Other Columns by Paul M. Weyrich
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The Pew Hispanic Center recently released statistics showing that the nation's minority population suffered adversely during the last recession.

It is easy, as activist groups already have done, to seize upon the statistics presented in the article to argue that discrimination has prevented certain ethnic and racial groups from gaining a secure foothold on the ladder of upward advancement. Indeed, one analyst interviewed by the Associated Press, Roderick Harrison of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think-tank known for a center-left slant, argued that the lack of significant Black and Hispanic wealth in part "reflects a history of discrimination." Do not be surprised if the statistical findings reported by this study become part of the cant employed by the radical reparations movement as it seeks to redistribute income to compensate for slavery and segregation.

The agenda of the reparations movement is clearly socialism in disguise. There never has been consensus within the community that would purportedly benefit from the reparations on how wealth would be distributed or who would oversee the distribution. Moreover, the reparations movement purposely overlooks the vast sum of money that has been spent over the last four decades on social programs, many of which actually encouraged the perpetuation of poverty.

The reparations movement also overlooks the significant progress that Black Americans have made over the last few decades. The poverty rate among Black Americans stood at 41.8% in 1966. It was 24.4% last year. Only 3.9% of Black Americans held a college degree in 1964. Today more than 17% of Black Americans have a college degree.

Conservatives have our own agenda to help Americans who are not sharing in America's prosperity. It emphasizes opportunity. The economic benefits of a good education cannot be emphasized too strongly. Moreover, too many Americans simply fail to realize the importance of saving money and the power of compounding interest. Furthermore, there is too little recognition throughout our society that marriage is one of the greatest promoters of increasing savings and an important factor in helping families to cope with economic adversity. Last year, a team of Heritage Foundation researchers including Patrick F. Fagan, a former colleague of mine at the Free Congress Foundation, concluded in their paper entitled Increasing Marriage Will Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty "[t]he erosion of marriage and the increase in single-parent families are major causes of child poverty in the United States. Nearly three-quarters of government means-tested welfare aid to children goes to single-parent families. Over 80 percent of long-term child poverty occurs in broken or never-married families."

The conservative strategy to promote ownership relies not just upon making Americans realize that they can become property and investment owners but to help enable them to do just that. President Bush, for one, is a strong proponent of creating an "Ownership Society" by promoting greater ownership of retirement assets through expanding contribution limits of IRAs and 401 (k) accounts. Not all conservatives agree with reworking the Social Security system now but there are other elements of the "Ownership Society" that merit their own consideration.

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