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opportunity zone

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https://prospect.org/mapping-corruption-interactive

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Housing and Urban Development Department

QUICK AND DIRTY

SELF-AND-CRONY-ENRICHMENT

one upon a time, LBJ was able to harness the pressure of CRM, and maybe 60's ctr-culture, and perhaps the martyrdom of JFK, MLK and RFK to jam thru civil rights and voter rights acts, as well the the Great Society, oft wrongly seen as a failure; it did affirmative/ active programs that gave poor ppl money, education, job training...[RR cut housing 80? rick p WITH pod 920)

Later affirm action lost in ct? Bakke? UC? 187? RR attack mythical welfare queen, so direct assistance became taboo [BC did welfare reform, 3 strikes superpredators?]

But must at least be seen to do something for inner city POC, so we get opportunity/empowerment zone, tax breaks for real estate dev in crappy parts of town;

so not giving cash to poor ppl, but only a tax/break incentive to competent rich white guys, then the benefits will tricke down on poor ppl.  // urban renewal?  gentrification?  sports stadiums?

NOW 920 Wheeler needs cover because the massive EPA rollback on regs clearly hurt POC, especially kids, so extends paul driessen  Green blk death energy poverty BS  or maybe more generally and slightly less cynically, cut red tape will allow economy to thrive, blk ppl will get some of that $, and can then afford to move away from toxins?

...“Communities that deal with the worst pollution in this country—and tend to be low-income and minority—face multiple environmental problems that need solving,” Wheeler said. He suggested President Donald Trump’s “opportunity zones” plan—recognized by expertsas a giveaway to the rich—as a remedy to environmental injustice....

One Trump Tax Cut Was Meant to Help the Poor. A Billionaire Ended Up Winning Big.

Opportunity zones are meant to spur new investment in poor areas. But Under Armour’s Kevin Plank is getting a tax break for investments that are not new and not in a poor tract. And Plank’s area was picked over neighborhoods that are actually poor.

by Jeff Ernsthausen and Justin Elliott

View Story

what fresh hell?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-epa-chiefs-vision-would-create-an-apocalyptic-devastated-planet-critics-warn/

environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is under fire for a Thursday speech laying out a vision for the agency that critics warn would unleash untold environmental devastation should it come to pass.

Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, delivered the remarks at the Nixon Library in southern California to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EPA. The agency was established under the Nixon administration.

Wheeler also framed as positive steps the administration’s environmental protection rollbacks and attacks on science. The EPA chief said that “members of former administrations and progressives in Congress have elevated single issue advocacy—in many cases focused just on climate change—to virtue-signal to foreign capitals, over the interests of communities within their own country.”

“Communities that deal with the worst pollution in this country—and tend to be low-income and minority—face multiple environmental problems that need solving,” Wheeler said. He suggested President Donald Trump’s “opportunity zones” plan—recognized by expertsas a giveaway to the rich—as a remedy to environmental injustice.

wheeler declared it “very disappointing to see governors on the East Coast, such as [New York] Governor Cuomo, unilaterally block pipelines that would take natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and New England.”

“We helped President Trump successfully implement the new NEPA regulations with the goal of reviewing federal permits within two years,” Wheeler said of the administration’s attack on the bedrock environmental law.

He also touted “a proposed rule that would remove onerous and expensive regulation of gene-edited plant protectants” and the administration’s “science transparency rules,” referring to what its critics call a “secret science rule” to limit scientific evidence the EPA will consider in its work.

Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former EPA official who helped found the agency’s environmental justice office, took issue with Wheeler’s plans for environmental justice.

“Every one of the actions the Trump administration has taken, either by weakening or rolling back basic air and water protections, has put #environmentaljustice communities in greater harm,” he tweeted Thursday. “No one believes a Trump second term would value Black and Brown lives!” he added.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, rebuffed Wheeler’s claimthat the Trump administration has been a champion of EPA’s mission.

“Wheeler and the Trump administration have done grave and lasting damage to the EPA by elevating polluters and their profits above all else, and no slick speech can change that fact,” said Hartl. He further accused Wheeler of being “ignorant of the immense environmental progress made over the last 50 years because Congress and President Nixon recognized when they established the EPA that no one has a right to pollute our air, water, or land.”

“If Wheeler’s vision becomes real in the decades ahead,” warned Hartl, “our children and grandchildren would inherit nothing less than an apocalyptic, devastated planet.”

Hartl continued: “Instead of following the proud bipartisan traditions of the EPA, Wheeler has decimated protections for our nations wetlands and rivers, rolled back protections for toxic pollutants spewed into the air, rubberstamped pesticides that cause brain damage in children, and utterly ignored the climate crisis. He is a horror-show, through and through.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/treasury-department-inspector-general-opens-probe-into-abuse-of-the-trump-tax-cut-law/

no lnx

Treasury Department inspector general opens probe into abuse of the Trump tax cut law

Written by Justin Elliott / ProPublica January 16, 2020

The Treasury Department’s inspector general is looking into the opportunity zone program following stories by ProPublica and The New York Times about how the tax break meant to help the poor had been manipulated by billionaires.

