New York City Eric Adams is "wrong" with his support of reparations for the descendants of slavery, as it "forces people to pay and account for crimes committed 160-odd years ago," City Councilman Joe Borelli said on Newsmax on Monday.
"The practicality of reparations, not just in New York but in any state, is also impossible to implement, and it's impossible to see the political path to which this could even go down the pike," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report."
During a press conference last week, Adams said that he thinks reparations are "long overdue" and that he commends lawmakers for exploring the issue.
"I think we need to zero in on some of those corporations and companies that the foundation of their wealth came from slavery," said Adams. "Government must deal with that, and I'm 100% supportive of what they're doing."
Borelli noted that a similar measure in California was a proposal to spend $569 billion, nearly double the state's budget.
"They were going to pay $200,000 a person," said Borelli. "New York legislators scoffed at the ... number from California and said it was too low."
Further, Borelli said efforts on reparations are too late, and "if it wasn't done in the 1870s or so it probably can't be done."
"I have an alternate proposal," he said. "Why doesn't the Democratic Party pay reparations? If we're going back in time, why don't we look at the Democratic Party's history of defending slavery, fighting against reconstruction, and fighting against the Civil Rights Act? I'm a Republican. Why should I pay? My party was the party of abolition."
Borelli added: "If people think that's silly, we should remind them that I'm about as connected to Abe Lincoln as I am to any slaveholder in the 1840s. In my family, we have stories about discrimination we faced as some of the early Italian coal miners in West Virginia.
"I'm not going to go bang down Joe Manchin's door and demand that state pay for my family. It's an absurd proposition.
"People should be accountable for crimes and bad things they commit during their lifetime … going back in time now to essentially charge a fee and punish them for crimes they didn't commit is absurd and un-American."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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