Fox Business reported yesterday on the amount of money paid out by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the The Claims Resolution Act of 2010 signed on December 8, 2010. This bill, H. R. 4783, is also sometimes referred to as "The Pigford Settlement."
One aspect of the bill is to pay black farmers who had been discriminated against by the USDA in loan applications during the 1980's and 1990's. The numbers, however, just don't add up. The article reports:
"When some black farmers sued, claiming discrimination, the USDA agreed to pay $50,000 to every black person who was discriminated against.
"According to the census, there were 18,000 black farmers in the country when the lawsuit was filed. But 97,000 black 'farmers" have applied for the money.
"Black farmer Jimmy Dismuke says its fraud. He said lawyers went to black churches and told people who had never farmed to file for the money.
""People say well, how do I qualify?" Dismuke told us. "And then [the lawyers] started talking about potted plants. They said if you had a potted plant, you can be a farmer. And if you have a yard and you fertilize it, you're a farmer."
"Just about anyone can say that they "attempted to farm." And the USDA--which did not keep all its loan records--has no way to refute that. So the taxpayers pay, and pay."
At a time when the federal budget is totally out of control, we cannot afford to be handing out $50,000 payments to people who have never farmed anything larger than their back yard. Please read the entire article to see how this supposedly well meaning program has spiraled totally out of control.
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