California's Idiotic Reparations Plan

By Jackson Kincaid

In Brief:

San Francisco has suggested spending $5 million in reparations for “each long-term black resident of the city.” Yet California was never a slave state. It entered the Union as a free state in 1850.

The Background: 

California is the state with the highest debt -- a staggering $55.96 billion net debt to be exact. Yet the city of San Francisco is struggling to pay even its most basic of bills amid the rapid flight of tax-paying citizens. 

As the New York Post reported, San Francisco’s $5 million proposal, magnitudes larger than amounts being discussed in other communities, has drawn intense backlash from conservatives who lambaste the idea as financially ruinous for a city with an annual budget of $14 billion that is still recovering economically from the pandemic. The proposal doesn’t explain who would qualify, but if even a fraction of the city’s 50,000 Black residents met the criteria, it would consume a huge amount of the city’s annual budget.

The state of California has its own reparations committee that is suggesting a far more modest amount of $233,000 to its black descendants2 of slavery. 

Notable Quotes: 

“There wasn’t a math formula.” –  Eric McDonnell, chair of the reparations committee