March 12, 2021
Reparations for ancestors of slaves? The numbers don't add up.
By Anna L. Stark
House Resolution 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, got underway again in mid-February. It was originally introduced in Congress by John Conyers of Michigan in 1989, then again by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas in 2019, followed by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who presented a companion bill last April. Of particular contention is the claim that white Americans are responsible for the "sin of slavery" and should be made to pay, in order to adequately address and resolve 400 years of racial injustice and inequality, while contending that 5% of all Americans currently residing in the United States are the ancestors white slave-owners in 1860.
Supporters argue that monetary reparations are necessary to correct economic disparity between black and white Americans, the disparity being the root cause of all systemic racism in the United States. Over the course of H.R. 40 discussions in Congress, advocates for reparations have dishonestly paired the enslavement of Africans in the United States, prior to the end of the Civil War in 1865, with the low number of black Americans who currently own homes, along with the disproportionate poverty level among black Americans. Some have even suggested a correlation with the higher than normal transmission rates of the COVID-19 virus when comparing black Americans who contracted the virus to their white counterparts.
It is the widely held pro-reparations belief that a onetime monetary payment somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000, paid to 45 million black Americans, or an estimated $19-trillion "wealth transfer," will vanquish poverty among black Americans; erase past racial injustice; and, in their opinion, end systemic racism in perpetuity. Numerous proposals are vague on how $19 trillion would be raised for reparation payments. One idea imposes direct taxation on the wealthiest Americans, while other proposals rely upon instituting a onetime corporate tax on companies that profited from slavery in addition to identifying (and then taxing) the 21st-century ancestors of slave-owning families based on Census records from 1860.
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/reparations_for_ancestors_of_slaves_the_numbers_dont_add_up.html
