There is an interesting fight brewing in Congress after various cities indicated that they may not only pay reparations but use federal pandemic funds for such payments. There has been a long call for federal reparations with various Democratic bills introduced in Congress. BET founder Robert Johnson has called for $14 trillion in federal reparations. However, cities like Providence, Rhode Island are not waiting. They insist that federal reparations funds are already effectively approved as part of their pandemic relief.
We have been discussing how California’s Reparations Task Force has presented a bill for $569 billion for reparations while cities like San Francisco have a reparation board demanding $5 million per eligible black resident.
Other cities are saying that the federal government can foot the bill. They are relying on massive payments of federal money under the American Rescue Plan (ARP). They insist that Congress put so few conditions on the money that they can use it for reparations.
The $1.9 billion dollars in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was passed on a loose mandate to encourage economic stimulus and deal with the economic and health effects of the pandemic and ongoing recession. Advocates are arguing that the pandemic exacerbated the lingering effects of slavery for the Black community. Every Republican (and one Democrat, Jared Golden of Maine) voted against the Act.
FOX Business reported that Providence, Rhode Island has already dedicated $10 million in pandemic relief toward creating the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission to address “racial equity.” Likewise, officials in Shelby County, Tennessee (where Memphis is located) voted to spend $5 million to study the possibility of a long-term reparations program. The county said it may use pandemic funds for the effort.
Other cities are moving forward with reparation task forces, including most recently Boston. As in cities like San Francisco, the Boston reparations will cover not just slavery but more “recent” housing and economic inequities. Mayor Michelle Wu declared “For four hundred years, the brutal practice of enslavement and recent policies like redlining, the busing crisis, and exclusion from City contracting have denied Black Americans pathways to build generational wealth, secure stable housing, and live freely.”
Likewise, this week, Washtenaw County in Ann Arbor, Michigan approved its own commission based on reparations approved by cities like Evanston, Illinois. It was described as “An evolution of an exploratory committee led by the Racial Equity Office, the Advisory Council on Reparations will be a perpetual body of Commissioner appointed subject matter experts representing relevant sectors.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) introduced a new federal reparations bill that would create a new federal commission similar to those of states like California. It is supported by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Casey (D-PA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Patty Murray (D-WA).
Some 190 organizations now support federal reparations including the ACLU and Amnesty International.
Stop the insanity, stop mail in voting.
Estovir, one third of all Republicans are over 60 and they like mail-in voting. But if Republicans are dumb enough to shoot themselves in the foot..
Estovir gave up Social Media for Lent.
He wont be back till after Easter.
But he may still be reading the comments section.
If so, “Hi, Estovir!” (waves)
“Divide et impera”
Remember Rodney King? He got a big settlement from the city of Los Angeles. When he died, he was broke. You to cam pi$$ away 14 trillion dollars.
time to CUT all federal aid and loans to colleges and cities
The rest of America…shouldn’t be FUNDING these leftist training grounds
Government should not be funding leftist training grounds – it should not be funding ANYTHING.
There are few tasks in society that require the use of force – those and only those are the legitimate domain of govenrment
Everything else we can do for ourselves fine.
There are only two ways to get wealthy – the first is to swill at the public trough.
The 2nd is to deliver value that people want to people in exchange for money.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old cloaths which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old cloaths which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, cloaths, or lodging, as he has occasion.”
Adam Smith
it is ALL about old FASHION STEALING from a Fascist Regime.
Time to cut 50% of Federal Government….not make it bigger and more corrupt
The DOJ and FBI are 100% corrupt already….we need to shrink the BEAST!
Democrats cities have gotten worse over 60 years of Democrats! Democrats PURPOSELY push crime, drugs, family failure…which requires even more money…like $300k Port Authority cops and Equity officers making $500k…then they all retire in their 50’s on $100k+
“. . . a long call for federal reparations . . .” (JT)
I’m in favor of reparations — *from* welfare recipients (and their descendants) *to* those whose wages were looted via the income tax. To be calculated in today’s dollars, with treble damages.
“Ignoring the idiocy of the left only preserves your sanity – until the come and take everything you have. ”
They’re now talking about taking back IRA and 401K money from people. Luckily (?), I’m almost 80 and have spent most of mine
(with the weird exception that Congress passed a law three or four years ago that I don’t understand that lets me — seven years past when the old law forced me to start taking differed income – to put my “Walmart greeter income” into a new IRA, thereby avoiding paying taxes I otherwise would have had to pay on my already taxed SS benefits… so leftist idiocy is not a new phenomenon)
Dennis Byron,
Whoa! What is this talk about IRA and 401k monies?
