Now that the housing myth has been foreclosed on

Three years ago you would have been hard pressed to find someone
that didn't believe that "you just can't lose buying a house".  Our state
and federal governments have been subsidizing home ownership for
years (actually since 1913 when the first federal income tax included a
deduction for home mortgage interest). And the subsidies kept on
growing (deductions for property tax payments, no tax on the gains for
the first $500,000 that a couple makes on a home, and federally guaranteed
loans).  It is one thing to support ownership of a small basic home but why are we taxpayers subsidizing McMansions that consume massive amounts of energy
and sit mostly empty?  And not just someone's first McMansion but we subsidize
their second McMansion as well.