22% of blacks (per US Census Bureau data) doesn't sound like "most" to me, unless you have some statistical information that I don't have at hand.
Thanks for bringing that to light. I love the way so many posters like to say "most blacks" and have no clue. Kinda an all in one bucket for them. I understand why blacks have a hard time being republican. And Alan Keyes is just trying to get votes from a group of people that will consider his idea as being good although he is a republican.
Not everyone who is in the lower half of income earners is considered to be in the poverty classification. 22% might be in poverty, but if the remaining 78% earn less than the median income, then they are still in the group that pays only 3.5% of the income taxes. Of course, I am not saying that ALL blacks earn less than the median. Some obviously earn more, like Keyes, for example. So basically, Keyes is standing up for the right of that small percentage of rich or upper middle class black taxpayers, like himself, to be exempted from income taxes because their great, great, great grandaddy was a slave. Looked at another way, that's great for the rich blacks, not so helpful to the lower income blacks.
Poverty and paying taxes are two different things. Because of Bush's tax cuts the number of people of people filing zero tax reuturns is expected to be around 33% up from 20% in 2000. I'd bet since there are more blacks in the lower income groups, it is not out of the question that there will be about 50% of blacks who paying zero income tax this year. Everyone in the bottom 50% of income earners pay very little federal income tax. Most of their tax burdon comes from sales tax, social security tax, state income tax, gasoline tax, tabbacco tax, etc. Really anyone in the bottom 50% would hardly notice if federal income tax was completely eliminated as they account for only about 2% of all tax reciepts.