw,” Hanson said, though he warned that any connection between the two is still just conjecture.
