Taxpayers would rightfully be outraged if a state agency handed someone almost $350,000 in public funds to put toward the purchase of a $425,000 home, simply because of that person’s race and a family connection.
If that doesn’t sound corrupt and unfair, I don’t know what does.
According to some good old-fashioned investigative reporting by Seattle-based independent journalist Brandi Kruse, something very similar to this happened about six months ago.
Most of the public funds involved came from what’s called the Community Reinvestment Plan. This was created by Democratic state legislators in 2022 as a response to — of all things — the so-called “war on drugs” policies from the 20th century, and their effect on people of color.
While the money wasn’t handed out directly by the state Department of Commerce, which was put in charge of the CRP, it was funneled through multiple non-profit organizations, as Democrats intended.
Kruse’s report noted that the person who received all that money, which went toward the purchase of a Tacoma home in March, just happens to be the daughter of the “financial empowerment” director at one of those nonprofits.
It also details how two more women with close connections to the same Seattle non-profit apparently received almost $50,000 and $100,000, respectively, in taxpayer money through the CRP.
The smaller amount reportedly went to pay off consumer debt, which would be like credit-card charges. The larger amount went toward buying a home — and according to the whistleblower, the purchaser also received more than $145,000 through the Democrat-created Covenant Homeownership Fund, which like the CRP hands out money based on race.
Kruse’s online report, headlined “Whistleblower: State ‘equity’ program became a fund for personal enrichment,” is well worth reading. Also, there’s no reason to question the credibility of the whistleblower, a woman of color and real-estate broker who began keeping records after she saw insiders misuse taxpayer dollars by gaming the system.
We can add this scandal to the legacy of Jay Inslee. The CRP was another one of his efforts to pander to special interests by giving away tax dollars and not looking too closely at how they would be spent.
In the budget he proposed ahead of the 2022 session, the former governor called for diverting tens of millions in marijuana-tax dollars to a new account in the state treasury. The CRP, he said, would distribute that money through grants to communities that have “experienced historically and inequitably enforced criminal laws and penalties for illegal drug sales, possession and use.”
Democrats’ legislation to create the CRP died in the Senate, despite receiving party-line approval in the House. However, they still made it happen by inserting the policy language into their 2022 supplemental budget and tying it to a $200 million general-fund appropriation.
More than two-thirds of the $200 million was to go toward economic development. That includes assistance to small businesses but also what the law calls “addressing wealth disparities to promote asset building such as home ownership.” This is what apparently opened the door to the corruption documented by the whistleblower.
Another $50 million was to be divided between “community-based violence intervention and prevention services,” which aren’t defined in the law; legal assistance to provide “post-conviction relief” that could include making criminal records and convictions disappear; and reentry services for felons released from custody.
