Obama: Racist Persecutor Of Black Farmers

posted at 8:18 pm on April 30, 2009 by Laura Curtis
[ Double Standards ]    printer-friendly

When I wrote the post title, I was playing a round of my favorite game: “What if Bush did it?”  Because if Bush had done this, the hysteria would be incredible to behold.

The federal government settled the Pigford class action lawsuit in 1999 which claimed the USDA had unfairly denied loans and disaster assistance to black farmers. In the settlement, farmers who could show damages were entitled to a $12,500 tax break and a $50,000 payment. The government paid out nearly a billion dollars, but evidently many farmers were not able to file a claim in time. Satisfying the claims of those late-filing farmers could cost another three billion.

In 2007 when Obama was a Senator, he used this issue to gain an advantage against Hillary out in Democratic primaries in the rural south where her name was more familiar than his.  During the election, he was outraged! over the “serious injustice,” saying the settlement acknowledged“that black farmers suffered discrimination from the USDA for many years.” He cosponsored legislation that enabled farmers who missed the deadline to have their claims considered, with the stipulation they’d get the exact same payouts as the original claimants.  It ended up passing as part of the farm bill with a fake costs cap of $100 million – wink, wink, we’ll add more later; this is a “first step.”  And everyone was happy – the farmers had a chance at the money, the Congressional Black Caucus got to say they accomplished something, and Obama garnered some extra support.

Except now the Obama administration is fighting it.

“You can’t blame it on the Bush administration anymore,” said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, which has organized the lawsuits. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn’t want to implement a bill that he fought for as a U.S. senator.”

If Obama gets his way, those black farmers who he himself said were unjustly victimized by the USDA will now get about $1500.

He’s just blown over three trillion dollars and is poised to spend even more.  Another three billion is a drop in the bucket.  He could allow banks to pay back their TARP funds if he’s too short on cash to repay debts that he said just a year ago the federal government legitimately owed.

He disproportionately taxes the poor.  He didn’t race to the scene of a natural disaster. He refuses to spend money on black students and now on black farmers.   So according to the rules and standards set by the left over the last eight years, doesn’t Obama qualify as a racist?

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