(NewsGlobal.com)- A task force in California that has been charged with providing reparations to the descendants of African slaves can’t even decide on a plan for how they should go about it, let alone a number they should put on the checks.
Last year, the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans voted to provide the reparations. This Wednesday, the group met to further discuss what the state’s taxpayers owe black California residents, as they have a deadline of July of 2023 looming.
The state Legislature in California will still need to approve the recommendations that the task force sets force. The members of the group, though, “seemed flummoxed as they discussed the particulars of their plan,” according to a recent report in The Washington Free Beacon.
The group was established by a new law in California that passed in 2020.
Jovan Scott Lewis, who is a member of the task force, said:
“We don’t yet know what the actual racial wealth gap in the state of California is.”
He later added that his commission is “limited by data in every instance,” which then “limits our ability to give really clear guidance at this point.”
Lewis said that the task force would need the help of other people and advisers to find whatever information they need so that they could establish a dollar amount that people should get as part of the reparations.
Outside financial advisers that the task force hired have already put in place recommended categories they believe that some black California residents should receive compensation for. This includes homelessness, property seizures, the devaluation of black businesses, housing discrimination and “mass incarceration and overpolicing,” the Free Beacon reported.
Yet, the task force to this point hasn’t been able to settle on timeframes for the categories listed above. It also hasn’t settled on how many residents in California should be eligible for the reparations. All that it has decided on is that the payments have to go to those who are descendants of slaves, or people who can prove that they have lineage in America that dates back before 1900.
The New York Times reported last week that the economic advisers hired by the group said the maximum amount that could be rewarded just for discriminatory housing policies and redlining would be $500 billion. When that went viral, the task force members dismissed it as “misinformation.”
It’s been a hard time so far for members of the task force to settle on how much money should be given as reparations. Even state officials who attended the meeting Wednesday seemed hesitant to talk much about it, the Free Beacon reported.
This all comes at a time when the state is facing a deficit of $24 billion next year. So, how the Democrat-led state will be able to proceed if the recommended dollar amount is huge is uncertain at this point. All that money is obviously going to have to come from somewhere.
