Dem 'Squad' Member Pushes Whopping $14 Trillion Slavery Reparations Plan Gaining Traction - All You Need to Know
Last month, Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York gave fresh impetus to a slavery reparations proposal.
Bowman, part of the so-called “squad” — an informal group of extreme left-wing Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives — joined nine of his colleagues in co-sponsoring House Resolution 414 in May.
In a January interview, Bowman dismissed concerns over the resolution’s proposed $14 trillion price tag, likening it to past measures.
“When COVID was destroying us, we invested in the American people in a way that kept the economy afloat,” the congressman said.
“Where did the money come from? We spent it into existence,” he added.
Readers might recall Bowman as the man who pulled a fire alarm before a key congressional vote in September, received a slap on the wrist from authorities and then suffered a formal censure for his actions.
Bowman’s fellow “squad” co-sponsors of HR 414 were Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
The resolution’s other Democratic co-sponsors included Reps. Al Green of Texas, Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois, Barbara Lee of California and Delia C. Ramirez of Illinois.
The $14 trillion price tag aside, HR 414 as presented to Congress had many objectionable features. Here is a look inside the resolution:
House Resolution 414
The proposed resolution’s title doubles as its broad and dubious justification.
“Recognizing that the United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people in the United States,” the title reads.
HR 414 then makes a historical argument for slavery reparations in a series of 135 points.
The first item reads as follows: “Whereas Black people are, and have always been, human beings, yet the Federal Government has historically failed to recognize our dignity and humanity.”
That sweeping assertion — easily refuted in numberless instances — sets the stage for all that follows.
And all that follows contains a mixture of historical truths, half-truths and outright distortions.
The sixth item, for instance, calls for a historical reckoning starting with a time when the U.S. did not exist and in a place where it still does not:
“Whereas the full length of legalized slavery’s impact on Black wealth creation and well-being today, including the nearly 300 years of chattel slavery from the year 1502, when enslaved Africans were brought to Hispaniola and later their descendants brought to United States territory, to the year 1789, when the first Congress met, must be recognized and fully accounted for.”
The island of Hispaniola, of course, includes the modern-day nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
HR 414’s 11th item also should make anyone with a working knowledge of early U.S. history wince in disbelief:
“Whereas, from the Nation’s founding in 1776, Federal policies produced and sustained the institution of slavery, thus voluntarily accepting the British legacy of the institution, and with it, the responsibility to provide reparations.”
In 1776, the federal government consisted of the Continental Congress, which had no power to “accept” slavery, “voluntarily” or otherwise. Furthermore, state laws such as in Pennsylvania in 1780 helped facilitate slavery’s eradication.
The resolution’s next item commits a similar error:
“Whereas the Founders in drafting the Constitution preserved slavery and racialized social stratification through systemic measures, without needing to explicitly mention harmful intent and racialized impacts.”
Here the actual truth lies hidden in the deceptive phrase, “without needing to explicitly mention.”
The word “slave” or “slavery” never appears in the U.S. Constitution. Even the document’s handful of obvious references to slavery come couched in awkward and verbose phrases.
For instance, Article I, Section 9 refers to the “Migration or Importation of such Persons.” Article IV, Section 2 mentions a “Person held to Service or Labour.”
Why not simply write “slaves” or “fugitive slaves”? After all, the authors of the 1861 Confederate Constitution had no such qualms.
Could it be that the framers of the U.S. Constitution always meant to disclaim slavery as a national institution? And could it be that Americans would never have ratified the Constitution otherwise?
Or do the co-sponsors of HR 414 have a better explanation — one they need not twist to suit their disingenuous narrative?
The resolution continues in this manner with accusations down to the present day. Some have merit, but others amount to mere political positions rooted in leftist ideology.
The 96th item, for example, complains that Americans have resisted the Marxist indoctrination of their children:
“Whereas, since January 2021, over 44 States have proposed legislation or taken other steps to ban teaching of the ways in which racism has shaped the law and way of life in the United States, and 18 States have already imposed bans.”
This, of course, refers to bans on the teaching of critical race theory, a Marxist indoctrination tool that instructs students to view the world through the lens of an oppressor-oppressed narrative.
When the litany of grievances reaches its end, HR 414 finally identifies its seven resolutions.
The second resolution urges “support, passage and implementation of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, which has been introduced every year since 1989, via Congress or the executive branch.”
HR 40, as introduced in 2021, would create a formal commission to “examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.”
A formal commission, of course, would bring an actual reparations bill one step closer to reality.
The Cost
As it stands, HR 414 amounts to a resolution only. But it comes with a suggested price tag of $14 trillion to “eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between Black and White Americans.”
With about 42 million black Americans, that figure amounts to $333,000 per person.
Bowman suggested that Congress could spread the payments out over a number of years.
“Who says the $14 trillion needs to be paid out in one shot?” he asked, according to the Westchester Journal News. “You could take that $333,000 and break it up into monthly checks over X amount of time. There are creative ways to do the right thing and do what needs to be done.”
For comparison’s sake, $14 trillion represents more than half of the country’s 2023 GDP. Germany, Japan and India — the world’s third-, fourth- and fifth-largest economies, respectively — boasted combined GDPs of only $12.4 trillion.
The U.S. GDP per capita came in at about $82,000. Bowman’s reparations proposal would transfer four times that amount to every American of African descent.
The word “transfer,” of course, does not tell the full story.
In fact, Bowman’s own reference to the COVID era, when Congress needed money and simply “spent it into existence,” highlights his proposal’s additional costs.
Government spending in 2020 resulted in gargantuan inflation rates of 7 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively, in 2021 and 2022. Between 2013 and 2020, inflation never exceeded 2.3 percent.
Spending money into existence, therefore, would result in the further devaluing of existing currency.
Conclusion
Supported by historical half-truths and ugly leftist ideology, HR 414 should never result in a reparations commission, let alone an actual spending bill.
Likewise, Bowman’s $14 trillion price tag would sink an already bankrupt nation.
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