Keyes suggests canceling taxes for slave descendants
Aug. 17, 2004: Republican Alan Keyes came out in favor of giving descendants of black slaves an exemption from federal income tax in his run against Barack Obama for Illinois' Senate seat.
"When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time – a generation or two – they exempted the damaged city from taxation," he told reporters in Chicago.
Long an opponent of "reparations," Keyes said his proposal was different.
"[It] has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts," he said. "It takes no money from other citizens, while righting the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent."
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