Wealthy homeowners received billions of dollars in tax credits, but “the poor are getting almost nothing under the same” Biden-Harris administration’s policy, according to an analysis form Politico’s E&E News of a tax credit program.
The policy, expanded under the Biden-Harris administration, was created to encourage homeowners to purchase expensive solar panels, but the enlarged scheme only increased the inequality between white-collar Americans and the working class.
Politico reported:
The analysis found that the highest-earning 25 percent of households — those with taxable incomes of $100,000 or more — got 66 percent of the tax credits, worth a total of $5.5 billion. Meanwhile, the lowest-earning 25 percent, with taxable incomes below $25,000, received just $32 million.
More than $2 billion went to households earning over $200,000 a year.
The wealth disparity alarms some economists and advocates, raising concerns that the credits are giving taxpayer money to hundreds of thousands of people who don’t need financial help or incentives to buy equipment that saves them substantial money on energy bills.
“It’s basically people that are pretty wealthy are getting significantly large tax credits for making their home more energy-efficient,” Brookings Institution economist Sanjay Patnaik told Politico.
“These tax credits don’t increase the affordability for families making over $500,000. They can already afford it. And they get lower energy prices,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association.
The policy is an example of Vice President Kamala Harris’s record that has created a so-called “catch-22” for her campaign: Harris cannot campaign on reducing soaring costs without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies. Harris, however, must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.
In turn, Harris’s rhetoric is duplicitous, providing Republicans a line of attack.
Harris simultaneously takes credit for some of the Biden-Harris administration’s record and casts former President Donald Trump as the incumbent. The contradiction wrongly frames Trump as the candidate responsible for stagnant wages and spiking costs of living, two situations that arose under the Biden-Harris administration.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.