Posted on 05/27/2002 6:05:25 AM PDT by RippleFire
Vehicles for reparations
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY, Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON - I've just tossed away another losing lottery ticket. This one would have fetched the tidy pretax annuitized sum of $80 million. When the jackpot builds up once more, I'll probably try it again.
I'm trying to make it clear, before I start to talk about reparations for slavery, that I'm not above developing an interest in money I didn't earn. If the group headed by Charles Ogletree, the Harvard law professor, can get me a few mil as compensation for the fact that my great-grandparents (and many generations of their ancestors) made unrequited contributions to the development of the country, I'll take it.
So why have I hesitated to become a full-fledged advocate of reparations? In part, I suppose, because I have no way of figuring out -- even of thinking about -- what the American people owe me for my great-grandparents' unpaid labor. Or my parents' undercompensated labor. Or the jobs I couldn't get, or the income I was denied based in large measure on race.
The whole reparations idea starts to sound like an appeal to national guilt, but an appeal that requires me to assume the victim's role.
That's one hand. Here's the other: There are problems that black Americans suffer that have their deep roots in slavery and racism. It doesn't seem reasonable that the thing to do about this legacy is...nothing.
Which is why I'm glad I ran into James P. Comer the other day. The Yale University professor of psychiatry and extraordinarily successful public school reformer was at N.C. State University, where the two of us were among the commencement honorees, when I broached the subject of reparations. It's something he's thought about. Listen:
"My feeling is that we need an approach that is fair to everybody -- that allows the larger society to get off its unproductive guilt-and-defense response and that allows African-Americans not to feel victimized, while at the same time making it possible to address the problem that was created by the conditions of slavery.
"The problem manifests itself in underachievement and underpreparation in all the things that require high levels of development, and overrepresentation in such things as criminal activity and dependency. This is largely the aftermath of slavery, the failure of African-Americans to have access to the same political and economic situation as everybody else when everybody else had it."
And what would he do about it now? He would enact legislation to allow black taxpayers to direct up to 95 percent of their federal income taxes directly to foundations set up to help those blacks who have been most hurt by slavery and its legacy. These black-run foundations would have two main focuses: educating young people for work, family life and citizenship, and promoting economic development and economic access for the rest of us.
Here, as they used to say, is the beauty part. The proposal wouldn't take any money out of the economy, but merely redirect it as you might designate all or most of your United Way contribution to the Girl Scouts. And, says Comer, "it would be in the interest of all of America. It's important to the health of the entire society not to have another generation of non-mainstream and nonproductive -- even counterproductive -- African-Americans. It simply costs too much, economically, socially and civically."
One problem with his proposal would involve choosing which foundations and which leaders would become custodians of black America's redirected taxes. Comer says it is the sort of problem private foundations have to deal with all the time.
"We'd have to have the same sort of process -- very careful selection of directors and officers, a careful development of a set of criteria based on the understanding that the purpose is to bring our people into the mainstream of society."
There might also be the logistical problem of determining which taxpayers would qualify to have their income taxes diverted. Perhaps the way around that would be to make the entire matter voluntary and nonracial from the taxpayers' viewpoint. That is, any taxpayer could designate up to 95 percent of his taxes for the foundations. Presumably virtually all African-Americans would so designate, but a great many others might as well.
Comer may not have a perfect proposal, but I'd sure love to hear it discussed.
The BILLIONS in transfer payments and affirmative action set-asides that the American taxpayers have coughed up since the sixties really count for "nothing", huh? Pull your head out of your a$$ and get a clue, Chuck.
Could be be because Rasberry and the rest of his friends on the left have been TELLING black kids from the time that they are toddlers "You will never be anything when you grow up. Don't even try. It's because of SLAVERY that you will never succeed and should never TRY to succeed."
I LOVE the way he tells the rest of America "Hey, don't feel guilty or get defensive...JUST PAY UP!"
If this is based on slave labor, that means all tax slaves get to move their taxes where they wish as well. We too are forced to work for others benifits and not our own. Some have slaved all their lives as well, by force! If our goverment owners don't get their money, the IRS brings guns, and they kill.
All those who have collected welfare and other social programs all these years OWE US - big time. If it weren't for the sweat of our brow, they may not have survived.
When can I expect my check?
Like when white people do not get jobs because of affirmative action?
The more I think about it, maybe reparations would not be such a bad idea. Here's my suggestion: Reparations can be paid to all who can prove they are descendents of slaves and who can prove they have suffered economically from that past injustice. The catch--as a condition of payment, the agrieved party will be repatriated to the country from which their anscestors were originally enslaved. The cost of such repatriation will, of course, be deducted from any reparation payment.
