Last week Shaun Donovan, who runs the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that it might make sense to modify the mortgage interest tax deduction. Sacrilege! Giving people a tax break for buying a house is one of the great middle class subsidies. Donovan knew he was on shaky ground when he said it, and did plenty to hedge. According to the WSJ:

He also made clear that the Obama administration isn’t actively considering, much less endorsing, such a step, which could affect millions of homeowners… Pressed for more details, Donovan again made clear that this wasn’t an active conversation inside the administration. “We’re not actively looking at this. It’s not something that we have a policy group on or anything at this point,” he said. “I don’t want to get into the details of discussions that aren’t happening.”

Too bad. Because we shouldn’t only look at getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction—we should actually do it.