Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday announced the formation of a 25-member committee called the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, which will identify, monitor, and review aspects of the domestic economy “that have directly and indirectly resulted in unfavorable conditions for communities of color,” according to a press release.
In the latest iteration of the Biden administration’s inclusion of capitalism critics in federal governance, Felicia Wong, the president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, was announced to serve as the nascent racial equity committee’s vice chair. …
In 2016, years before the “Defund the Police” movement came to national prominence, Wong co-authored a report that argued that “police budgets should be reduced and for-profit prison systems must be done away with.”
“A key lever for reform is removing the money that fuels a corrupt justice system,” the report stated. “[W]e must make a concentrated effort to reduce our prison population, at least in part by decriminalizing drugs and also by bringing U.S. sentencing practices more in line with other nations.”
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