President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve on the board of governors for the Federal Reserve System is coming under scrutiny for her past view of supporting reparations, among other concerns.
“Everybody benefited from slavery. Everybody,” Lisa Cook, a Michigan State University professor, said in a September 2020 “EconTalk” podcast, Fox News reported.
“So, I think that we absolutely need some sort of reckoning with that. There are many proposals on the table to study the possibility of reparations, many economic proposals being put forward, and I think they should all be taken seriously,” she added.
The same year, Cook expressed support on Twitter for reparations.
Ron Daniels and @SandyDarity bring clarity to the reparations debate. Read @TracyJan’s entire thread, which is also clear and timely, and the comments. 👇🏽 https://t.co/qAbX9VzFwB
— Dr. Lisa D. Cook (@drlisadcook) February 25, 2020
The need for reparations and any type of means to fairly distribute such payments for African American slavery has been a concern among many.
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey also expressed his concerns at multiple issues found with Cook and Raskin as nominees.
.@federalreserve nominees Raskin and Cook aren’t being nominated for dog catcher. They’ve been selected for powerful positions. That’s why it’s so concerning that a substantial volume of materials weren’t turned over until we independently discovered dozens of omissions. https://t.co/g0Udn4DkKF
— Senator Pat Toomey (@SenToomey) January 28, 2022
The concerns could be enough to end another nominee’s journey, which is terrible news for President Biden who is struggling to fill his administration’s positions.
