Posted by Tina
Americans believe in justice for all people but we don’t like being taken for a ride. When our own government acts as an agent for those who seek to scam the public the intolerance level rises considerably. Unless something is done taxpayers will be on the hook for billion or so of our hard earned bucks.
The original case, Pigford vs. Glickman, was a class action suit brought against the USDA for discrimination against black farmers who had applied for loans. One billion dollars has already been paid out to over 16,000 people. Now quesions are being raised about the validity fo these cases which have greatly increased in recent years. At a time when caution and careful examination would make sense legislation, conceived by Eric Holder and Tom Vilsack, is instead making its way through Congress to grant additional payouts to claimants without the trouble and bother of a determination through the courts. This poses a very big problem. The Daily Caller has the scoop:
Despite numerous allegations of fraud, the Senate approved legislation by a voice vote Friday to fund. $1.15 billion worth of settlements to black farmers who claim the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them.
The legislation now makes its way to the House, where Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa, and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia have made it clear that they will be pushing hard to prevent its passage and will be calling for investigations into every claim prior to allowing any payoffs.
Much of the cause for concern is the fact that there have been vastly more claims of discrimination than there are even black farmers in America. Sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by the president of the National Black Farmers Association, John Boyd, put the number of black farmers in America at 18,000.
To date, more than 94,000 individuals have filed discrimination claims.
This legislation should be stopped immediately and all claims should be investigated with criminal charges brought where fraud has been committed.
I wonder why the sheer number of fraudulent claims hasn’t given any pause to the democrats pushing this scam?
While I believe the 94,000 claimant figure is probably higher than the actual number of claimants I also accept the number of black farmers to be less because the denied loans prevented many of them from becoming farmers.
Claimants should only be paid when proof of loan applications have been verified.
That should be easy enough to verify too. I can’t believe they were denied because of race, that seems illogical with all the safe guards against such things. I bet most were denied simply because they could not show a good credit rating or history in the business. This is expected from anyone seeking to borrow money.
Jack: “I bet most were denied simply because they could not show a good credit rating or history in the business. This is expected from anyone seeking to borrow money.”
Unless they were being pressured as the housing loan industry was.
Agree, application would only verify intent and not grounds for qualifying for the loan and the settlement payout.