A Washington University administrator’s committee is considering a reparations program for black residents of St. Louis that, if approved, could cost local taxpayers more than $3 billion, according to a local news report submitted through Young America’s Foundation’s Campus Bias Tip Line.
Dr. Will Ross, associate dean for diversity, was appointed by St. Louis’ radical leftist mayor, Tishuara Jones, to serve as vice chair of the city’s Reparations Committee in March.
The committee, which features eight others, has asked residents to provide proposals for a reparations program that would promote “racial healing” in the community to “address the harm that’s been done for decades.”
The most popular recommendation, which the committee is seriously considering, would see the distribution of $25,000 to the city’s black residents who are able to trace their lineage by a certain number of years that is yet to be determined.
It’s also not clear what residents will need to trace their lineage to, or how the government will be able to verify the validity of ancestral claims.
As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 129,814 black or African-American residents of the city. If each were to receive the proposed $25,000 figure, that would amount to a total of $3,245,350,000.
According to a report by the Show-Me Institute, the City of St. Louis collects approximately $645,940,871 in tax revenue from its citizens annually. Even if only ~20 percent of residents are able to meet the lineage tracing requirements, whatever they may be, that would use up an entire year’s worth of the city’s tax revenue.
In January, the Reparations Commission will meet to begin drafting its final proposal to the mayor’s office.
St. Louis isn’t the first governmental body to consider a program of this sort.
In Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, the municipality has doled out more than $500,000 to black residents.
In California, the Department of Justice is exploring options to initiate a statewide reparations program.
The New Guard attempted to reach Dr. Ross to ask why he believes that people who have never owned slaves should be forced to pay those who have never been slaves. He did not respond.
