Sen. Tim Scott is aware that legislation he helped get passed into law could put his name in the history books if it manages to deliver on the promise of bringing investment to poverty-stricken areas like the North Charleston neighborhood he grew up in.
“I am a person who was one of the folks left behind. My goal is to make sure that there are fewer people left behind,” Scott said. Jared Bernstein, a prominent liberal economist who served as chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama administration, was cautiously optimistic about Scott’s bill.
“What we see is an opportunity for cities through zoning, and through incentives, through grants, through infrastructure, to control the type of development that happens and to control the pace of that development,” Scott told Yahoo News. “There are other controversial measures, whether it’s assessment caps that would slow down the acceleration in the property values that so often run people out of the neighborhoods. There is a way in local government to cap those assessments.
“I shuddered when I heard Eric Garner say, ‘I can’t breathe.’ I wept when I watched Walter Scott turn and run away and get shot and killed from the back. And I broke when I heard the 4-year-old daughter of Philando Castile’s girlfriend tell her mother, ‘It’s OK. I’m right here with you,’” Scott said.