Interesting Ultimatum

Via Greg Mankiw's Blog, Ed Glaeser presents an interesting challenge to the Democrats: If you are really worried about global warming then you should not extend the life of the first time home-buyers tax credit and you should support ending the mortgage interest deduction.

According to Glaeser, the credit and deduction encourages families to buy less energy efficient homes and the resulting sprawl increases the amount of gasoline consumption.

Democrats always seem willing to sacrifice economic gain for the environment but I wonder if they are willing to do this when voters would see it as stifling economic recovery? Also, voters may ask why they bailed out Wall Street but took away something that was giving the little guys relief. I guess the environment is worth saving only as long as it doesn't harm your reelection.