The Chicago Tribune reports that “hundreds of communities and organizations across the country are considering providing reparations” to African-Americans.

They should take a look at the preposterous impact of one of the nation’s first reparations programs, in the liberal Chicago suburb of Evanston.

As we reported two years ago, Evanston’s city council voted to distribute $10 million over the next 10 years to eligible Black households. The funds were to compensate black families for past housing discrimination in Evanston dating back to 1919.

But this meant that white, black, and Hispanic households who have only recently moved into Evanston and had nothing to do with the discrimination, have to pay a reparations tax to the grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of black homeowners who may have suffered injustices as far back as 100 years ago.

The city came up with a crazy scheme that only a progressive could possibly think up. Under the plan, 16 residents, selected randomly by a ping-pong ball machine have received $25,000 payments.

Two of the 16 people who’ve gotten reparations so far are upset that the $25,000 city payment may disqualify them from other free money that the state of Illinois liberally passes out each year.

The whole thing in Evanston is a laughable sham. So naturally, in California, the “reparations commission” that Governor Gavin Newsom created in 2020 is suggesting that 2.5 million “descendants of slaves” in the state be compensated with $223,200. The cost would be more than California’s entire state budget in 2021.