One of the reasons there is talk about getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction is

[Igel]

14. It's the problem with uncertainty.

You make present decisions based upon a prediction of what's likely. The more likely the prediction, the easier the decision.

As soon as you start changing things mid-stream it has the look and feel of being a retroactive change. It's certainly a change to the preconditions for your decision.

If a prediction seems assured and fails to happen, we feel cheated.

If it's hard to make a prediction, we might make a guess and decide based on the guess or we simple dither.

Right now I don't know:
if I'll have a job a year from now (because of state budget cuts)
what federal taxes will be--will i get $3k back or pay $2k?
what health insurance will be like (it changed mid-year last year because of the ACA)
what tax deductions will be
whether my house will be worth $10k less, $20k more, or the same
etc.

It makes for a lot of uncertainty. My best course of action is to pay down debt and then save what I can, hoping that inflation doesn't take off. That, repeated by 100 million other households, is a recipe for short-term economic stagnation.