Reparations are another way for Democrats to lose

 

Summary:  The problems that justify reparations should be solved before you start the reparations

Reparations are intended to compensate African-Americans whose ancestors were slaves and lived through the Jim Crow era. 

According to the NAACP, "Reparations would involve a national apology, rights to the cannabis industry, financial payment, social service benefits, and land grants to every descendant of an enslaved African American and Black person a descendant of those living in the United States including during American slavery until the Jim Crow era in1965."

Opponents say is that it's "impossible to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery"  

Actually some people in San Francisco have placed a monetary value on the impact of slavery:

Here are some of the more than 100 recommendations made by a city-appointed reparations committee: Payments of $5 million to every eligible Black adult, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San Francisco for just $1 a family.  The San Francisco Board of Supervisors after hearing the report for the first time voiced enthusiastic support for the ideas, with some saying money should not stop the city from doing the right thing. 

Why worry about the cost? You mean besides the fact that this is completely insane? An estimate from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which leans conservative, has said it would cost each non-Black family in the city at least $600,000. How do you think those folks are going to like that?

On the California state level, The California Reparations Task Force, which was created by legislation signed by Governor Newsom in 2020, is considering a proposal to give just under $360,000 per person to approximately 1.8 million Black Californians who had an ancestor enslaved in the U.S., putting the total cost of the program at about $640 billion.

Critics say the payouts make no sense in a state and city that never enslaved Black people. Reparations opponents say taxpayers who were never slave owners should not have to pay money to people who were not enslaved. 

And besides, The California Civil Rights Initiative (1996) clearly prohibits preferential treatment of any race: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

Also, the limited focus on redressing wrongs affecting only blacks by reparations supporters ignores major racist policies in California history that affected Native Americans, Mexican-Americans and Asians, among others. Once California starts handing out reparations to one group, the demands of historical victims will never end.

Talk is cheap on this subject, because no governing body is actually ready and able to hand out meaningful reparations:

Evanston, Illinois became the first city in the United States to pass a reparations resolution in 2019 for Black residents who qualified. “It is a $25,000 direct benefit to build wealth through home equity.” The housing program is the first initiative in a historic plan to distribute $10 million in reparations to Black residents of Evanston. The effort would prioritize descendants of Evanston residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 or suffered housing discrimination after 1969. 

The columnist Dahleen Glanton described the resolution in the Chicago Tribune as "mostly a symbolic gesture with little of the substance the reparations movement hoped for," adding that "African Americans won’t get a dime in their pockets."

In Asheville, North Carolina, leaders have vowed to give reparations by funding housing, business and career programs for Black people. 

In 2021, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, reintroduced bill H.R. 40, which would create a commission to examine reparations for the African American descendants of slavery. President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed his support for studying reparations. Yeah, keep "studying" the problem so you don't have to actually do anything. Meanwhile, the political damage accumulates from talking about it.

All of these programs and studies are missing one important thing -- The problems that justify reparations should be solved before you start the reparations, otherwise you'll need another round of reparations in the future because America has not properly addressed and solved the institutional racism that continues to disadvantage people of color.

If the Democrats are looking for an idea that can easily cost them the 2024 election, they couldn't do any better than talking about reparations. According to a Pew Research poll in November 2022, 68% of Americans say reparations should not be paid.

While nearly 75% of black respondents in an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll said they believe the US government should pay reparations to the descendants of enslaved black people, just 15% of white participants supported the idea.

Clearly, additional studies, recommendations and talk from Democrats about reparations between now and 2024 will cost many more votes than it gains and it will push a lot of the independent voters towards Republicans.

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