That's why the president said he wants to combat poverty through expanding entrepreneurship generally and minority enterprise in particular. He knows that an opportunity (or enterprise) zone for the whole region will attract capital and encourage investment in job-creating businesses in the "green-lined" area of Gulfport.
Further attacks on the president are coming for not raising taxes, and it is time for Republicans and thoughtful Democrats in Congress to come to his defense. They need to point out that even at lower tax rates enacted under Bush tax revenues have grown more than 16 1/2 percent for two straight years. And the capital gains tax is not a tax on the rich, it's a tax on the poor who want to get rich.
The deficit, while numerically large, is but 3 1/2 percent of our $11.9 trillion gross domestic product, which people conveniently ignore when talking about deficits. Growth at 3.5 percent to 4 percent is essential to keeping our revenues sufficient to meet this challenge, and this is no time for the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates and slow down the economy.
Instead of raising taxes, Congress should provide more juice to the opportunity zone by adding an exemption to capital gains taxes for people and businesses who invest in job-creating enterprises for people in the green-lined zone. As the president said, the people who suffered the most dislocation and distress must participate fully in the rebuilding and the job opportunities that will result from these policy prescriptions.
African-American leaders like Morial, Bruce Gordon of NAACP, Earl Graves of Black Enterprise Magazine and Andy Young, the former mayor of Atlanta, have all said access to capital is one of the most important social and economic goals for minority business development and job creation. Let's democratize capitalism as a tool to wage war on poverty, despair and racial discrimination.