The House of Representatives approved a decades-old settlement worth $4.6 billion Tuesday that resolves two class-action suits filed against the federal government by black farmers and Native Americans.
The thousands who joined the suit argued that the government discriminated against them as they applied for loans for agricultural ventures.
The House approved the package 256-to-152.
Black farmers would receive $1.2 billion, after they alleged they were cheated out of loans from the Agriculture Department. The government will direct $3.4 billion to American Indians who say the Interior Department swindled them out of royalties from natural resources like gas and timber.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., opposed the settlement. She says that many of the programs designed to accommodate black farmers are easy targets for fraud.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, tried to delete money from the program with an amendment but was blocked by the House Rules Committee.
"By cutting off consideration of my amendment, and by refusing to investigate serious allegations of Pigford fraud prior to voting on legislation allocating an additional $1.15 billion to the program, the lame duck Congress is, in effect, enabling Pigford fraud and this calls for an investigation by the 112th Congress," King said in a statement.
The legislation is often referred to as "Pigford." Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina, brought the original claim.
RT: The Pigford case was settled because the Agriculture Department didn't keep stats on the racial makeup of applicants for Farm Subsidiaries; thus, it couldn't prove that it had discriminated against black farmers over white farmers in handing out money. That's right...the government couldn't prove that it had not discriminated in handing out free money. How's that for a few billion?
I know it is too late, but I would love to see the goverment get out of the loan business. Instead they are now taking over all student loans. How soon before Bank of America is actually a federal institution.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
