RITUAL SUICIDE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The Democrats’ race to the left continues, as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren introduce “racial equity” plans.
Ms. Warren and Senator Kamala Harris of California both used the occasion — the annual culture and music festival sponsored by Essence magazine, which caters to black women — to introduce major new proposals intended to address racial disparities, including in wealth and homeownership.
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Ms. Harris announced a plan aimed at reducing the racial gap in homeownership, including $100 billion to help black families and individuals buy homes in historically redlined communities, where banks systematically denied them loans.
Redlining has been illegal for how many decades now? And the idea that the federal government knows better than banks who should get loans, and at what rates, is not only absurd, it was the principal cause of the 2008 financial collapse.
The money would help cover down payments and closing costs for up to four million families or individuals, providing home buyers with up to $25,000 each.
From Obamaphones to Harrishouses. Obviously the government can’t say openly that it is discriminating against whites, Asians and Hispanics by offering $25,000 only to black individuals or families. Harris’s transparent workaround is to limit eligibility to “historically red-lined communities.” I have no opinion, offhand, on whether that dodge could pass constitutional muster, but in any event, there is zero chance of it being enacted.
Mrs. Warren has a different set of panders:
Every year, the federal government awards $500 billion in contracts to companies that, altogether, employ about a quarter of the country’s workers. Ms. Warren’s plan, which she released on Friday and described to the audience on Saturday, calls for an executive order that would require the recipients of those contracts to diversify their workforces, and pay women and people of color equally.“It’s up to the federal government to say what the terms of those contracts are,” Ms. Warren said. “It’s not enough to talk the talk about equal pay for equal work.”
Equal pay for totally different jobs! The Democrats raise high the banner of injustice and wave it enthusiastically.
Under her proposed executive order, contractors would be barred from asking about past salaries and criminal records, and from using forced arbitration and noncompete clauses.
It won’t be long before one of the Democratic contenders offers a proposal to require random hiring and pay for all private sector jobs. To which one might respond to the government: you go first.
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