Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

President Biden unveiled his $2 trillion infrastructure plan over the next decade repairing and improving our country’s infrastructure network. The major investments are focused on roads, water systems, energy grids, and broadband internet infrastructure.

In its briefing statement on the infrastructure package, the White House noted that millions of families spend more than half of their income each month on rent, while also struggling to pay for home energy costs. This makes it difficult for many families to transition from renting to purchase their first home.

Some $213 billion of this plan would be spent on investments in housing. The investments will focus on: produce, preserve, and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy-efficient, and electrified housing units, through a variety of tax credits, formula funding, grants, and project-based rental assistance. These units will be available to households in underserved areas, rural and tribal communities.

The plan will rely on significant tax increases for funding, including raising the federal corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%; requiring a minimum 15% tax on corporate book income on profits for firms with revenue over $100 million and canceling some deductions and credits for the fossil fuel industry, among others.

Accordingly, with the White House fact sheet, this housing plan also calls for Congress to pass the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act and expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which would put $20 billion toward building and rehabbing 500,000 homes for low-income and middle-income buyers.

The plan also would use tax incentives to encourage states and municipalities to relax strict zoning laws.

Exclusionary zoning laws include perimeters limiting the types of housing that can be built, including minimum lot sizes (blocking smaller, more affordable home construction), mandatory parking provisions, and the banning of multifamily developments.

The plan proposes funding incentives for communities that eliminate exclusionary zoning laws, permit more housing by right; investing $40 billion in public-housing maintenance and repair, and upgrade and retrofit existing homes through the Weatherization Assistance Program and other initiatives.

Biden plans to leverage existing block grant programs and increase available tax credits as well as call on union trade workers to focus their efforts on upgrading homes to make them more energy efficient to save households money.

He also wants to create a $27 billion Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator “to mobilize private investment into distributed energy resources (electricity-producing resources such as rooftop solar panel units, natural gas turbines, and wind turbines); retrofits of residential, commercial, and municipal buildings; and clean transportation in underserved communities that clean energy initiatives have not helped.

Sources:
• FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan
• Housing in Brief: Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Calls for $213 Billion for Housing
• Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Earmarks $213 Billion for Housing. Here’s How He’d Spend It