>> i'm thrilled to introduce 39, 22 and 44 and finest universities in the united states. i'm here to urge you to give to fine fund and i want to thank all the volunteers. i'm here for another reason. i speak for the folks right here when i say we really admire and love george h. w. bush. [applause]

>> just over ten minutes the u.s. house will be back for legislative business and speeches. business getting under way 2:00 p.m. there's six bills including one to combat the smuggling of drug fentanyl. the arthur the -- thursday does plan to take up the budget resolution passed about i -- passed by the senate. the senate is back this afternoon at 3:00 to consider a $36.5 billion emergency funding bill for hurricane and fire relief. which is already been approved in house. procedural vote to advance that bill set for 5:30 eastern, watch the senate live on our network c-span 2. coming up live today conference on countering violent extremism. featuring lawmakers officials scheduled participants and steve

bannon and others. that will be 12:15 eastern. to get us to the house coming up at noon eastern. portion of today "washington journal" will look at mortgage interest deduction. >> each week in this segment of the "washington journal" we take a look at how money is at work. this week we're joined by chris housing economist at apartment list. we'll be talking about major federal housing aid expenditures in particularly the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners section 8 rental assistance programs. before we get to that, explain what apartment list is what you do there. guest: thanks for having me on. apartment list is fastest growing apartment rental marketplace. we serve over 3 million renters

every month. we're really trying to help them out by producing some of the stress and difficulty involved in finding a place to live. hopefully -- i serve that mission by helping keep records informed of issues that affect them. we produce monthly rent estimates for hundreds of cities across the nation. also produce more in-depth reports on specific housing related to ones that we're discussing today. host: it's partylist.com. as we go through this report. we'll be talking about. it's available at that website. lines in the segment for homeowners -- if you have questions, if you want to share your stories phone lines are open to start calling in. when we're talking about the universe of housing assistance, where does the mortgage interest

deduction and section 8 fit into that? how much of the federal government housing aid that represent? guest: in this report we focused on these two programs. mortgage is the owners for section 8 rental assistance for renters. in terms of total federal expenditure on housing assistance, these are by far the two largest programs. the mid on the homeowner side, the total federal expenditure in 2015 was $71 billion. which is actually well over double the amount that we spent on section 8 assistance which came in just under $30 billion. host: remind viewers what section 8 is and m.i.d. is. guest: mortgage interest deduction is a tax benefit that allows homeowners with mortgages to reduce their taxable income

by the total amount of interest they pay on mortgage that up to a million dollars. that's a benefit that can be claimed by any homeowner with mortgage. section 8 is a rental assistance program for low income renters. that's specifically targeted for low income households. it's important to note that section 8 programs are an entitlement. even if you're eligible for those benefits you're not guaranteed to receive them. in fact, only a small share of low income households do receive section 8 benefits. host: talk about the history of the two programs and how we got to those numbers where we are today in terms of the tens of billions of dollars for each program. guest: for sure. the history of these programs is actually interesting. particularly on the side of the mortgage interest deduction.

mid has its roots in the 16th amendment which establish modern income tax in 1913. at that time all forms of interest were deductible but it's important to note here that at that time, it was extremely rare to purchase a home with a mortgage. most homeowners were purchasing in cash. the main exception to that were farmers. by all indications, when congress made interest deductible, they were thinking primarily as a business expense. there's really to indication that this was intended as a benefit for homeowners. it wasn't until the 1950 east 1950's when mortgage industry extended to world war ii. this really came to taken advantage of by homeowners. gradually to be seen as crucial for the health of the howing market.

making the mid sort of the political that it is today. over time the expenditure on the mortgage interest deduction has ballooned as the total outstanding mortgage that has grown substantially. in termings term -- in terms of section 8, the benefits for subsidizing low income renter housing go back to the housing act of 1937. but the modern section 8 programs didn't begin until 1974. over time that program has grown as well but it's sort of -- section 8 vouchers have grown, it's sort of been in tandem with the change and mix of how those benefits are distributed. section 8 grown, other programs has decreased. host: the report on in balance

housing mortgage interest deduction versus section 8. there's a map there. several different maps and charts. one of the maps showing spending per household on federal housing expenditures. you can see the darker households where it's more -- you can see some of these charts in the report on their website. in that report, you recommend reforming mortgage interest deduction and expanding section 8. why? guest: we go detail on some of these findings. sort of explain where that conclusion comes from. as i mentioned, the total federal expenditure on the m.i.d. is more than double the amount that goes to section 8. beyond that disparity, more striking is discrepancy is how that spending allocated at income levels.

as i explain section 8 benefits are programs that are targeted towards low income renters. by definition, 100% of that money is going to households that really need the help. on the other hand, the margin for deduction is actually quite a regressive benefit. in our analysis, we found that 85% of m.i.d. benefits go to high income households with middle and low income house holds receiving 9 percent and 6 percent. the reason m.i. differentd is regressive can be explained. first off high income households tend to own more expensive homes. they have a greater amount of mortgage interest that they can deduct. secondly, because this is set up as a deduction, the amount of benefit that you receive is directly proportional to margin tax rate.

because high 2:00 households -- they see a larger reduction in their tax bill for every dollar of interest that they deducted. finally many middle and low income homeowners when filing their tanks will find it to take standard deduction. households who take standard deduction don't see any benefit at all in the m.i.d. host: these two programs focus of our look at housing aid in the last segment on "washington journal." we'll be talking about it until 10:00 today. call in with questions or comments line for homeowners and renters. as we talk to sylvia in durham, north carolina. line for all others. caller: yes. i got a couple of things to state. on the porridge, what about people that didn't pay cash for their homes but they worked all their life and paid for their

home and finally got it paid for and you're not allowed to take your property taxes for deduction? that's going to put me on the street somewhere because the state of north carolina just like the federal government, they screwed the people. they steal their money. obama took $750 billion from medicare which i'm on and social security. before he went out he took the d.a.b.'s money for art. the >> we are going to leave the discussion at this point as the u.s. house is about to gavel in at noon eastern. members are expected to offer brief speeches and go into recess at 2:00 p.m. the house will return for