Christopher Rufo:

The most significant of these initiatives is the agency-wide effort to redirect billions of dollars toward supposedly oppressed racial groups and other “underserved communities.” In 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary Yellen jointly announced$8.7 billion in investments to increase lending to “minority-owned businesses,” among other groups. Two years later, the Treasury announced that some 30 private companies were committed to raising $3 billionin deposits for “underserved communities,” to be delivered through community-development financial institutions (CDFIs) and minority depository institutions (MDIs).

The State Small Business Capital Initiative is another node of the department’s slush fund for favored racial groups. In 2021, Treasury announced that it was using SSBCI to route $2.5 billion to “businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, including those in communities of color.” The first $1.5 billion of this total was earmarked for small businesses in Treasury-designated areas “owned by individuals that have faced barriers . . . including membership in a group that has been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society.” The other $1 billion went to “incentive funds” aimed at increasing venture capital investments in these businesses.

Secretary Yellen has also intensified Treasury’s commitment to awarding federal contracts based on race. Treasury openly discriminates in favor of “diverse” businesses, reporting to Congress that the department’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) was committed to “[e]stablish[ing] an organizational climate that advances procurement equity”—that is, “the percentages of contract obligations awarded to minority-owned and women-owned businesses.” Earlier this year, the department reported progress: Treasury had “[i]ncreased federal business with Black businesses” to “over $188 million in government contracts.”