(Headline USA) “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., unveiled a federal reparations package this week that would cost the U.S. government $14 trillion, the Daily Mail reported.
For context, the amount would be roughly the same as the amount that the Trump and Biden administrations combined had increased the national debt since 2016, when it reached 19 trillion.
Likewise, it would be roughly as much as the George W. Bush and Obama administrations accrued in debt between 2002 (when it hit $6 trillion) and 2017 (when it hit 20 trillion)
It's official: US National Debt hits $34 trillion for the first time, over $12 trillion higher than where it stood just 5 years ago (55% increase). pic.twitter.com/0NIMrDZkJm
— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) January 3, 2024
Bowman, who was recently censured by his colleagues for interrupting congressional proceedings by pulling a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol building, said the measure would hold the federal government accountable for slavery and its aftermath.
The government-sanctioned slave trade was officially abolished with the passage of the 13th Amendment in December 1865, although forms of slavery—such as the human trafficking and sex trafficking facilitated by the Biden administration’s open-border policies—persist to this day.
Bowman cited the government’s response during the COVID-19 pandemic as proof that the U.S. has the financial means to provide hefty monetary payments to black Americans, while disregarding the inflationary fallout that occurred in its aftermath.
“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,” he continued. “Where did the money come from? We spent it into existence.”
His proposal, H.Res. 414, would force the U.S. government to acknowledge its “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” and help “eliminate the racial wealth gap that currently exists between black and white Americans.”
Bowman argued the $14 trillion could be distributed to black Americans over decades.
“Who says the $14 trillion needs to be paid out in one shot,” he said.
“It might be possible for it to be paid out over 5 or 10 or 20 years,” he continued. “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 bill cites estimates that the U.S. benefited from over 222 trillion hours of forced labor between 1619 and the end of slavery in 1865, “which would be valued at $97,000,000,000,000” today.
“There were 246 years of free labor that produced trillions or hundreds of trillions of dollars for the U.S. economy,” Bowman claimed. “The economy wouldn’t exist in the way it does today if slavery hadn’t built it.”
