The New Yorker published the latest treatment of presumed 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker and his “baby bonds” bill, one which followed an interesting but flawed trend in coverage of Booker’s proposal.
Booker’s bill, modeled after pre-Obama proposals from then-Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Joe Biden, D-Del., would create “opportunity accounts,” or extremely regulated bank accounts with seed money and annual investments for low-income children to use for education and investments as they reach adulthood. The idea is neither awful nor fully baked.
But more than anything else, it ain’t reparations.
Unfortunately, just as Slate did in October, the New Yorker tied Booker’s plan to the idea of reparations. It’s not.
Booker has explicitly said that the plan is intended to close the racial wealth gap. That’s not a bad thing, especially when it means growing the pie for everyone. Starting with opportunity-based measures rather than outcome-based ones is something conservatives shouldn’t balk at. But although the New Yorker asserts that Booker’s plan “could transform the reparations debate,” uncritically citing economist William Darity, it won’t.
From an ethical perspective, conservatives shouldn’t necessarily just reject the notion of reparations in principle. It’s a complicated question. Reparations were promised during Reconstruction in the form of 40 acres and a mule, but the idea was never implemented. Black former slaves were not only never compensated for their work, but in fact they and their descendants were further punished throughout the Jim Crow era for their former state of servitude.
But all that aside, Booker’s plan doesn’t have anything to do with the reparations. Perhaps there’s even a very a subtle tinge of racism to the assumption that because he’s black, that must be his real aim.
Booker wants to issue money to children of all races in order to encourage savings and self-sufficiency in the long run. In contrast, the philosophy behind reparations is to pay back former slaves (or their descendants) for their uncompensated labor. Reparations aren’t for Latinos. They aren’t for Asian-Americans. And they certainly aren’t for whites.
