WASHINGTON _ Rep. Dana Rohrabacher downplayed the effect of the lower mortgage interest deduction in the GOP tax bill Tuesday, saying that people who buy homes in the future will make up a small number of voters.
The California Republican told the Los Angeles Times that because the change only affects future home purchases it "makes it pretty irrelevant as a political issue."
The tax bill caps the mortgage interest deduction at $500,000 for new mortgages, half of the current $1 million cap. It's supposed to have an outsized effect on California, where home prices frequently exceed half a million dollars.
Asked about the effect on people who will buy a home in the future, he said, "Those people do not represent a very high portion of the electorate."
According to U.S. census data, 78.8 percent of homes in Rohrabacher's district sold for more than $500,000. Rohrabacher's neighboring GOP-held districts have similarly high percentages. All the Republican representatives of those districts are all being targeted by Democrats in the 2018 election.
Lobbyists for the real estate and home-building industry have tried to persuade the House to keep the deduction, saying scaling it back will keep people from buying homes. Rohrabacher pushed back on that as well.
"Very few people buy a home based on that; almost nobody buys a home based on that. I didn't," he said.
Rohrabacher said he is still weighing the overall tax bill, but won't decide how to vote based on single deductions.
"If the whole bill is good for the country and good for my constituents, I'm going to vote for it. But it has to be as a whole, it can't be taken one provision at a time," he said.
California Republicans in Congress have largely stuck together on the tax bill, while Republicans from New York and New Jersey have threatened to tank the tax bill over provisions such as the lower mortgage interest deduction.
Rohrabacher said it's because they have different personalities.
"Californians have a different personality than people in New York. I'm a Californian, I'm willing to not beat somebody up at first glance, and I'm going to wait and see how things work out and if I have to disagree, I have to disagree a little bit more gently because I know that we're trying to work together to accomplish a higher goal here, not just a tax bill. But we're trying to save our country, make it a better place and you do that by making sure you don't burn down your bridges," Rohrabacher said.