I self Identify as being Black and a descendant of Cotton Pickers who worked in the fields from childhood until they could find jobs off the Farm owned by a Slave Owner.
Where is my hand out in the form of Reparations?
The “Black” part is bogus but the rest is not.
My Mom worked in the Cotton fields alongside the children of Black Slaves on a farm owned by her Grand Father who owned a few Slaves.
The Slaves were freed but lived on as share croppers, lived in their parent’s houses built for them, ate at the dinner table as family, and were mourned at their passing as members of the family.
Times change and most people change with them when it is for the bettering of society as did my ancestors did….and as we were taught to do.
Reparations is just another Vote Buying Gimmick to keep the members of the Gimme Club…..those leeches upon society who are looking for a free ride.
Any politician who supports reparations should be ridden ot of town on a fence rail….while being covered in tar and feathers!
Reverting to some of the “old” ways might not be a bad thing for us as a Nation to do.
Lets see, $14T here, $569B there, Biden just pledged another $500M to the Ukraine on top of the . . . I dunno, I lost track of how much we have sent in material and funds . . . is it a billion yet?
Where is all this money coming from? Who is going to pay for it?
I seem to recall certain economists quietly saying injecting billions of money into the economy in the form of pandemic stimulus checks lead to inflation. One of those economists was Larry Summers, Obama’s economic advisor.
IIRC, Evanston placed certain restrictions on the money, like it had to go towards buying a home.
Will something like that be applied?
If someone gets the money, say the $5M as San Fran proposes, but that person knows $5M does not go very far in CA, can they opt to go to TX or FL where they can get a whole lot more house for $250,000?
And would this reparations money be tax free?
If you gave $5M to every black person in this country – assuming you could actually figure out who was “black”.
Withing a decade the vast majority of it would end up redistributed much as it is now.
This is the same reason few lottery winners manage to hold on to their winnings.
People have the wealth that they have because of the choices and decisions they make.
If you take it all away – soon enough they will be back were they were.
If you make the poor wealthy soon enough they will be poor again.
Those born into poverty who will ultimately do substantially better, will do so regardless of anything government does.
Regardless of alleged discrimination.
Straight white-privileged males are the enemy of the people — according to the Biden admin’s policies.
Conservatives and MAGA Trump supporters are domestic terrorists guilty of ‘wrong think’ — according to Biden admin policies.
Unvaccinated are the problem — according to Biden’s own words.
See the problem, people? America, the very essence of what this country stands for, is under assault.
All hands on deck. No one can sit back and complain. All must get out on the battlefield.
Once again using taxpayer funds to buy votes. Slavery is, and was, an evil thing. It was practiced in Africa long before the Europeans were involved. If your ancestors were brought here from Africa as slaves, they were most likely enslaved and sold by other Africans. Had that evil not been done, their descendants here would never exist. The line of people who met and had children would have been broken and the people today, their parents and their grandparents would never have existed. So the taxpayers are paying people for existing?
It’s a scam. The money will go to line pockets of the politicians who will “disburse” the funds. After all you did not earn that money. It all belonged to the federal government and you were just the middleman who took the money for your work and passed it back to the federal government so they could disburse it with their enlightened “ideals”. I note that these are cities who are doing this and for the main part they are failing cities. It’s purely vote buying because the African American population is starting to drift away from the Democratic Party and the cities they have lived in are being destroyed by the selfsame Democratic Party. Imagine though, for a minute, what will happen when some get money and some do not. Also what will happen when that money gets taxed. Social security gets taxed, so why not “reparations”. I suspect the tax codes in most states and the feds will cause them to be taxed.
When government spends money ALWAYS someone profits excessively ALWAYS.
Whether it is “the green new deal”, or Covid Stimulus, or Section 8 Housing – Someone often many people make a fortune often very very large fortunes.
I have no objectyions to people getting rich.
But government spending is NOT free market. Much of what government does is not to solve problems but to spend money to benefit some interest – always the rich, but often government spending is just subsidized jobs doing unnecescary work.
This is awesome. Angela Davis’s roots come from not only a slave OWNER but also the Mayflower. So Angela Davis owes some reparations, y’all.
__________________________________
Angela Davis is a Woke activist and academic who has argued that America was built on slavery by racist colonizers.
**Her ancestors came to America on the mayflower**
Quote Tweet
Henry Louis Gates Jr
@HenryLouisGates
·
Feb 21
“Do you know what you’re looking at? That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower.”
Our researchers discovered #AngelaDavis’s ancestors traveled to the US on the Mayflower and here is her reaction. #FindingYourRoots
Kamala descends from slave plantation owners too, y’all. She too owes reparations!
