Former Vice President Joe Biden’s $640 billion plan to attack the housing crisis doesn’t do much to address the biggest hurdle: restrictive local land-use regulations. Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0
President Joe Biden intends to propose a minimum tax of 20 percent on households worth more than $100 million and cut projected budget deficits by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a fact sheet released Saturday by the White House budget office.
The introduction of the minimum tax on the wealthiest Americans would represent a significant reorienting of the tax code. It would apply to the top 0.01 percent of households with half of the expected revenue coming from households worth $1 billion or more. The minimum tax would effectively prevent the wealthiest sliver of America from paying lower rates than families who think of themselves as middle class, while helping to generate revenues to fuel Biden’s domestic ambitions and keep the deficit in check relative to the U.S. economy.
In his proposal expected Monday, the lower deficits also reflect the economy’s resurgence as the United States emerges from the pandemic. It’s a sign that the government’s balance sheet will improve after a historic burst of spending to combat the coronavirus.
