Power

North Carolina’s Thom Tillis Calls Welfare ‘De Facto Reparations’

When the North Carolina legislature in 2007 introduced a resolution expressing its “profound regret for the institution and lasting effects of slavery,” current Republican Senate nominee Thom Tillis, then a state representative, issued a statement in support of the resolution.

When the North Carolina legislature in 2007 introduced a resolution expressing its “profound regret for for the institution and lasting effects of slavery,” current Republican Senate nominee Thom Tillis, then a state representative, issued a statement in support of the resolution. NC SPIN / YouTube

When the North Carolina legislature in 2007 introduced a resolution expressing its “profound regret for the institution and lasting effects of slavery,” current Republican Senate nominee Thom Tillis, then a state representative, issued a statement in support of the resolution.

But Tillis, who is leading Sen. Kay Hagan by one point in the polls, had a caveat to the resolution.

As Talking Points Memo has reported, Tillis, now the North Carolina house speaker, cautioned his constituents against the “slippery slope to reparations,” saying that government welfare programs are “de facto reparations.”

This measure does not obligate legislative members to provide reparations.  A subset of the democrat majority has never ceased to propose legislation that is de facto reparations and they will continue to do so as long as they are in the majority.  Federal and State governments have redistributed trillions of dollars of wealth over the years by funding programs that are at least in part driven by their belief that we should provide additional reparations.  I believe there are several conservative democrats who are prepared join Republicans in OPPOSITION to measures that propose new entitlements and reparations.

Four percent of the U.S. population receives welfare benefits, according to federal statistics. More than 38 percent of welfare recipients are white, while 39.8 percent are Black and 15.7 percent are Hispanic. Americans who identify as conservative are just as likely as self-identified liberals to receive food stamps at some point during their lives.

The North Carolina state legislature in 2007 introduced another apology resolution, this time for the massacre of at least 25 Black people in North Carolina during a spate of racial violence in 1898.

Tillis moved to block it, saying that it was “redundant” in light of the apology for slavery, as Mother Jones reported this month. He also pushed for an amendment to the bill clarifying that not all white people were involved in the riots.

“The proposed amendment would have acknowledged the historical fact that the white Republican government joined with black citizens to oppose the rioters,” he said of the amendment.

This isn’t the only time Republicans have found themselves in hot water for comments about welfare.

As Rewire reported just yesterday, New Jersey’s U.S. Senate nominee said in an interview with a local newspaper that women are “wed” to the Democratic Party because they rely on government programs like food stamps.

And in September, former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce resigned from his position as first vice chairman of the state’s Republican Party after making comments on his radio show that women on welfare should be sterilized.