A plan that would require people who live in the suburbs to pay a larger share of the cost of fixing our nation’s crumbling infrastructure is gathering support in some real estate circles.

Q: Is it true that Congress is considering a bill that would raise taxes on people who live in the suburbs in order to pay for new roads and improvements, public-transportation projects and the like?

A: There’s no such proposal in Congress yet, but the idea is gathering steam in the wake of a recent report that suggests that most suburbanites use our nation’s roads more than city dwellers and thus should be responsible for a larger share of the cost to build new ones and fix the old ones.

The report, by the nonprofit Urban Land Institute and consultants Ernst & Young, suggests that raising taxes on people who live in suburbia could encourage more home buyers to become city dwellers instead, because that’s where most of the jobs are. That, in turn, would help ease congestion on our freeways by reducing the number of commuters and also slow the continued erosion of our infrastructure.

Critics of the idea, though, note that the most affordable homes in many parts of the nation are in the suburbs: They say that it wouldn’t be fair to raise taxes on those who must live on the fringes and commute simply because they don’t earn enough to move closer to the city.

Better options, they say, would be to require developers to share more of the cost of fixing our crumbling infrastructure, or to make them build more job centers or include public-transit projects before they get permission to construct new housing projects in suburbia. They claim that such changes would take more cars off the road, ease smog and provide many other benefits.

My wife and I would like to retire in three or four years but purchase our retirement home now, while prices are still low. We would then rent the new home to tenants until we are ready to move into it ourselves. What do you think of our plan?

Not much. I get this question often from folks who are nearing retirement age, and I usually suggest they wait until they have a much firmer date for when they’ll quit working.

I can see the logic of your plan, but it’s loaded with pitfalls. First, you would likely have to hire a property-management company to find a tenant and care for the new home — which is always an expensive proposition — or else do all the work yourselves, which could be difficult if the retirement house is far away. And though prices are low now, who’s to say they might not keep dropping in the future?

A bigger issue is that your letter states that you plan to retire in “three or four years.” That’s a fuzzy time frame, and a lot could happen between now and then. Your housing needs might change dramatically in the years ahead, especially if one of you gets seriously ill, dies or simply decides to work even longer. Those are just a few of the reasons why I typically tell older people to delay buying their retirement home unless they’re absolutely positive that they’ll quit working within six months or a year.

I am planning to purchase a home soon, so I followed your longstanding advice to order a credit report on myself so I could fix any errors before I apply for a mortgage. All of the information about my credit accounts is correct, but the report also notes that I am unemployed. I was indeed out of work for part of 2006, but I soon got a job and still have it today. Will this mistake on my report hurt my chances of getting a loan?

No, it shouldn’t. Lenders realize that job-related information on a credit report is often outdated, which is why the bank you eventually choose to apply for a mortgage with will verify your employment status and income directly with the company you currently work for.

Still, it would be a good idea to contact the credit bureau that provided the report and ask it to update your employment information.

Directions for correcting mistakes should be on the report itself, or you can simply contact its customer-service department.

The problem should be easy to fix, although the bureau might ask you to provide copies of your recent pay stubs to verify your employment and perhaps even your earnings.