This statement needs to be taken seriously. I have heard otherwise conservative black people say things of exactly this sort. Since non-black conservative opinion refuses to take any part of the reparations issue seriously, only liberal opinion is addressing this concern. That's politically dangerous.
Here is a conservative response:
The legacy of slavery, in terms of the reparations issue, is being confined to the realm of economics. In that sense, the legacy we're speaking about is one of historical capital deprivation.
American history has demonstrated that collective solutions to such issues are doomed to fail, or even to create worse problems (witness public housing or the welfare system). Therefore any serious attempt to address this issue must occur at the individual level. The free market has proven by far the most effective means of addressing issues of capital. The free market thrives where the government limits its activity to enforcing property rights and contracts.
Therefore, any serious attempt to address reparations is going to leave the government out of the solution. Talk of tax money or collective economics should be ignored in favor of individually directed solutions. Perhaps Jack Kemp's old idea of creating "enterprise zones," with reduced taxation and government economic involvement rather than more deserves attention in response to collectivist liberal solutions.
...You forgot to mention that Mr Jackson for sure, and Mr Rasberry very probably, don't PAY their fair share of taxes.
Notice that Mr. Raspberry didn't provide an address - e-mail or otherwise - or a phone number that we could use to "discuss" it with him.
Absolutely spot on....BUT the people who started this whole "reparations" idea in the first place; the very SAME people who keep the "debate" fresh in the public mind with opinion pieces like these, will NEVER CONSIDER A FREE MARKET SOLUTION. We all know why: they want money. They want to be handed cold, hard cash through some guilt-ridden, get-off-our-backs-already, feel-good government entitlement program, and they don't give a D@MN whether "the poor" actually benefit...just as long as the likes of Ra$$berry and Jack$on can use such programs for their OWN monetary benefit.
That's right - NONE.
The descendents of slaves (btw - who were sold into slavery by their own tribes and relatives) who are unhappy here should go visit their cousins in their homelands for a few months. Then we'll talk.
--Boris
But, this subject is NOT going to just go away. The liberals have launched a campaign to push Reparations and in so doing will lock the conservatives/republicans into the "racist" camp if all we do is fight them.
I propose that we at least consider the case. Work to define the argument and frame the debate so IF this subject gains traction with the citizens as a worthy cause, at least we will not be crushed. But, more likely, the liberals will be crushed in the end.
Frankly, I strongly believe that if Reparations were paid, there is a real possibility that it would destroy the genuinely racist liberal coalition and eventually the black voting block that exists today.
Consider the effects if Reparations (CASH)were paid to JUST slave descendants. Assume 1/2 the black population qualified. That means 1/2 the black population would get zero. IF the money were paid directly to the descendants instead of to an "entity" (let the recipients vote whether they want to receive it or have it go to an entity) it would soon find its way back into the marketplace and boost the economy.
Do the math, I assume a onetime $10,000 payment to each qualified individual. $10,000 was the insurance payoff when a soldier died when I served, good enough for our troops, good enough for our reparations. IF 7 million recipients were qualified, that is about 70 Billion dollars. There are about 120 million taxpayers (individuals) and that works out to about $630 per taxpayer (exempting the recipients)
The Government could even sell "Reparations Bonds" to finance this little boondoggle, the actual cost could easily be absorbed.
Once paid, it would forever remove the race issue from the liberal/democrats arsenal. Once paid, it would create a real market dynamic within the black community and possibly reduce or even destroy the control of the existing liberal black leadership. The human dynamics would almost guarantee a split would develop in the black community which might cause some of them to actually start to question the bs they are fed by the liberals.
I would gladly pay $70 billion to see the liberals/democrats lose their soapbox. I think it a small price to pay for the possibilities.
Course, I could be wrong.
Do you think Jesse Jackson would sign in such an instance?
The only form of "reparations" should be a one-way ticket to Africa.
--Boris
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Why is it that whiners like Raspberry and Comer always come along and try to tell me that I am disadvantaged because my great-great-however many great-grandfather was a slave? Why is it that I find myself doing just fine today without the assistance of the "reparations" demanded by the warlords? Why is it that plenty of other black folks are doing as well, or in many cases, better than I am - without the windfall brought about by the warlords? Why is it that I'm demonized for saying that we have no business doing anything but living as productive Americans, and pursuing the American Dream - just as the rest of America does every day?
That's because the warlords and the clueless (like the "esteemed" Mr. Raspberry, and his losing lottery ticket here) want something for nothing. Is there any wonder why everyone is upset at these lawsuits and other associated BS? There is no "failure" as Comer put it here. The inequities that he is speaking of are generations in the past. Life goes forward - I'm looking forward. Too bad that Comer, Raspberry and the warlords don't want to.
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