FLAT TAXES: DEDUCTION FOR MORTGAGES AT RISK

Support for a flat tax has built so rapidly that it has amazed even its first and most prominent congressional sponsor, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. Hearings may be held even before the year is out. With talk of a flat tax has come the proposal to eliminate virtually all deductions, even, in some versions, the mortgage-interest deduction for home ownership.

It is here that flat taxers should surely pause. The mortgage-interest deduction came in with the income tax itself nearly 80 years ago. It is the longest enduring and most permanent of all deductions. It has had its intended effect: The United States has the world's highest percentage of home ownership. Literally millions of jobs depend on the business of building, renovating, selling and furnishing America's homes.

The flat tax, properly done, is enormously promising. Let's do it right, marshaling all our facts in the process. And please, go slow on that deduction for mortgage interest.