A Democratic lawmaker proposed exempting black people from paying taxes as a form of reparations last week.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas said on an episode of “The Black Lawyers Podcast” that a celebrity – she could not remember who – inspired her to look at exempting black people from paying taxes, according to the New York Post.
“I don’t know that that’s … necessarily a bad idea,” Crockett remembered thinking when she heard the proposal. “One of the things they propose is black folk not have to pay taxes for a certain amount of time because … that puts money back in your pocket.”
Crockett said that a tax exemption may be a more palatable reparations solution to get behind rather than “actually giving out dollars.” The shortfall is that the proposal would only help those black people who are currently paying taxes.
“If you do the no tax thing, for people that are already, say, struggling and not paying taxes in the first place — ” Crockett said.
Progressive Democrats have backed reparations as a way to pay black Americans for the United States’ history of slavery for years, though the proposal has failed to gain popular support. Even in deep blue California, nearly 60% of voters said they opposed such a policy. Just 28% of California voters support it, according to a September poll by the University of California Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.
Elected Democrats have continued to push the policy, however. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul in December signed legislation creating a commission to study the issue. The bill set forth a nine-member committee tasked with examining “the institution of slavery” and making “determinations regarding compensation.”
In January, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) called for reparations in a post on X. Bush said that the United States “owes” the descendants of slaves.
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“Our country owes – OWES – a debt to the descendants of enslaved Black people, not just for slavery, but for what followed, like Black Codes, red lining, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration,” she said. “That’s why I introduced my Reparations NOW resolution. This country has an obligation.”
Aside from its unpopularity with Americans, reparations have faced other hurdles, such as questions over legality and who would qualify for the special treatment. Critics have said that such a policy would be racist against Americans who had nothing to do with the historic racism against black people.