California’s preposterous push to offer reparations to blacks—in a state where slavery never existed—will inflame racial tensions.
In December 2022, California’s nine-member Reparations Task Force, formed by Governor Gavin Newsom two years earlier, estimated that, if a reparations program were ever adopted, each black person in the state descended from slaves could receive as much as $223,200 in compensation for past injustice. The projected total cost, to California taxpayers, could reach $569 billion—almost two and a half times the state’s current budget. The task force is due to give its final recommendations in June 2023, including the exact monetary amount of compensation. “We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction,” said one task-force member.