The development, which was first reported by NBC News, comes after three congressional Democrats wrote to Treasury’s inspector general in October asking for the probe and citing the ProPublica and Times stories.

“We are conducting an inquiry, and expect to complete our work and respond to the Congressional requesters in early spring,” Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar said in a statement.

The opportunity zone program, passed as part of the 2017 Trump tax overhaul, offers tax breaks to investors who put money into specially designated areas. While it was pitched as a way to help struggling neighborhoods, ProPublica and others have documented how the process has appeared to benefit billionaires with investments in areas that should not have qualified. In other cases, governors have granted the tax break to their political donors and, in some cases, themselves or their families.

Sen. Cory Booker, an architect of the program, along with Reps. Emanuel Cleaver and Ron Kind, asked the inspector general to do a “complete review” of areas picked for the opportunity zone tax break to see if they were truly eligible.The October letter also asked the inspector general to collect all correspondence between Treasury, White House officials and outside interests about the process.

The inspector general said that once the inquiry is complete it plans to publicly post its response to the congressional Democrats.

Do you have access to information about opportunity zones that should be public? Email justin@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.

no lnx an 1119

Hightower explains how Trump’s poverty subsidy enriches the rich

Cleveland Cavaliers - Cleveland Cavaliers, CC]

Written by Jim Hightower / Creators.Com November 21, 2019

Years ago, a Texas legislator who was occasionally known to take lobbyists’ cash in exchange for a vote, explained his ethical framework as opportunistic: “I seen my chances, and I took ’em.”

Likewise, such hustlers as Dan Gilbert (the billionaire founder of Quicken Loans), Michael Milken (the disgraced Wall Street finagler), Stephen Ross (a Florida real estate magnate and owner of the Miami Dolphins), and Jeff Vinik (a Tampa developer of luxury properties) have seen opportunistic chances in Donald Trump’s program of Opportunity Zone tax breaks— and grabbed them. The new tax law was trumpeted as a channel for funneling new investments into poor communities. But the billionaires — all of whom happen to be Trump’s buddies — jumped on it like chickens on a cricket.

They devoured the poor people’s tax subsidy to underwrite luxury projects they were already developing. To see two textbook cases of how plutocrats rig the system, first, consider Kevin Plank’s scam in Baltimore. He’s the billionaire owner of the sports apparel outfit Under Armour. He was struggling to market a track of vacant downtown land called Port Covington as an upscale address, and then he discovered Trump’s new tax break. But alas, Plank’s tract was not in a low-income zone, so it didn’t qualify.

But — Eureka — the billionaire found a loophole! If a piece of property was within an old “empowerment zone,” it could qualify for the taxpayers’ subsidy. Alas again, Port Covington was not inside the qualifying zone, but next to it. However, an old mapping mistake showed that a tiny slice of Plank’s property line ran under a highway overpass, just inside the zone. Based on the map’s error, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and Trump’s Treasury Department quickly certified every inch of the Port Covington tract as an Opportunity Zone eligible for the full poverty subsidy.

The Opportunity Zone provision in The Donald’s $1.5 trillion giveaway to corporate elites was a token gesture meant to show some concern for the poor. The idea was to give a new set of tax breaks to developers to lure them to invest and build in low-income neighborhoods. Which brings me to a second example of plutocratic plunder. This “anti-poverty” tax break is going to projects such as the Rybovich SuperYacht Marina on a stretch of the tony waterfront of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Rybovich is a “luxurious resort-style” marina for the $100 million football-field-sized yachts of the superrich. Not your typical poverty zone. Yet, Trump gloated that “the biggest beneficiary of this tax scheme “is African Americans.” But Wayne Huizenga Jr. is not noticeably African American. He is, however, the politically connected owner of the Rybovich Marina — as well as being the billionaire heir to the fortune of Wayne Huizenga Sr.

Daddy Huizenga, who died last year, was a corporate baron, owning Waste Management Inc. and Blockbuster Video, and he was a major Trump donor and plutocratic pal. Father and son were also big money backers of Rick Scott, the notoriously sleazy Republican governor of Florida, who had authority under Trump’s Opportunity Zone program to designate which poverty areas were eligible for the multimillion-dollar tax subsidies. Obviously, an opulent superyacht marina does not qualify.

But… money talks. Huizenga Jr. simply asked his buddy the governor to give the tax break to him, and — shazam! — Scott waved his magic gubernatorial wand and transformed the posh marina into a poverty zone — an area in which Huizenga himself had just bought a $5 million house.The tax subsidy he’s been given could cover the cost of that house, but we won’t know because Trump’s law requires no disclosure of who gets how much of a tax handout.

Even more disgusting is that, because the law limits the number of Opportunity Zone projects, slipping in these luxury projects means actual poverty-stricken areas get rejected.

And that’s how corporate and political elites conspire to rig the system, blatantly ripping off money meant to help poor people to make the rich richer and increase inequality in America. Plutocracy in action.

Sen. Ron Wyden has introduced an Opportunity Zone Reform Act to stop this immoral scam. For more information, go to Finance.Senate.gov.