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Ben Zeisloft
\nPennsylvania Senior Campus Correspondent<\/p>\n
Duke University public policy professor William Darity<\/a>\u00a0co-authored a report calling for $12 trillion in slavery reparations, amounting to $800,000 for each eligible Black household.<\/p>\n The Roosevelt Institute<\/a>, a \u201cthink tank and campus network that works to move the country toward a new economy and democracy by the people, for the people,\u201d sponsored the report, titled \u201cResurrecting the Promise of 40 Acres: The Imperative of Reparations for Black Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n In the\u00a0report<\/a>, Darity and co-author Kirsten Mullen pointed to the U.S. government\u2019s failure to deliver on a promise to give 40 acres to every former slave. The two said that this failure is the cause of the current wealth gap between Black and White households. If this policy had been enacted after the Civil War, the authors \u201cspeculate that there would be no need to consider the case for black reparations today.\u201d<\/p>\n [RELATED: Should Democrat Party pay slavery reparations? Young people think so]<\/a><\/p>\n As the \u201cculpable\u201d party, the report said that the federal government \u201cmust pay the debt\u201d of $10 to $12 trillion dollars in 2016 dollars. The couple arrives at this figure by calculating that a payment of $800,000 to each Black household would close the current wealth gap.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the authors stated that incremental reparations programs will not adequately resolve the problem of systemic racism.<\/p>\n \u201cThough piecemeal initiatives are admirable in their acknowledgment of the existence of a debt, these incremental efforts will not fundamentally change the conditions of structural, racial economic inequality,\u201d Darity and Mullen said. \u201cOur nation must be held accountable, and the federal government must meet the debt.\u201d<\/p>\n To support their proposal, the authors pointed to the 9\/11 Victim Compensation Fund and federal money that flowed into Newtown, Connecticut, following the Sandy Hook massacre.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, respect for black Americans as people and as citizens \u2014 and acknowledgment, redress, and closure for the history and financial hardship they have endured \u2014 requires monetary compensation,\u201d concludes the report. \u201cMoreover, an emphatic message that \u2018the murderers cannot inherit\u2019 will be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n Campus Reform<\/em>\u00a0asked Darity how the government would be able to pay for the reparations without raising taxes on those who have never owned slaves. He said that there is \u201cnowhere\u201d in the report where raising taxes is considered an option.<\/p>\n \u201cNowhere [in the report] do we say the reparations plan must be financed by raising anyone\u2019s taxes,\u201d Darity said.<\/p>\n When\u00a0Campus Reform<\/em>\u00a0asked for clarification on how the government would pay reparations without raising taxes, Darity pointed to the government’s response to coronavirus.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the same way that the federal government just spent somewhere between $2 to 4 trillion without raising taxes in response to the coronavirus crisis,\u201d Darity said.<\/p>\n He pointed\u00a0Campus Reform<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0The Deficit Myth<\/em>\u00a0by Stony Brook University Professor\u00a0Stephanie Kelton<\/a>, a former Bernie Sanders economic policy advisor.<\/p>\n