The Pigford Settlement is more than a blank check, Chris. It is fraud. And, this is why the United States Senate is refusing to fund it.

Let’s accept as a point of fact that some African-American farmers were unfairly denied loans by racists in the USDA during the Clinton and Reagan administrations. I’m not casting any aspersions on the validity of the original lawsuit, nor on the courts’ rulings in the case.

But ponder the numbers.

• There are approximately 40,000 African-American farmers in the country.

• Of that 40,000, not all of them have gotten into financial trouble. Some have successful farms.

• Of those who had financial trouble, not all of them sought out loans. Some tried to stay afloat on their own.

• Of those who sought out loans, not all of them sought out loans from the USDA. Some got loans from banks or friends.

• Of those who sought out loans from the USDA, not all of them were denied loans. Some got the loans as requested.

• Of those who were denied loans, not all of them were denied due to discriminatory racial practices.

In the end, a total much much smaller than 40,000 could legitimately claim to be victims of discrimination.

As shown above, it was originally estimated to be no more than 2,000 possible total plaintiffs.

Somehow, that number quickly swelled to 16,000 wronged claimants.

And now, as of February, the government has announced its plans to hand out at least $50,000 each to over 70,000 more claimants, over and above the original 16,000.

This means that the U.S. may be recompensing at least 86,000 African-American farmers for past racial discrimination. But how could that possibly be true if there are only 39,697 African-American farmers in existence nationwide? And if only some subset of them ever applied for loans in the first place and were then unfairly denied loans?

If someone can explain this to me, I’ll add it in an update to this post. Could it be that there is a constant turnover of African-Americans trying out farming for a few years, and then quickly giving it up, so that although there may be only 40,000 farmers at any one time, over the years, the total number of different people involved in farming is much larger? If so, is there any evidence for this? Or could there be another explanation?

I have a feeling that the Senate repeatedly fails to fund this settlement because there is a strong suspicion among the senators that something is amiss with the case — that a substantial percentage of the 70,000 claims that were originally rejected must necessarily have been fraudulent claims. And so there is reluctance to fork over the money. But there also seems to be a reluctance on the part of the Senate to admit why they won’t fund the settlement, because the issue is just too racially charged.

Don’t you just love “Big Government” and racial politics?

Previous:

The Day by Day Archive