- ‘Squad’ member Jamal Bowman tabled a bill calling for reparations for slavery
- The $14T would be $333,000 for each person – 12 percent of the US population
- He claimed the government can find the huge figure like it did amid Covid crisis
New York congressman Jamal Bowman has defended his proposal to pay $14trillion in reparations to African Americans for slavery without raising taxes.
Bowman, a member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of young controversial Democrats in Congress, first introduced the bill, H.R. 414, in 2023.
It claims the US 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 bill has nine sponsors including Bowman in the House, but none in the Senate – meaning it stands no chance of being enacted into law.
But Bowman, who represents Yonkers, told his upstate New York local newspaper he felt it was necessary and possible.
‘Who says the $14 trillion needs to be paid out in one shot?’ he told The Journal News.
He said the money would be divided between the 42million African Americans in the US – 12 percent of the population.
‘It might be possible for it to be paid out over five or 10 or 20 years. 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.’
The $14 trillion sum would represent well over half the United States’ entire economy.
The federal government spent about $7 trillion in 2020, about 28 percent of the nation’s $25 trillion economy.
Bowman argued that the federal government could ‘find’ the cash – citing the response to the COVID pandemic as proof.
‘When COVID was destroying us, we invested in the American people in a way that kept the economy afloat,’ said Bowman.
‘The government can invest the same way in reparations without raising taxes on anyone.’
The government added $3 trillion to the federal deficit, thanks to COVID. ‘Where did the money come from?’ Bowman said. ‘We spent it into existence.’
He even suggested that the sum be increased, saying it might have to be increased to $16 trillion to account for inflation that will occur before the bill finally passes.
‘Let’s say the investment of $16 trillion will yield $100 trillion on the back end,’ Bowman said. ‘It’s just like when you invest in child care. Every dollar you invest in child care yields $14 on the back end.’
Reparations have become a hot topic in recent years, with several cities and districts considering proposals.
Evanston, Illinois, became the first city in the country in 2021 to actually pay reparations to its eligible black residents, with $10 million over a decade through $25,000 housing assistance grants.
The grants are given to black residents of the city – who can prove their long-term residency – and can be used for down payments, repairs or mortgage payments to atone for racist housing polices in the past. Funding comes from taxes on cannabis and the sales of homes costing more than $1 million.
An advisory group in San Francisco recommended that qualifying black adults receive a $5 million lump-sum, guaranteed annual income of at least $97,000 and personal debt forgiveness.
San Francisco supervisors are supposed to take up the proposals later this year.
New York recently enacted a commission to study the effects of slavery there, and California last year established a reparations task force which published a report with 112 recommendations – without giving a specific sum for payments.
State legislators and Governor Gavin Newsom must agree for any money to be paid or for any policy changes to be adopted.
Bowman on Monday used a Martin Luther King Day event to pledge that he wanted to continue getting in ‘good trouble’ – following in the footsteps of the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis.
But last month, the 48-year-old found himself in bad trouble when he was censored by Congress for pulling a fire alarm while the House was in session.
The alarm went off and triggered an evacuation as Democrats were trying to stall a vote to avert a government shutdown in September.
Bowman denied that he had done it deliberately, but video footage suggested otherwise.