Don't need a lawyer, just need a functioning brain really. Except some people see the bling of a $100k pickup truck in neighbor's driveway and they think they MUST HAVE a bigger shinier one because that's how we roll. It is possible to pay with cash... however many (or most) people are addicted to debt so can't accept the possibility of living within their means and will agree to any scammy deal that allows them to have the shiny thing for "only $700 a month" (probably closer to $2000 for the aforementioned $100k pickup but I digress).

Nothing particularly wrong with borrowing money for a house or even for a car, if there are advantages of doing that (e.g. opportunity cost vs interest, or depreciation vs interest), it's when debt creates the illusion of being able to afford things that you can't really afford... that's when major issues happen, like the subprime crisis of 2008, and likely will cause the next bubble, and so on.

But you can't put math on your driveway to outbling your neighbors so people don't use math.


"common working man" likely pays a lot less to the IRS compared to state/county/city/sales/property taxes. That's where the real government grift happens but that's too complicated for a campaign slogan. Not that the convoluted federal tax forms couldn't use an overhaul, but the whole IRS obsession is more of a distraction from the absurd flustercuck of thousands of different tax jurisdictions trying to fuck you over whichever way they can because freedom.