system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why are interest payments tax deductable?

Not in the literal accounting sense, I understand how it is deductable, but what is the motivation/logic behind it? Why shouldnt interest payments be treated as any other expenses? To me it seems that deductability is just another motivator for companies to take on debt they otherwise wouldnt need.
gpt
There is no good economic reason for it to be tax deductible. Its very bad, and its one of the many ways our tax code gives implicit subsidies to debt financiers over equity financiers (eg we tax dividends but not interest on corporate debt). 

If you're asking for a historical explanation here's the Tldr: Its an artifact from really old anti-usury laws. We used to be able to deduct ALL (or most) forms of debt, including credit card debt. Congress wanted to get rid of that law in the 80s, but an army of special interest groups lobbied the shit out of the senate. This why a lot of seemingly random kinds of debt are tax deductible like mortgages, margin loans, and so on. These are the special interest groups that won the bidding war.