Ben Carson hopes Biden administration won't 'snuff out' Trump’s ‘successful’ opportunity zones

Former HUD secretary says current administration should build on the bipartisan programs

The Biden administration has so far been quiet on minority community development, and former HUD secretary Dr. Ben Carson said Thursday he hopes former President Donald Trump’s highly-effective Opportunity Zones don’t get undone.

“I hope they will grasp the significance of what happened with the Opportunity Zones,” Carson told FOX Business Network's “Kudlow”.

Carson detailed the tax incentives involved in the development programs, which were on track to accrue $100 billion in personal investment within a 10-year period.

According to the former Cabinet official, Opportunity Zones wound up attracting $75 billion within the first two years, as well as produce 500,000 jobs and is expected to lift a million Americans out of poverty.

WHAT ARE OPPORTUNITY ZONES AND WHERE ARE THEY LOCATED IN THE US?

“Those are the kinds of things that are highly effective,” he said. “And I hope that the Biden administration will recognize that it was put forward as a bipartisan program, and because it has been successful, I hope there won’t be any attempts to snuff it out rather than build on it.”

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Carson explained that the best way to accumulate wealth in America is through real estate ownership, which is why there has been and should be a consistent emphasis on providing opportunities for minorities to access housing.

“The economic policies in the pre-COVID period that brought that unemployment rate down, particularly in the Black communities, to historic lows – those are the kinds of things that make a difference,” he said. “Let’s do the things that actually work.”

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