According to Nancy Pelosi and plenty of other Democrats who get their paychecks signed by Tim Geithner, the source of all this consternation, or at least that which pulsates within their own party, is due to the glacial slowness the Progressive Reform Agenda has taken. Why, we have gone nearly a week without an unread thirty-pound piece of legislation being passed without debate so they do have a point. But when you consult the tea leaves, meaning the polls, there is scant interest in what the Dems are actually proposing. Their hoped for hot buttons have cooled, even among their own electoral base. The time is ripe then to toss a hand grenade, an incendiary, into their tent. I propose here a program based on stated Republican principles addressing the thorny topic of cash reparations to our african-american citizens for slavery.

All educated people know, of course, that the Republican party was founded as an explicitly abolitionist party in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854. What was to become of these to-be freedmen was a topic of controversy. Lincoln himself, although he did not win the Presidency as an abolitionist, was powerfully involved in this issue and he favored a return to Africa. The nation of Liberia was founded as a home to the freedmen. Others favored a gift of the yawning federal lands out west, this was the source of the rumored and never delivered 40 acres and a mule. Obviously none of these schemes panned out and what many abolitionists who were yet racists feared most occurred: the freedmen were admitted to the population as full citizens with legal residence wherever they stood.

No one speaks against this now and quite properly but while it is undoubted that racism played a part in these separatist schemes there was also a very powerful pragmatic concern. If the freedmen are left where they are, in the towns and fields of the late Confederacy, with all civil rights including the rights to arms, wouldn’t they revenge themselves on their preveious masters? Even if this were not to happen, could we expect the white citizens to embrace former slaves fully? Nope, and so they did not. And yes there was violence. The days of Reconstruction were quite nearly Hobbes’s famous War of All Against All, but after a century or so with much blood spilled from black bodies an  accomodation was reached in the Civil Rights Acts of the sixties. The remedy to the dissappointment from this legislation was Affirmative Action, making provisions and carve-outs specifically and explicitly for a racial  category known as Black.

Never seriously entertained, even to this day, is the question of whether the modern descendants of slaves deserve some sort of cash compensation for the centuries of slavery a century ago. The issue is dismissed as dotty even in elevated Democratic circles, not, it seems, because of any principled objection but because it would be so titanically expensive as to be impossible. Yet it remains a nagging ulcer. Among the more radical racial actors like the New Black Panthers and hey, let’s face it, the Old Black Panthers and nearly any such group that is speaking frankly this is the primary sticking point to racial healing. There is also an appetite for this in the general black community, though it seems not too large, but perhaps that is because they also find it a near impossibility. What if there were a Republican move, well-precedented in their historical charter, to finally provide genuine reparations to all eligible black citizens? Today?

The argument is that the enslaved, if they weren’t enslaved, would have worked for wages, accumulated assets and then passed them on to their children. Instead they labored for free, in bondage, so are at the least entitled to back pay. If you consider interest this sum is gigantic even by current standards. Those who agitate for reparations do not ask for anything like this figure though, and instead seem to bandy amounts in the mid-five figures per capita. This would be a relative bargain considering the total outstanding so this is a real opportunity to make a consensus on what reparations would, could and should be. Here is the plan.

I do not attempt to define eligibility. Should Jamaican Americans whose ancestors never were American slaves benefit? Hmmm. Let this be determined by public debate but let us say it will amount to about the current black population, about 13%. Eligible parties will be alive on some date certain, let’s say January 1st, 2010. Here is what you get: a five year income tax abatement. This is not a deferal. For five years regardless of your income you pay NO federal income tax. Your contributions to Social Security are also waived including the employer’s portion of six and a half percent. The term begins whenever you choose but it runs continuously for five years which, for an average earner, will net them about thirty grand. We do not leave out those who earn no income however. This chit is also alienable, that is an eligible person (no corporations) can bequeath it, can sell it, can mortgage it, can swaddle it together with others and create derivitive securities on it or indeed do anything the market can imagine as long as the new owner is an eligible party. It is a debt from the gub to the beneficiary with the same rights as a banknote.

So what is the effect? First off, the principled argument for reparations is immediately addressed. The reparationists always ask the same question, should someone benefit from their own labors? Yes, yes they should. So we can repay the debt, truly, in kind. They say that the labor of their race was stolen, and so it was. By making their labor more profitable we can write down that ledger column and it should be agreed that other remedies, like Affirmative Action, are ended. But other effects also can be expected. Since the employer is relieved of paying the employee’s Social Security, any black prospective employee is a bit more appealing to an employer. Us crackers take a hit there but so be it. Not only are black employees then a bit preferable however, the black employee also has, say, a 30-odd percent extra incentive to shave and get to work on time or just land a job in the first place. Every nickel he is paid goes right into his pocket. This is no give-away. Not a penny of this is lifted from another citizen’s pocket. But what about the displaced tax revenue? Aren’t the rest of us going to have to make that up? Theoretically yes, but there will also be earners who previously were gub wards and the deficit is already so huge that this is a pittance. For those who go in for fiscal stimulus, it can hardly be disputed that this will be at least as stimulative as any similarly large measure proposed recently.

And that ignores what we might call, quietly, the Supply-Side effects of this measure. Yes, the working man enjoying his abatement will move up to Olde English from Old Millwaukee but more than that, given that the benefit can be sold it will be bought by those who foresee the greatest benefit from it; the highest earning blacks. And what will they do with this vast addition to their personal bottom lines? The same thing any other megabuxter would: spend it, invest it, save it. Is it too much to think that the revenue “lost” to the gub might be more than made up from the resulting growth? Hey, maybe even some white dudes will wind up getting jobs! (Shhhh!)

For those disgruntled at this newest proposed transfer of wealth from white to black, there is a silver land mine. You may delight in the prospect of its detonation as may and should all who aspire for true race equality including equality before the law and the taxman. The fly in the ointment to the brothers and sisters is this, the limited abatement of five years will expire. Sure, the bigwigs at JET will buy abatements until they retire, thereby enriching some incomeless beneficiary, but nearly all recipients will wallow in their vastly improved circumstances for years and then BAM! Game on! They return to the ordinary tax rolls.

This truly will be one of those “teachable moments” we hear so much about. Many, many who would otherwise have been tax-consumers will have become real working men in whatever field. They will quite suddenly be faced with the reality of gub functions; not only their payouts but their COSTS! Can anyone imagine a more salutory school than this?

Of course this is nothing but a pipe-dream if it holds no political benefit for those enacting it. This pipe-dream becomes a political pipe-bomb in the right, bold hands. The Democrats are wedded to the racial status quo which is also a fiscal status quo and this, as all players know well, is utterly unsustainable. Shall we wait for the checks to actually bounce? That will work for me but I think there might be some political mucky out there with the stones and vision to see they can do well by doing the Democrats good. And hard.

Will it work? Sure. But even if it doesn’t it is no stupider and far less calamitous than anything proposed lately. Could we see a grinning photo-op between Newt Gingrich and Louis Farrakhan? Man, just for the visuals it would be worth it.

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