As Rep. Bob Good departs Congress, he’s taking on the disaster that is DEI one more time.
The Virginia Republican recently introduced two bills aimed at dealing with the escalating cost and shortage of housing while combating the discriminatory practices of the so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion agenda in public housing policy.
“Many Americans struggle to even dream of home ownership in the current economy,” Good, who, up until recently, chaired the House Freedom Caucus, said in a press release. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s radicalization of housing policy prioritizes woke DEI corporations, yet does nothing that will actually drive down the cost of a home in an economy destroyed by Bidenflation. My bills aim to restore Trump-era housing flexibility and eliminate the DEI housing policies that prohibit families from pursuing the American dream.”
‘Not the Intention of Congress’
Good’s No Discrimination in Housing Act proposal would bar DEI-pushing corporate entities from receiving the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), administered by the Treasury Department and State Housing Finance Agencies. The program provides state and local LIHTC-allocating agencies “the equivalent of approximately $10 billion in annual budget authority to issue tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households,” according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Corporations backed by left-leaning private equity groups such as Blackstone, Starwood Capital Group and others have been feasting on real estate in recent years, buying up single-family homes, turning them into rental properties and keeping them off the market. Institutional investors could control 40 percent of U.S. single-family rental homes by 2030, MetLife Investment Management warned in a report from Yardi Matrix. At the time, institutions owned abut 5 percent of single-family residences, or about 700,000 units, according to MetLife. That number could soar to some 7.6 million properties in the next several years.
Good said he’s become increasingly concerned about the shortage of housing, in no small part because of the mass acquisitions of the institutional groups. The congressman said the companies are taking advantage of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to convert single-family homes into low-income housing with DEI missions.
“That is not the intention of Congress with that low-income housing tax credit. It was to try to incentivize investment and to make more low-income housing is available but not for these huge corporate entities to buy hundreds of thousands of homes and get millions and millions of dollars in tax credits,” Good told me Friday during an interview on the “Vicki McKenna Show.”
In 2022, Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) launched a new portfolio company known as April Housing to “oversee and preserve affordability” of more than 90,000 housing units that Blackstone had acquired. Rents at most of April Housing’s property stock are set by regulation through the tax credit program.
“The rent restrictions have, on average, 20 years of remaining term, and Blackstone intends to keep them affordable for the long term,” the company said in a press release at the time.
But at what cost? Good said taxpayers are subsidizing companies that are keeping the American Dream of home ownership out of reach.
‘Abusively Intruding’
The congressman’s Flexibility in Housing Act of 2024 would stop the Biden-Harris administration from finalizing the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s equity-driven housing plans. Biden’s HUD has replaced equality in housing with the scale-weighting concepts of equity in its drive to “Affirmatively Further Fair Housing.” The current policy forces local governments to force low-income housing into higher-income and middle-income neighborhoods, taking over local zoning control.
“[T]his new regulation is designed to give unelected, anonymous bureaucrats in Washington the power to pick and choose who your new next-door neighbor will be,” wrote Utah Sen. Mike Lee, in a 2016 Daily Signal op-ed criticizing the Obama-era “national zoning board” rule. “If they don’t believe your neighborhood is ‘diverse’ enough, they will seize control of local zoning decisions — choosing what should be built, where, and who should pay for it—in order to make your neighborhood look more like they want it to.”
Good’s bill would remove control from federal bureaucrats, deferring to states and local governments on how to use federal housing funds without being penalized for failing to push affirmative action-style housing requirements.
“This is really attacking what began as an Obama-Biden policy, then Trump rescinded it, thankfully, but then Biden-Harris brought it back,” Good said in the radio interview. “It’s the federal government abusively intruding on housing zoning policy in states and localities and forcing them to implement DEI policies.”
‘Fostering Division, Inefficiency, and Discrimination’
DEI appears to be doomed in the Trump White House. And Republicans, soon to control both houses of Congress, are preparing to gut diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives infesting the federal government. The House’s “Dismantle DEI” Act says it all. The measure passed out of the House Oversight Committee last week on a party-line vote following a contentious hearing.
“DEI programs masquerade as fairness while instead fostering division, inefficiency, and discrimination in our institutions,” said Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, who authored the bill which strives to “prevent racism in the Federal Government.” “They waste taxpayer dollars and undermine the merit-based principles that have made America strong. The Dismantle DEI Act takes aim at this harmful ideology and will root it out of our government, ensuring our institutions focus on the mission of serving the American people efficiently and effectively.”
As Cloud noted, in 2023 alone the Biden administration allocated more than $16 million for federal diversity training and requested an additional $83 million for DEI programs at the State Department.
House leftists cited DEI talking points (pulled from critical race theory propaganda and antiracism dogma that label all white people as racists and the United States of America as “systemically racist), in defending continued taxpayer support of DEI.
“Why do predominantly conservative white men believe that the success of a black person, or the opportunity or access of a black person, is an existential threat to them,” Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., said, using a broad brush to villainize a group of people, during Wednesday’s hearing on the bill.
It’s the same divisive rhetoric that a growing number of Americans are rejecting, arguably a driver of the red wave that rolled Republicans into trifecta power.
“There has been no oppression for the white man in this country,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex, ignorantly declared during the hearing. “You tell me which white men were dragged out of their homes. You tell me which one of them got dragged all the way across an ocean and told that you are gonna go work, we are gonna steal your wives, we are gonna rape your wives. That didn’t happen. That is oppression.”
Final Fight
Good has helped lead several bills taking on DEI initiatives, including the Protecting Americans’ Investments from Woke Policies Act. That legislative package includes the Virginia congressman’s No Discrimination in My Benefits Act, which would ensure that fiduciaries of employee benefits plans choose their employees based on historic prudence and loyalty standards and not” DEI policies.
Good, who lost a primary challenge earlier this year to Trump-endorsed state Sen. John McGuire, leaves Congress as he entered a few years ago, fighting for smaller government and individual freedoms.
“We’re trying to attack these DEI policies that are so harmful, and so divisive and discriminatory,” the outgoing congressman said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Jesus Christ is King
Comments are closed.