Paying money to descendants of slaves is only the start of the California Reparations Task Force’s bold progressive imaginative and prescient.
Embedded within the panel’s 1,100-page report is a veritable leftist to-do record that features common medical health insurance for Black residents, a assured fundamental earnings, free school tuition, “forgivable” interest-free loans to small companies and erasing curiosity debt on unpaid little one assist.
That’s not all. The report now earlier than the state Legislature additionally recommends ending policing of nuisance violations comparable to public urination, permitting Black LGBTQ youth to obtain confidential “mental health care” with out parental permission, and adopting “rent caps” in traditionally red-lined areas.
Los Angeles radio host Larry Elder, a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, blasted the reparations idea as “nonsense” and criticized the duty drive’s hard-left tilt.
“There’s not a single conservative on this panel. You look at the bios of all the people there, it’s one left-wing person after another — nobody from the center, nobody from the right, no conservatives,” Mr. Elder mentioned Monday on the Fox News Channel.
“The whole panel was basically designed to extract money from other people,” he mentioned, “and that’s exactly what they’ve done.”
The job drive despatched the report back to the General Assembly at its closing assembly June 29, however there could also be no concrete exercise till subsequent yr. Any legislative motion would want to take the type of a invoice, and the 2023 deadline for introducing new laws handed in February.
That would give Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature at the least six months to contemplate the hefty report and its sweeping suggestions, which have been hailed on the left as a blueprint for different states and even the nation.
Commanding the lion’s share of consideration are the proposed compensation tables for previous discrimination in healthcare, housing, unjust property takings, and mass incarceration and “over-policing” throughout the War on Drugs.
The job drive didn’t advocate a complete price in its closing report, however an eligible 71-year-old lifetime resident of California might obtain as a lot as $1.2 million underneath the report’s monetary fashions.
The price of the reparations bundle has been estimated at $500 to $800 million, nicely above the state’s annual $300 billion finances, however the job drive mentioned that its prolonged detailing of the harms of slavery and racial discrimination just isn’t exhaustive.
“Since this list of harms and atrocities is not exhaustive, the total of the estimated losses to African Americans is not a final estimate of all losses,” the report mentioned. “Rather, it is a very cautious initial assessment for what cost, at a minimum, the state of California is responsible. Further data collection and research would be required to augment these initial estimates.”
Reparations are the extraction of cash from individuals who have been by no means slave house owners, to be given to individuals who have been by no means slaves.@willcain pic.twitter.com/ftg98MI9vE
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) July 10, 2023
The job drive voted to restrict eligibility for money reparations to descendants of an enslaved individual or a “free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century,” however lots of the report’s suggestions would come with huge swaths of Black Californians.
They embody the proposal on “closing the health coverage gaps” by adopting a “comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage and health care cost control system for the benefit of all African Americans in California.”
Descendants of enslaved individuals would obtain “special consideration.” The report additionally recommends rising Medi-Cal reimbursement charges “to achieve parity with the reimbursement rates of private insurance.” Medi-Cal is the state’s Medicaid program.
The report proposes that solely descendants would profit from free school tuition at public universities and assured fundamental earnings, but it surely additionally requires funding schooling coaching in drugs, tech and different fields, in addition to tuition-free legislation faculty.
A great slice of the report is dedicated to LGBTQ-related suggestions, comparable to requiring that faculties create and fund Gay Straight Alliance golf equipment when one scholar requests it and supply Black LGBTQ youth with behind-the-scenes counseling.
“A significant number of African American LGBTQ+ youth who want to access confidential mental health care without a parent’s permission are unable to do so,” the report mentioned. “Therefore, the Task Force recommends that the Legislature enact legislation that will allow mental health providers to treat African American LGBTQ+ youth who are under age 18 and may otherwise not receive care because parental permission is required.”
Many proposals are much like these pushed by Black Lives Matter, comparable to eliminating money bail, increasing anti-racist coaching, eradicating officers from faculties, ending certified immunity for legislation enforcement, and blocking police enforcement of sure low-level offenses.
Those embody “illegal camping, public intoxication, disorderly conduct, minor trespass and public urination.”
“Instead, a public health and safety institution, without criminal arrest or prosecution powers, would enforce prohibitions such as sleeping on the sidewalk, fare evasion, and similar transit-related or other public disorder violations that criminalize poverty,” the report mentioned.
Deadbeat fathers additionally would catch a break: The report recommends eliminating the ten% curiosity on unpaid little one assist, saying that Black residents carry 18% of child-support debt regardless of comprising simply 7% of the state’s inhabitants.
Other proposals echo the progressive boilerplate, together with elevating the minimal wage abolishing the dying penalty, ending standardized-testing necessities for school, and urging Congress to eradicate the filibuster.
The legislature was additionally inspired to repeal Proposition 36, the 2012 measure amending the state’s “three strikes” sentencing legislation to require that life sentences be imposed for critical or violent crimes, and Proposition 209, the 1996 affirmative-action ban.
The job drive really helpful creating and funding the California American Freedman Affairs Agency charged with serving to residents hint their family tree and implementing any insurance policies authorized by the state Legislature. The state was additionally urged to problem a public apology for its previous wrongs.
Polls present California residents have combined views on reparations, however the job drive is ready to promote its agenda. In truth, one of many report’s suggestions is so as to add the report’s content material on slavery and discrimination to the usual faculty curriculum.
Kamilah Moore, who chaired the duty drive, has made the media rounds because the report’s launch to advertise its findings and proposals.
“We know that reparations particularly for descendants of slaves has always been a politically charged idea,” she mentioned Sunday on MSNBC. “We actually created a public-education committee that is working to educate California’s public on our findings, as the intro to this segment noted, to change the hearts and minds of all Californians to support this idea. We know there’s a state battle ahead, but we’re prepared for the fight.”
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