Reparations By Another Name

SINCE A FEW OF CITIZENS ARE DESCENDANTS OF IRISH IMMIGRANTS (NOTED IN HISTORY AS 'BLACK IRISH'), IS REPARATIONS DUE THEM ALSO? AND WHAT OF THE BROKEN PROMISES TO THE UTES, NAVAJOS, APACHE, WHAT ABOUT THEM??



Reparations By Another Name


By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 08, 2008 4:30 PM PT

Election '08: Barack Obama says Washington shouldn't just offer apologies for slavery, but also "deeds." Don't worry, he says, he's not talking about direct reparations. Relieved? Don't be.

'I consistently believe that when it comes to . . . reparations," Obama recently told a gathering of minority journalists, "the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

A few days later, he clarified his remarks, saying he's not calling for direct cash payments to descendents of slaves, but rather indirect aid in the form of government programs that will "close the gap" between what he sees as white America and black America.

He says government should offer "universal" programs — such as universal health care, universal mortgage credits, college tuition, job training and even universal 401(k)s — that "disproportionately affect people of color."

In other words, reparations by another name.

Obama knows that if he pushes too hard on reparations, he might scare off white voters. So he couches race-specific welfare as "universal" social programs that appeal to broad-based political coalitions — "even if they disproportionately help minorities," he confides in his book, "Audacity of Hope."

Obama has a name for his scheme: "universal strategies."

"An emphasis on universal, as opposed to race-specific, programs isn't just good policy," he wrote. "It's also good politics."

Maybe so. But not all his plans for reparations are roundabout. His book and Web site outline a separate plan calling for essentially a government bailout of the inner cities. Among other things, he proposes:

• Doling out faith-based grants "targeting ex-offenders."

• Subsidizing supermarket chains that relocate to the inner city to deliver "fresh produce" to blacks, helping wean them off unhealthy fast food.

• Imposing "goals and timetables for minority hiring" on large corporations whose work forces are deemed too white.

• Continuing to fund the Community Development Block Grant program, Head Start and HUD public housing subsidies.

• Funding Small Business Administration loans for minority businesses who train ex-felons, including gangbangers, for the "green jobs" of the future, such as installing extra insulation in homes.

• Doubling the funding for federal after-school programs such as midnight basketball.

• Subsidizing job training, day care, transportation for inner-city poor, as well as doubling the funding of the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program.

• Expanding the eligibility of the earned income tax credit to include more poor, and indexing it to inflation.

• Adopting entire inner-city neighborhoods as wards of the federal government.

• Spending billions on new inner-city employment programs, including prison-to-work programs.

This is just a down payment on the "economic justice" Obama has promised the NAACP — financed by "tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth," he says in his book.

And the indirect aid he's proposing now could quickly turn into cash transfers once Obama is safely ensconced in the White House.

Claiming "blacks were forced into ghettos," Obama is certainly sympathetic to the idea of reparations. His church has actively petitioned for them for decades. And he's strongly suggested there's a legal case to be made for them.

"So many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow," he said. "We still haven't fixed them."

He assumes the economic gap is a legacy of discrimination and largely unrelated to personal responsibility. He also makes it seem things haven't gotten better for blacks.

In this, Obama is intellectually dishonest. In his book, he cites statistics showing a 70% rise over the past two decades in the number of "Latino families considered middle class," but never cites one stat showing the even more impressive gains of the black middle class. He complains about low black wages, but never mentions the quantum leap in black home-ownership rates.

Why? Such stats would undermine his case for roundabout reparations. Even if it were true, he says, "better isn't good enough."

"The problems of inner-city poverty arise from our failure to face up to an often tragic past," Obama said.

Now it's payback time.



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