Free Republic

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday will order federal agencies to prioritize moving their offices to Opportunity Zones to spur investment in some of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, The Post has learned. The move will apply to all federal agencies and asks that they stop prioritizing city centers and central business districts and instead base themselves in any of the 8,769 low-income communities designated as Opportunity Zones by the Trump administration... ...A senior White House official said the order would see immense federal resources poured into distressed communities and also drive down the high cost of locating government offices in...

The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents. But that's not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center. The tenants moved in over the past two years as part of a push by the CHA to expand its housing voucher program...

The personal, commercial and civic desolation left by Hurricane Katrina has inevitably bred comparisons to another scene of unthinkable loss and ruin: lower Manhattan after 9/11. While the recovery effort on the Gulf Coast is unique, one area in which New York's experience provides an example is its support for small business reconstruction. Like Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attacks destroyed or crippled thousands of the smallest local businesses and nonprofits... the "soft" infrastructure of any commercial or industrial district.... After 9/11, Seedco became the primary organization assisting these businesses. We tailored a specific response to the challenges faced... Our approach...

...What is New Orleans today? It is the impoverished, lawless product of Huey Long's anti-capitalist populism, cross-fertilized with every poverty program Washington produced the past 60 years. The currently popular notion that "the country" somehow failed to notice that much of New Orleans had become a social and economic basket case is false. Every college student knows the basic storyline of "All the King's Men" if not that of former Governor Edwin Edwards (1992-96), now serving 10 years for extorting businessmen. Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a native of Louisiana, believes a "culture of fatalism" about...

If we had our druthers, all of America would be an "opportunity zone," with low and flat-rate taxes and little of the regulation that can strangle economic development. But the battered Gulf Coast is a good place to start with these investment-friendly reconstruction incentives, and so Congress could (and probably will) do much worse than enact President Bush's Gulf Opportunity Zone. The idea is to lure businesses back to the region through lower tax rates, incentives for new capital investment, and low-cost business loans and loan guarantees. So far the details are sketchy. But one promising magnet for capital is...