Posted on 08/17/2004 2:38:57 PM PDT by unspun
By The Leader-Chicago Bureau (admin@illinoisleader.com)
CHICAGO -- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes has just released a statement clarifying what appeared to be a surprising position he took at a news conference yesterday.
"I think a cogent argument could be made for reparations in principle," Keyes is quoted as saying to reporters yesterday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Chicago Tribune expanded:
Keyes gave a brief tutorial on Roman history and said that in regard to reparations for slavery, the U.S. should do what the Romans did: "When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time--a generation or two--they exempted the damaged city from taxation."Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes--federal because slavery "was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment."
The response from conservatives was immediate. "Who downstate will now vote for Keyes?" wrote IllinoisLeader.com reader Randall Mead of Springfield today. "I certainly won't."
This afternoon, Keyes released the following statement, clarifying his position:
I have consistently opposed the effort to extort monetary damages from the American people. As I have argued in the past, the great sacrifices involved in the Civil War represented the requital in blood and treasure for the terrible injustices involved in slavery. In this form the so called "reparations" movement represents an insult to the historic commitment that many Americans made to the end of slavery, which included the sacrifice of their lives.I have also consistently maintained that the history of slavery, racial segregation and discrimination did real damage to black Americans, left real and persistent material wounds in need of healing.
In various ways through the generations since the end of slavery, America has tried to address this objective fact, but without real success. This was at least in part the rational for many elements of the Great Society programs of the sixties, and for the original and proper concept of affirmative action developed under Republican leadership during the Nixon years.
Unfortunately, the government-dominated approaches of the Great Society, which purported to heal and repair the legacy of historical damage, actually widened and deepened the wounds. They undermined the moral foundations of the black community and seriously corrupted the family structure and the incentives to work, savings, investment, and business ownership.
The idea I have often put forward to address this challenge involves a traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach: removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two in order to encourage business ownership, create jobs and support the development of strong economic foundations for working families.
This has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts. It takes no money from other citizens, while righting the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent.
I have also made it clear that while I believe that the descendants of slaves would be helped by this period of tax relief, my firm goal and ultimate objective is to replace the income tax, and thereby free all Americans from this insidious form of tax slavery. It is well known that this is one of the key priorities of the Keyes campaign.
In response to Keyes' statement, conservative Jack Roeser of Family Taxpayers Network told IllinoisLeader.com, "I expect Keyes would say this is one of those interesting subjects to be talked about among people sharing ideas. Reparations is an impractical concept. Everybody in every category has been wronged in one or the other, and you cannot single one out."
Roeser continued, "Keyes is a man of ideas, and I expect he gets into discussions like this that are proper in their proper place, but that he would never vote for reparations. The problem with American politics is that people don't get into deep discussions."
© 2004 IllinoisLeader.com -- all rights reserved
______What are your thoughts concerning the issues raised in this story? Write a letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com and include your name and town.
I think Dr. Keyes has had enough of a history in arguing for lower taxes that I can safely say that his ultimate goal is lower tax burden for everyone, not just the black community.
In as much as strategically he feels getting it lowered for this particular group is an effective way to break the Democratic coalition, which paves the way to that ultimate goal, I think he may be onto something.
Same boat, my family came over from Germany between The Wars, America's 18th and 19th century mistakes aren't our fault, glad they solved them before we got here, not sure whyanybody is obsessing on them now. Something the reperations movement deliberately ignores is the VAST percentage of this country that owes it's lineage to post Civil War immigration, it's a group that doesn't, through even the most creative guilt math, owe the decendants of slaves anything.
"Do you specifically support race-based tax cuts?"
No. This is precisely the argument I will use if this goes through to advocate tax cuts for everyone.
Think of proposing this as bait.
Maybe he's not a politician but rather a statesman...a man who deserves better than Illinois Republicans apparently.
Problem is if this were to go into place it would be a huge rallying cry against future tax cuts (and even more so against tax irradication) until the grace period is over. Anytime during this grace period when taxes gets lowered would be effectively lowering the value of the reperations, lowering our concept of guilt over slavery. This could turn into the ultimate weapon against tax cuts.
Then there's still the problem with how many blacks live below the poverty line (more than any other minority), none of them will gain any benefit from this because they already don't pay taxes. It's easily argued that these are the people owed the most (because they've had such a hard time oercoming the "obstacles" of slavery) and they wouldn't benefit at all.
All around a bad plan that doesn't do an adequate job of addressing the heart of the reperations argument or offer any tool to use against our abusive tax system.
Or... maybe not.
Maybe you read something in the explanation that I didn't, because where I sit, nothing changed. He's still for reparations.
It's like a joke, truth.
If you have to explain it, it ain't funny.
Keyes is having to "clarify" way too much, ten friggin' days into his campaign!
The problem with your argument is the presumption that without these kind of bold action we will ever see any of the tax eradication that you're talking about.
Just think how difficult a time, with a republican president, and republican controlled house and senate, we had in getting any kind of tax cut through. I simply do not see any significant tax cuts on the horizon,barring something that will shake the current system up in a major way. I think that's why there is the discussion of the sales tax.
Bottomline, am I convinced this idea by Keyes will work, not yet. But I do think it's a very interesting idea with a lot of potential, and I applaud him for presenting it so we can discuss it, rather than strike him down because we have knee jerk negative reaction to a slogans like "reparations".
So the media are always fair and never take things out of context?
This place is really getting to resemble DU.
How absurd!
If he's a statesman, then he needs to start selling himself as a statesman, and get off the political stage.
You do Keyes no good service with your pompous post.
Are you in favor of race-based reparations?
Oh really, so all great ideas in the world, none of them need to be explained.
I feel bad for Adam Smith, who wrote a whole book to explain his theory on trade, when he should have just described it in two sentences and expect it to be understood.
It's hardly a well-thought-out position. All he's doing is making Obama look reasonable by Obama being against reparations.
I'm making no such presumption. It will take bold actions, but this isn't a bold action, this is a WRONG action, it creates a situation where for 2 generations any attempt to eliminate taxes would be doomed to failure.
Actually we got all Bush's tax cuts through, at the level he targeted, not at the level he initially proposed but that's because he's smart enough to overshoot his target and let the Dems pull the shot down accurate. Check his speeches about 2 months before the tax cut proposals and compare them to what was acually passed.
Bottomline I'm convinced this idea would have exactly the opposite effect. There's no way anybody could get away with eliminating or even reducing taxes when 12% of the population is having its ego boosted by how much the rest of us are paying. When our tax burden becomes tied to our guilt for slavery it can't go anywhere but up.
Although, I've favored giving 40 acres of federal land and a mule, with a rule that the land be held for at least 20 years.
No, you're supporting someone who race-baits, flip-flops, and will say anything to get elected. You might as well vote for John Kerry, if you think those attributes are good things.
Maybe he needs to be more "politician" than "statesman" in his statements. I plan on voting for Dr. Keyes, but he is going to have this same problem over and over.
He talks too much. If asked what time it is, he will tell you how to make a watch. Verbose answers do not fit short sound bites or leads in an atricle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.