Framing

Sometimes it's not what you say, but how you say it.  

Make that most of the time.

Here's evidence from an experiment conducted over at The Monkey Cage. In brief, they asked people what they thought of "a government program intended to help Americans afford to own homes." 

Half the people surveyed were told the program would make people “eligible to deduct the monthly mortgage interest from their taxable income, thereby reducing their tax burden.” The other half were told that the program would make people “eligible for a grant from the federal government to help them afford the monthly payment.”  

In the first case, people were told that participant's "savings" because of the program would be about $94 billion in 2011; in the second, they were told the government's "expenditures" in the same period would be about $94 billion.

Both statements, of course, are accurate descriptions of the current tax deduction for home mortgage payments.

Here's the interesting part.  When described as a tax deduction, 58% of people were in favor; when described as a "grant," only 33% were favorable.

The Monkey Cage, also analyzed the results by political ideology. Not surprisingly, conservatives were twice as likely to support a government program that is delivered through the tax code, but less willing to support this program when it is described as a "grant." In fact, they were just as likely as liberals to favor tax deductions to support such a program.

Many people consider tax deductions just another form of expenditure.  They're "grants" by another name. 

 Now, consider this: there are more than $1.1 trillion "tax expenditures" in the current tax code. That's more than we spend on defense, social security, and Medicare/Medicaid. It's about as much as the federal government collects in income taxes every year.

And more than 70% of those tax expenditures, or "grants," go to people making more than $100,000 a year.

For more on tax expenditures, see a report by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Hopefully, the deficit "super-committee" has read it.