The 1986 tax reform singled out mortgage interest for privileged deduction

Evidence

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed everything by making most personal interest, including interest on credit card or student loan debt or automobile loans, nondeductible. However, the act carved out an exception for mortgage interest. As long as the combined mortgages are $750,000 or less, you can deduct the interest on the mortgages for up to two different homes. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1238

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the Whiteness of Wealth diagnosis and to the reparations-as-accounting case: the deliberate carve-out shows tax policy as a design choice favoring one asset class over another.
• DEFINE: Establishes the mechanical structure of the mortgage interest deduction — the load-bearing tax expenditure Brown will argue disproportionately benefits white households.