Texas Democrat Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett appeared to endorse a call for black Americans to be exempt for a period of time from paying taxes when asked about reparations for slavery.
The 43-year-old then went on to suggest that it may not succeed because many poorer black people ‘aren’t really paying taxes in the first place’.
Crockett, a liberal freshman in the House who has called Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott‘s immigration policy ‘insane’ and that his new laws aim ‘to kill people,’ made the statement on ‘The Black Lawyers Podcast’ last week.
When the host asked her about reparations – often on many far left politicians and activists wish lists – she made the bizarre suggestion after hearing about the plan from a celebrity and thinking it ‘I don’t know that that’s necessarily a bad idea’.
‘One of the things they propose is black folk not have to pay taxes for a certain amount of time because then again, that puts money back in your pocket,’ Crockett explained.
While Crockett could not recall which celebrity she heard say that, most recently Tiffany Cross, the author and television host, and other presenters of her Native Land Pod, this week tried to reboot America’s flagging reparations efforts with a call for tax breaks for African Americans.
Crockett said that the plan ‘may not be as objectionable to some people’ but that the problem may be that ‘so many black folk, not only do you owe for the labor that was stolen and killed and all the other things but the fact is we end up being so far behind.’
That’s when she suggested that the biggest problem may be that some black people aren’t paying their taxes currently.
‘If you do the no tax thing, for people that are already say, struggling and not really paying taxes in the first place…’ she says, before the host interrupts and says that they ‘may want those checks’ instead from the government.
‘Exactly,’ Crockett responded.
Earlier in the conversation, Crockett said that there needs to be consistency at both the federal and state level on reparations because if not, ‘everybody’s gonna’ run to whichever state and be like, ”Yo, I need mine”.’
She said that ‘we need to have a full understanding’ about the issue and slammed those who ‘aren’t even willing to do the studies, willing to invest to make sure we can roll this out the right way’.
Crockett recently cruised through a primary in her heavily blue Dallas County district and faces only a libertarian opponent in November as she seeks a second term.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Congresswoman Crockett for comment.
Campaigners have already erected billboards for Cross’ plan in Chicago, pushing for black-only carve-outs on the $6,000-a-year property taxes that are typical in the Illinois city.
They also spotlight Empire star Terrence Howard, who was recently outed for refusing to pay years’ worth of income dues as he felt it was ‘immoral’ to tax the descendants of slaves.
Cross, a former MSNBC host, praised Howard in her podcast, which looks at the ‘ancestral struggles’ of African Americans.
‘This brother was making a legitimate point,’ Cross said.
‘I don’t know how we would make this happen, but I would be completely down for some sort of policy that says ‘Yes, you are exempt from paying taxes’.’
According to Cross, black labor on Southern plantations made America the ‘superpower’ it is today, but the descendants of those slaves have ‘never been repaid … we built this joint for free.’
The focus on tax breaks for blacks comes after momentum behind the reparations movement has started to flag.
After the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests, cities and states across the country launched task forces to tackle modern-day inequality rooted in the slavery era.
Reparations campaigners say it’s time for America to repay its black residents for the injustices of the historic Transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow segregation and inequalities that persist to this day.
The sums are eye-watering — black lawmakers in Washington seek at least $14 trillion for a federal scheme to ‘eliminate the racial wealth gap’ between black and white Americans.
Critics say payouts to selected black people will inevitably stoke divisions between winners and losers, and raise questions about why American Indians and others don’t get their own handouts.
Places like Boston, Massachusetts, St Paul, Minnesota, and St Louis, Missouri, as well as the California cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles, all set up task forces and panels to hatch their own reparations plans.
But early calls for multi-million dollar payouts to the descendants of slaves have fizzled out — as politicians realized they were unpopular among the whites, Asian and others who would foot the bill.
Tennessee has gone so far as to have a bill in the state senate that would forbid the study of reparations for the descendants of slaves.
The bill, which will be voted on in the House next Wednesday, has created some blowback in the state.
The reparations task force in Detroit — a hub for African-American culture — has descended into a ‘shambles’ of quitting and in-fighting.
And in February, California’s black lawmakers backtracked on plans to pay $1.2 million to each resident.
While many black voters are keen to get checks in the mail, only a fraction think they’ll see such a day in their lifetimes.
Mike Gonzalez, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said support for reparations peaked amid the protests over the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
Now, it is waning, he added.
‘Like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Critical Race Theory, anti-racism trainings, and other features of the collective hysteria, the call for reparations has begun to fall apart under intense opposition by the American people,’ he told DailyMail.com.