Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and state lawmakers reached a deal this weekend to close a $47 billion budget deficit, agreeing to spend $12 million to implement a proposal to provide reparations for slavery.
of Sacramento Bee report:
The budget deal announced Saturday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders sets aside $12 million to help the state implement a series of reparations bills that lawmakers hope to pass this year.
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for [Democratic Assemblywoman Lori Wilson, the chair of the Legislative Black Caucus]”It’s exactly what Black lawmakers have been asking for,” she said. But the bill also comes in a year when the state is facing a nearly $47 billion budget shortfall.
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The money would help support proposals the conference supports, including forcing the state to apologize for harming Black California residents and allowing slavery in the state.
Calm Matters report On Saturday, the proposed budget would use a combination of spending cuts and draws from the state’s “rainy day” fund to make up the shortfall (the shortfall is even higher, at $56 billion, according to CalMatters).
The $297.9 billion spending plan announced this morning by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President pro tempore Mike Maguire and House Speaker Robert Rivas also would rely on reserves and suspend some business tax breaks to address remaining revenue shortfalls estimated at $56 billion over the next two years.
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The plan includes $16 billion in cuts, including an across-the-board 7.95% cut to nearly every state agency and the elimination of thousands of vacant positions, for a total savings of about $3.7 billion. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will receive an additional $385 million in cuts at the urging of progressive lawmakers, far more than Governor Newsom originally sought for the shrinking prison system.
Other major cuts include $1.1 billion from various affordable housing programs, $746 billion for health workforce training, and $500 million for student housing construction. Scholarship programs for middle-class college students will be cut by $110 million a year, about one-fifth of the amount the governor originally intended to cut.
The push for reparations began at both the state and local levels in left-leaning cities like San Francisco during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Advocates began recommending large cash transfers, leading Governor Newsom to cautiously back away from cash transfers as a form of reparations.
Democrats continued to demand reparations even as the state’s $100 billion budget surplus for 2022 tumbled into a huge deficit by 2024.
California has never recognized slavery and joined the union as a “free” state in 1850. Supporters of reparations argue that California passed fugitive slave laws and tolerated decades of racial discrimination, and say reparations would set an example for the nation.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday The show airs Sunday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. (4 to 7 p.m. ET) on SiriusXM Patriot. He is the author of a new biography, Roda: “Comrade Kadariye, you are disrupting order.”He recently published an e-book titled ” Not Free or Fair: The 2020 US Presidential ElectionHe is the recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship in 2018. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
