Thom Tillis: The Welfare State = Slave Reparations

In 2007, North Carolina state House speaker Thom Tillis voted for a state resolution apologizing for slavery. Of course, in conservative land this is controversial. So he explained his vote by saying he needed to undermine the reparations movement, which had already basically succeeded anyway because the welfare state is pretty much the same thing:

“This measure does not obligate legislative members to provide reparations. A subset of the democrat [sic] 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,” Tillis said. “Federal and State [sic] 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 Republican in OPPOSITION to measures that propose new entitlements and reparations,” Tillis added. “However, a vote against the resolution would most likely eliminate any chance that we would get support from more conservative members of the democrat party members to oppose such measures.”

Tillis is now in a tight campaign to defeat Kay Hagan as senator from North Carolina. He is obviously the kind of voice the Senate needs to moderate American politics.