The 15-member committee appointed by San Francisco to recommend specific reparations for Black residents has now given their report to the Board of Supervisors. Let me be the first to say (although it’s politically unpopular to do so) that this wild, insane scheme is completely unacceptable, the product of disordered minds.
To begin with, payments of $5 million to every eligible Black person in San Francisco. The committee was a little vague concerning who would be “eligible.” But, from the criteria listed in this article, it would appear to be a majority of the city’s 50,000 Black residents. If you subtract a certain number who are below the age of 18 (part of the committee’s criteria), maybe the number comes down to, say, 30,000. Now, let’s do some math.
30,000 x $5,000,000 = $150,000,000,000. That’s one hundred and fifty billion with a “b” dollars. Now, San Francisco’s annual budget, as proposed by Mayor Breed last June for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, is $13.95 billion. In other words, the reparations committee would exhaust San Francisco’s entire budget for the next ten years on reparations.
Not only that, the committee’s recommendations also include eliminating all personal debt of Black residents and relieving them of all tax responsibility. (I seriously doubt if the I.R.S. would go along with that) AND a guaranteed income of $97,000 for at 150 years AND a home in San Francisco (where the median cost of a home is $1.3 million) for a total of $1. Yes, one dollar per home.
What were these people smoking?
Obviously none of this is tethered to reality. And yet, the reparations committee exists. It was appointed by the city, and the liberal media has given its blessing. The Board of Supervisors—dominated by “progressives”—is going to be under a lot of pressure to approve these ridiculous recommendations. I suppose that, like all legislation passed by Supervisors, it would have to be signed or vetoed by London Breed. I can’t imagine her going along with a stunt this stupid. But you never know.
It’s time to talk about these reparations fanatics. They’ve taken the temperature of public opinion, at least in San Francisco, and determined that there’s enough support out there for reparations. They figure, also, that this is a one-time opportunity, so they’d better go big or go home. What they haven’t figured on, though, is how preposterous their scheme is. San Franciscans will never, ever go for it. Any supervisor who votes for anything this ludicrous will never be re-elected and might even be recalled. The national media will make a laughingstock of San Francisco—not for the first time, but the laughter will be more brutal that anything the city’s endured for a long time. Not to mention that the city would immediately be sued.
The S.F. Board of Supervisors has to be warned: Don’t even think of doing anything with this report, except throwing it in the trash. If the reparations committee came out with something serious—say, free childcare for disadvantaged Black residents, or a one-time cash payment of $1,000—the people would be fine with that. But this grotesque proposal is an insult to our intelligence.
Steve Heimoff