This just shows the lunacy of this nonsense by white virtue signaling insufferable Democrats.
Same with Saint Obama’s Daddy’s family. Pay up Obama. You have the money.
Should have read the comments first. I just commented the same thing!
A fair question is, “When is enough, enough?” We’ve had the protections of the Civil Rights Act for nearly 60 years. We’ve had government-sanctioned discrimination via affirmative action and race-based quotas. We’ve had countless social programs that disproportionately benefit persons of color.
And now we are faced with the expectation that those of us who never owned slaves — in fact, never even lived during Jim Crow times — foot the bill for some sort of compensation for the perceived “lingering effects” of slavery.
When will enough be enough?
For the buyers of votes with your money, the answer is “Never”.
Most everything that you have described – has actually made problems Worse.
Those on the left do NOT want a better world for anyone – minority or otherswise.
They want power over others, and that is best acheived through dystopian means.
Look arround – we are in the least discriminatory country in the world in the lest discriminatory moment in history – and yet if you buy the ranting of the left, we live in a hellhole for minorities worse than Nazi Germany.
For most of history even through this moment – nearly every nation in the world was not merely racially homogenus, but also ethnically, and religiously. Through most of history any sexual practice other than hetorsexuality resulted in death. In some parts of the world it still does.
Yet according to the left This nation – the most tolerant nation that has ever existed, is a White Supremecist, cesspool where those who are different risk getting shot by police or lynched at any moment.
These people are LIARS. They do not live in reality, they do not want anyone else to live in reality.
I lived for many years in the city of Frederick MD. Frederick faced being burned to the ground unless the town ponied up some $200,000 to Jubal Early’s troops. https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/arts_and_entertainment/history/in-paying-ransom-frederick-saved-citys-history/article_dad5448b-6d7e-5d66-921a-78842d369e58.html. The town was never reimbursed by the Feds, even though Early then did not march on DC as a result. We’re talking $20M or so with interest that the late Sen Mathias asked for over the years. Where is it?
While we’re at it, Italians were some of the most discriminated against groups in this country. On March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, 11 innocent Italian men were lynched; this was the largest mass lynching in America. They had been on trial for a murder but had been found not guilty, but a mob broke into the jail where they were being kept. Eight of the men were able to hide; 11 were hung from lampposts or trees; some were clubbed to death and others shot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14%2C_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
My Italian heritage cries out for reparations! Where’s mine?
Check out the new rules and refs coming down from HUD concerning the suburbs. Our world is changing.
GDM. God Damn Yankees killed my ancestors in 1863. I want money.
The english kept my irish ancestors in worse than slavery for 500 years – where are my reparations ?
I can trace my ancestry back to Able – the descendants of Caine owe me.
John, The Irish (my ancestors included) weren’t treated much better here in the U.S. and faced their share of discrimination, poverty and societal dangers. Sign me up for reparations, just like my repayment of my student loan. We can only hope that legislation for reparations is as successful as that manipulative vote getting promise on student loans.
Federal funds can only be used for what Congress has approved them for. As paying reparations is not constitutional I highly doubt the House will pass such legislation. This is clearly a scheme to get and guarantee votes.
I have an ancestry who was killed by Yankees in the civil war. He wasn’t a rebel. I think that citizens of New York State owe me reparations. Maybe a million. Don’t you people on the blog know what a GDY is?
God Damn Yankee!
Just wait. The LGBTQ++ community will get on the reparations train next. Than the Native Americans, including Elizabeth Warren. Anyone who feels that they or their ancestors have ever been “marginalized” or “underrepresented” will get into the line. Why not? They see a great gig so they may as well partake of it.
Can anyone provide a means to stop this?? Since we are the taxpayers to the Federal juggernaut are we not the harmed parties? Do we not have standing in the Courts?
Once again, I will say that the best way to stop this is for the House to clarify in its appropriations bills that no ARP or other federal funds may be used to support the study or payment of reparations. The Republicans now have the power of the purse and should use it. If the Senate or Biden administration want to shut down the government over this, so be it.
Not any more.
I guess I have to stop reading any news at all to keep my sanity. Let the next generation reap what they have sown by electing these idiots in to office. An entire branch of my maternal grandmother’s family was wiped out- yes, exterminated- in the Armenian genocide of the 1920’s. I guess I should petition the Turkish government to pay me 1 trillion dollars in reparations.. Or how about a gazillion?
Ignoring the idiocy of the left only preserves your sanity – until the come and take everything you have.
The constitutional government of our founders was Supposed to be unable to do anything without supermajority support, That allowed us all the freedom to ignore those in govenrment except in times of REAL national crisis, and happily go on with our lives.