We recently looked at the proposal from California’s task force on reparations and its suggestion that Black residents should be paid up to a million dollars each. When reached for comment, Governor Gavin Newsom was full of praises for the task force, citing the “important work” it had done. But he hedged on the idea of writing checks of that size. He instead attempted to broaden the conversation, saying that reparations are “about much more than cash payments.” How do you suppose that’s going to fly with the legislature’s hard-left progressives? I’m guessing it won’t go over very well. (NY Post)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to throw his support behind cash payments of up to $1.2 million for black residents recommended by his reparations task force, according to a report.

The Democratic governor told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that reparations — meant to take responsibility for the country’s history of slavery and systemic racism — “is about much more than cash payments.”

He called the task force’s findings a milestone in the effort to advance justice.

There were several notable aspects of Newsom’s response, but perhaps the most interesting one was his complete failure to mention the obvious elephant in the room. He said nothing about the fact that the “cash payments” in question could add up to more than $800 billion. That’s nearly three times the entire state budget for the year. If that was all paid out at once, it would essentially bankrupt the state. It’s funny how that failed to show up in the conversation since the entire idea is preposterous.

It’s also worth noting how Newsom said “We should continue to work as a nation to reconcile our original sin of slavery.” (Emphasis added.) But this isn’t a national program. It’s strictly designed for the residents of California. Is this a subtle indicator that Newsom still has national aspirations and may yet toss his hat in the ring to run a primary campaign against Joe Biden? If someone of Newsom’s standing jumped into the race, the DNC would almost be forced to hold debates, something they have thus far completely refused to do. Also, California wasn’t part of the “original sin of slavery” because it was never a slave state.

Newsom also listed some of the non-cash items the task force was working on. He included “breaking down barriers to vote, bolstering resources to address hate, and enacting sweeping law enforcement and justice reforms.” Is anyone ever going to let us know what these supposed “barriers” to voting are? Every adult legal citizen can register to vote for free in California and pretty much everywhere else in the country. Each election season you can barely walk down the street without someone with a pack of registration forms running up and badgering you. Car services give people free (actually taxpayer-reimbursed) rides to and from polling places and ballots are mailed to people’s homes.

The phrase “address hate” could mean almost anything. And the “sweeping law enforcement and justice reforms” he’s talking about are the state’s efforts to defund the police and reduce sentencing guidelines for criminals. We’ve all seen how that “important work” has turned out. I’m sure he’d love to enact all of that at a national level if he’s given the chance.

All of this reparations talk is nothing but virtue signaling and I can assure you that California won’t go through with a plan to suddenly make all of its Black residents millionaires. There are no people alive in California today who have ever owned slaves or been slaves. People who have been imprisoned, regardless of the color of their skin, were locked up because they were convicted of crimes. Yes, slavery was horrible and the country has had to put in a lot of hard work to overcome historical racism over the past century. But this is 2023. None of us are owed anything in this regard.