Anyone who doubts the conservative commitment to fighting poverty should read the essay published Friday at RealClearPolicy by Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development. It assesses the new “opportunity zones” enacted as part of the Republican-passed 2017 tax reform, designed to “incentiviz[e] long-term investments in low-income neighborhoods.”

Opportunity zones are the latest iteration of policies, then called “enterprise zones,” long championed by former President Ronald Reagan and especially by conservative former U.S. Rep. and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. Earlier versions of the idea were tried at both state and federal levels, to not-fully-conclusive but somewhat helpful effect, but they were hampered by then-President Bill Clinton’s overly bureaucratized, overly regulated approach.