This question reflects a misunderstanding.
Alan does not support “reparations” — which he calls “an effort to extort monetary damages from the American people.”
The confusion arises from an occasion when Alan was asked by a reporter what he thought of controversial statements about reparations that other black leaders were making when Alan was running for the Senate from Illinois in 2004.
At the time, Alan had no formal “position” on reparations, never had one, and has none today — other than to say that he has long opposed monetary awards for descendants of slaves, a disastrous policy promoted by various black leaders.
Without altering his opposition to monetary reparations, he instead offered the questioner a hypothetical solution to the potential need to help disadvantaged descendants of slaves have a more level playing field upon which to better themselves economically. He offered this proposition as a descendant of slaves, himself, one who believes that blacks as a group have been undeniably discriminated against in overt and subtle ways since the days of slavery and Reconstruction — despite modern strides to improve the situation.
The hypothetical solution Alan offered his questioner was this:
To right a historical injustice or imbalance in the marketplace that tends to give blacks certain disadvantages, Alan suggested allowing descendants of slaves an income tax break for a limited period of time — by which they might have the means to invest capital, create new businesses, and otherwise escape the destructive dependency on government welfare that Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society had created within black culture during the 1960’s, and which continues undiminished today.
Although Alan’s remarks were widely interpreted as an endorsement of monetary reparations, they clearly were not, nor were they a departure from sound conservative principles. One of the most common conservative solutions to verifiable inequities or desirable societal ends is positive incentives that avoid the “heavy hand of government,” any kind of handout, or an increase in regulations. Conservatives therefore typically favor tax breaks over monetary redistribution or government intrusion.
That’s all Alan was proposing — to deal with a real legacy of injustice. His answer to the reporter’s question was a thoughtful application of conservative principles to correct the consequences of historic injustice.
He does feel, however, that if his hypothetical solution were ever implemented (something he does not anticipate), it would bring about a swift and decisive end to the federal income tax for all Americans, since once the American people saw the economic energy that suspension of the income tax unleashed for Black Americans, they would clamor for abolition of the federal income tax and implementation of the Fair Tax proposal Alan has long advocated to replace it. This would free Americans from the liberty-destroying shackles that make us all wage-slaves of the federal government.
http://www.alankeyes.com/qa.php
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….
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 (sic) 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
Paying no taxes while the rest of us do is indeed reparations albeit probably the best one if we were to implement it.