Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) is proposing $14 trillion in reparations for slavery. The representative announced the plan during a press event earlier this week.
The Missouri Democrat said that the United States had a “moral and legal obligation” to pay for the effects of slavery.
She said that the country “must provide reparations if we desire a prosperous future for all.”
The representative said that “slavery perpetuated Jim Crow. We know how slavery’s impacts live today.”
Bush said that she spoke “this truth, uncomfortable as it may be: our country was not founded on the principle that all people are created equal.”
She said that it was “founded at the expense of the lives, freedom and well-being of Black people, African folks who they stole.”
Should the federal government approve the reparations plan, it would represent an increase of nearly 50% to the current federal debt.
The total of Bush’s reparations plan equals approximately seven times the amount the United States expended during its 20-year war in Afghanistan.
"@CoriBush thinks reparations would be a national reckoning over slavery.
The national reckoning was the US Civil War, when 625,000 white men died to end the evil institution."
–@CWTremohttps://t.co/JRfWZYk6Vb— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 19, 2023
Bush said that the federal government played a key role in “the enslavement and exploitation of Africans and Black people throughout our history.”
Bush is a member of “The Squad,” made up of nine of the more left-wing members of the House of Representatives. Bush was first elected to Congress in 2020.
The Missouri Democrat is not alone in discussing reparations in recent months. San Francisco is currently considering a proposal to give $5 million per Black resident and other benefits to the city’s Black residents.
The plan would likely total more than $100 billion dollars. The city’s budget is currently $14 billion annually.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) recently dismissed the proposal from a reparations task force he created to grant about $1.2 million each to the Golden State’s Black residents.
The total package would have cost the state about $800 billion, which is about the same as the total U.S. defense budget. This comes at a time when Sacramento is grappling with a nearly $23 billion deficit.
