Presidential strategist Dick Morris Saturday argued against the idea of federal slavery reparation payments to African Americans after a House panel kicked off discussion this week about a bill to create a commission to study and develop reparation proposals, telling Newsmax TV that he believes "we've paid those reparations."
"Let's be clear about reparations," Morris told Newsmax TV's "The Count."
"The theory is that we have to pay great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandsons and granddaughters, eight generations of people who were enslaved 150, 160 years ago, and I believe we've paid those reparations. I think 330,000 white Union soldiers were killed in the Civil War and another 30,000 Blacks. Those were pretty strong reparations."
Those deaths, he added, were "a lot more important than the handouts the government wants to give now."
He also argued that it "used to be the goal of this country to be colorblind" and that there is a "new racism" in the United States that was not "bourne about by the Klan and the seething white mobs in the South," but by the "Black extremists who want segregation."
In the recent stimulus package passed and signed into law, he added, there is a "$4 billion program" that says the government will "pay the debts of farmers," and allow money for fertilizer and more, but "only for farmers of color."
"There's a billion dollars for scholarships, but only for kids of color," he added. "White kids, white farmers, gotta wait in line. There are 20 million Blacks who are poor, but there are 20 million whites who live below the poverty line. How about them?"
Morris said the issue will be discussed further on his Newsmax TV program, "Dick Morris Democracy," Saturday night.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, the chief sponsor of the bill, said the commission is a long-overdue way to confront the disparities that are occurring in Black communities, and that it would "provide a "road map for the truth of the brutality and the onerous and terrible burden placed on African Americans, and this nation, by slavery."
Lee, who is Black, also implored her Republican colleagues not to "ignore the pain, the history, and the reasonableness of this commission."
The first version of a reparations bill was introduced more than three decades ago, but never advanced. The new version would establish a commission to study and propose remedies including financial reparations.
President Joe Biden and members of the Congressional Black Caucus met Tuesday at the White House where they discussed the reparations issue.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.