Harris new vote-buying try is a divisive, unconstitutional equity scheme

Kamala Harris is rushing to fix a growing hole in her support: black men.She’s trying to buy their votes with thinly veiled taxpayer-funded giveaways — “fully forgivable” $20,000 loans — she says are meant just for them. The money can be used to “purchase a van for a catering business .

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buy professional hairstyling equipment and chair space for a barber shop, buy lawn mowers and tools for a landscaper, and more,” according to a statement from her campaign.If you’re a white male and having trouble growing your business, will you be eligible? The US Constitution says you should be. But Harris appeared to be doubling down on the notion — increasingly unpopular with the public, and now widely challenged in court — that certain benefits should be reserved only for minorities, for the sake of “equity.”On Monday, as Harris traveled to Erie County, Pa.for a stop at a local black-owned coffee shop, her campaign announced she’s unleashing “the untapped ambition” within the black community.She promised one million “loans,” up to $20,000 apiece, to “Black entrepreneurs and others who have historically faced barriers to starting a new business or growing an existing business.”  That language suggests white men won’t be eligible — because the phrase “historically faced barriers” is one (like “historically underserved” and “socially disadvantaged”) that has a specific meaning in the federal code: They are shorthand for eligibility based on group identity, not on hardships an individual applicant has faced. Two days later, an unnamed Harris aide tried to walk the promise back — telling the Wall Street Journal that the veep’s program, announced with such hoopla, would be “open to everyone.”Of course, what is said on the campaign trail by an anonymous flunky is one thing.

Congress would have to actually pass a law to authorize spending billions on “forgivable loans” to aspiring entrepreneurs.And woul...