'Negative equity' under Biden
GOP: Push is ‘gov’t-funded racism’
More than 90 federal agencies submitted “equity action plans” last year — something that will now be required annually across the US government under a new executive order from President Biden.
Biden’s Feb. 16 order — which forced every federal agency to report on “equity” in their organizations each year — followed moves from his early days in office that have led to hundreds of woke initiatives in the executive branch.
Soon after his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden ordered the creation of “agency equity teams” to produce reports suggesting a “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”
Last year, 92 federal agencies submitted such reports. But despite Biden’s rhetoric of “equity for all,” many of the plans centered exclusively on racial minorities — from prioritizing persons of color when doling out grants to focusing outreach efforts specifically on non-white groups.
The Department of Transportation codified this narrative in February 2021, adding “racial equity and barriers to opportunity as a consideration for awarding discretionary grants,” according to its report.
Critics call such policies unfair, arguing that introducing race as a factor in deciding who gets what in federal dollars illegally disenfranchises people based on the color of their skin.
“‘Equity’ policies are routinely used to justify making decisions based on race, gender, and other identity characteristics,” said Russ Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under former President Donald Trump. “This administration has turned governmentfunded racism into an art.”
Behind the benign-sounding language are very real consequences for taxpayer money — such as a $3.8 billion Department of Agriculture debt-relief program that paid up to 120% of loans to farmers or ranchers of color, regardless of their financial status.
That initiative was halted after a series of lawsuits filed by white farmers and later repealed by Congress — only to be replaced by a $3.1 billion initiative tucked in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act to bail out farmers deemed “economically distressed,” who are more likely to be minorities or white women.
Speaking Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said such programs “erode the American commitment to the dignity of hard work.”
“The fairness of playing by the rules is abrogated when government steps in and awards bonuses to people based on something other than the fact that they worked hard and were decent and good,” Pompeo said.
It’s not just cabinet-level agencies that are required to complete such reports under Biden’s latest order. All federal entities — from the CIA and NASA to smaller, lesser-know agencies such as the Denali Commission that supports Alaska — must turn one in.
Other agencies that have filed plans include the Smithsonian Institution, Americorps, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission.
Equity attempts to level the playing field by providing “disadvantaged” groups with opportunities that exclude everyone else. Those eligible, according to Biden, include religious minorities, women and girls, “LGBTQI+ persons,” those “who live in rural areas” and US territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico, as well as anyone “otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”