Lifting up poor communities—the conservative way

These past few weeks, millions of Americans filed their taxes and discovered that President Donald J. Trump delivered on his promise to lower their tax bills for 2018 and beyond. But tax reform was a conservative policy breakthrough for more reasons than meet the eye on first glance.

Today, President Trump brought State and local leaders from both parties together at the White House for a conference on “Opportunity Zones”—a signature piece of his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Rather than spending more money on yet another government program or Washington bureaucracy, Opportunity Zones offer tax incentives for long-term investment in more than 8,760 low-income communities throughout America.

“Across the country, our tax cuts have kicked off a race to invest in Opportunity Zones, beyond anything that anyone in this room even thought,” President Trump said today.

Opportunity Zones are a powerful vehicle for bringing economic growth and job creation to the American communities that need them the most. The census tracts eligible for the program were chosen by Governors, then certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. All told, the program is anticipated to spur $100 billion in private capital investment.

“Nearly 35 million people live in Opportunity Zones . . . and will now have a pathway to financial success due to a single stroke of a pen. I want to thank the President for that,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said today.

The core of President Trump’s economic agenda is lifting up the forgotten men and women of America. Through a mix of traditional Republican policies, such as tax cuts and deregulation, along with tough negotiating on trade deals and strong border security, wages for blue-collar workers are taking off even more quickly than they are for higher-income Americans. That’s a huge win toward a fairer, sturdier economy.

Opportunity Zones build on that success, applying conservative principles to help the most distressed communities across our country. For years, liberal politicians have given lip service to building up these places, only to spend more taxpayer money with little to show for it. Once again, President Trump is shaking up the status quo by having Washington put American citizens before its own self-interest.

President Trump is lifting up American communities that have been left behind

Watch: Revitalization doesn’t have a color or a party, Scott Turner says

When you live near the border, the crisis is real

From the cozy confines of the Beltway, Congressional Democrats continue to tell Americans that the border emergency is nothing more than a “manufactured crisis.” But that’s vintage Washington: a tone-deaf lecture circuit that ignores the very real problems people face in their own backyards.

Just yesterday, Mayor Douglas Nicholls of Yuma, Arizona, declared a local emergencyin his city caused by the ongoing surge of illegal immigration. His community is quickly becoming overwhelmed, he explained, because detainees are “being released into the community faster than they are departing, and shelters and the staff to run them are at max capacity.”

Yuma is not the only place facing a crisis—far from it. Just last week, U.S. Border Patrol reported that the El Paso Police Department in Texas is “now having to use their resources to help with the migrants that enter into the city illegally,” Christina Aguayo reports for KVIA.

In case you missed it: “This is a crisis by any measure,” says former Obama official.

Photo of the Day

Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at the Opportunity Zone Conference with State, local, tribal, and community leaders at the White House | April 17, 2019