Re: 'Revisiting reparations' [Village News, Letters, 3/23/23]

After a mind numbing word salad, Maynard gets to his misinterpretation of the status of California’s state budget. Here’s the actuality:

“Governor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2023-24 California state budget on Jan. 10, projecting a $22.5 billion shortfall that the administration would solve through a series of trigger cuts, delays or deferrals of spending authorized in earlier years, and withdrawals or reductions of planned one-time spending. The $223.6 billion spending plan would protect many ongoing investments made in prior years, but would not draw down state reserves, which are projected to total $35.6 billion.”

January 2023 | By California Budget & Policy Center

Regarding reparations: What happens in San Francisco stays in San Francisco. Our state legislature did establish a temporary nine-member committee to see what the fuss is all about.

Regarding the “surging crime wave:” there isn’t one. California’s latest violent crime rate is 440 (per 10K population) compared to the national rate of 400. But if you look at a violent crime rate graph, the rate has been dropping steadily since the 90’s, when it peaked at 758.2!

Regarding homelessness: “In response, a bipartisan coalition of members from the California State Senate introduced a solution that aims at the actual illness: not the symptoms. Here are a few elements:

1) A $2 billion bond to construct permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless persons with mental illness. 2) $45 million – already included in the recently enacted state budget –to provide supportive housing in the shorter-term, rent subsidies. 3) $45 million – also included in the recently enacted state budget –for a one-time investment to incentivize local governments to boost outreach efforts and advocacy to get more eligible poor people enrolled in the SSI/SSP program.

Regarding slavery and racism: I thank Maynard for his commentary on the GOP in the 1860’s. It shows how far the party has fallen since those “golden days.” Today’s GOP base is centered in the South’s former slave states, the ones that formed the Confederacy. They are the reddest and most racist. (The Top Tens: Top 10 Most Racist States In the U.S.)

John H. Terrell