Kamilah V. Moore, the chair of California’s reparations committee, posted several tweets over the weekend that supported taxing the wealthy, or raising estate and property taxes, to pay for payments to black recipients.
Though California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, it has begun considering reparations for slavery, thanks to a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in the throes of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
As Breitbart News has reported, the committee has heard analysis that suggests paying each black descendant of slaves about $233,000 each. (San Francisco’s own reparations committee has entertained even more ambitious proposals, such as giving each 10-year resident who identifies as black $5 million.)
Some say the $233,000 payment is insufficient. Moore herself has said that reparations should be $1 million per person.
Over the weekend, as the committee heard testimony from the public, Moore tweeted quotes from a MarketWatch report that cited “experts” who recommended raising taxes on the wealthy or their property.
It is unclear how such a tax could be accomplished, since the California constitution severely restricts property tax increases, thanks to Proposition 13, which passed in 1978 with bipartisan support and has since endured.
When the “experts” were asked about potential opposition to an additional estate tax, they downplayed the possibility. The UK Daily Mail reported:
Then when task force member Sen. Steven Bradford asked the two whether they think wealthy residents would be opposed to new wealth taxes, they vehemently denied the idea.
‘What I hear from my clients is a level of guilt about being able to give this much money to their heirs,’ Moore [Sarah Moore] Johnson said, adding: ‘From where I stand, what I see, I see some support.’
…
‘It’s a joy being able to talk to people who could change that,’ [Raymond Odom] said, adding he has ‘talked to wealthy white folks who are behind this.
The reparations task force, which is overwhelmingly black, released an interim report last year in which it suggested, among other things, that black students attend separate schools. It is set to report its final recommendations, which are non-binding, to the legislature later this year.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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