Reopening Black Farmers’ Suits Could Cost Billions
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Ben Evans, AP, June 28, 2008
When Congress reopened the government’s discrimination settlement with black farmers, lawmakers budgeted just $100 million for damages. They probably should have handed over a blank check.
With more than 70,000 potential claimants, the liability could exceed $3 billion—three times what was paid out in the original 1999 agreement.
The settlement was reopened thanks to legislation added to the farm bill passed last month. It illustrates how lawmakers often manipulate pay-as-you-go budget rules to give the appearance they are balancing the federal checkbook.
Supporters acknowledge that the $100 million was an arbitrary amount that will not come close to covering the actual cost. Yet the measure ran into little opposition during the monthslong debate on the farm bill, mainly because of the artificially low price tag.
{snip}
With a higher estimate, he said, lawmakers probably would have stripped the provision.
The decision to allow new claims comes almost 10 years after the Agriculture Department settled a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of black farmers. {snip}
At that time, 22,500 farmers filed claims. Nearly two-thirds were awarded a total of $981 million in damages, including one Virginia farmer awarded $6.6 million.
But an estimated 73,000 others were denied payments because they missed the October 1999 deadline for seeking claims. Many said the six-month filing period was too short and that they were unaware of the settlement until it was too late.
The deadline was extended for nearly a year for those who could show extraordinary circumstances, such as illness. But only a small fraction of late claims qualified, and federal courts repeatedly denied subsequent requests to reopen the settlement.
The farm bill provision gives another chance to anyone who filed late claims.
Just days after it passed, more than 800 people sued in U.S. District Court in Washington. Lawyers working on the case say they expect tens of thousands more.
{snip}
Lawyers involved in the case say it remains unclear how the courts will organize the flood of cases or where the money will come from once claims exceed $100 million.
As in the original settlement, claimants can seek expedited damages of $50,000 under a lower threshold of proof than a typical civil case—essentially by showing they applied for and were denied USDA farm assistance.
Claimants also can bypass the expedited process and pursue larger damages, but most are expected to seek the $50,000 payment.
If just half are successful, it would cost $1.8 billion; a two-thirds success rate would cost about $2.5 billion.
Davis argued that the cost is not likely to climb that high because the new legislation requires all claims to go through the courts. That is a far more difficult task than the streamlined administrative process set up for claims under the original settlement.
{snip}
(Posted on July 9, 2008)
Comments
The search for FREE MONEY for Blacks is a NEVERENDING quest.
Posted by at 6:11 PM on July 9
22,500 previous claimants plus another 73,000 possible claimants equals 95,500 black owned farms in the U.S. I could be wrong, but sounds like an awful lot. Are they counting every Black living on a three acre lot with a vegetable garden, a couple dozen chickens, and a pig or two as a farmer? Does the Department of Agriculture perhaps make loans to breeders of fighting cocks and mean dogs?
Posted by Schoolteacher at 6:22 PM on July 9
70,000 Black farmers…?
What are they growing..? Most likely mold in their bathrooms
Another cash grab by members of our fine upstanding legal community
Posted by cafedeflore at 6:46 PM on July 9
Insanity! Wake up White Americans. You are being exploited and abused! Do something! Call your Senators and tell them NO!
Posted by at 7:00 PM on July 9
I was born in Germany during the war, my family left as the first Jewish compensation claims were coming in. Being in a very small town, everybody knew everybody’s business. There was a Jewish “business” man who claimed - and got - a few hundred thousand for the loss of his business. He was know throughout the town for his “Bauchladen” translated from the German it means stomach shop, that means he was an itinerant hawker has carried his wares on a tray suspended from his neck. It looks like this deal is still on.
Posted by ciccio at 7:01 PM on July 9
let this sympathy for blacks continue until it breaks the federal government. the sooner the better. only then will things start to turn around. hurray for all the liberals and nanny government.
Posted by daqnjack at 7:32 PM on July 9
Start voting these liberal fools from office. White Americans need to become more involved in congressional politics and observe along what lines their representatives vote. It is time for a political change in this country and such a change should not include Obama.
Posted by at 8:12 PM on July 9
I’m surprised the list of relevant articles in the upper right didn’t include this gem:
http://www.amren.com/ar/2001/02/#cover
I also highly recommend this book:
“Harvest of Lies: Black Farmer Lawsuit Agaisnt the U.S. Department of Agriculture” by Louis T. March
http://tinyurl.com/56oqx5
http://www.wspublishers.com/bookdetail.php?n=OTH-020&eds=all
Posted by Irish at 8:15 PM on July 9
gesssh Louise…..I know what they grow….they smoke it and sell it….they can’t grow anything that you can eat….only what they can smoke and get high on!!!
Posted by lydia at 8:57 PM on July 9
Exploitation of the perceptions of black injustices is one of the most lucrative games going. Big money. Sports, music, illegal activities, ‘income redistribution’ and guilt-based revenues are REAL economic exigencies of Africa-America.
Posted by ActionPotential at 9:07 PM on July 9
lydia wrote: …..I know what they grow….they smoke it and sell it….they can’t grow anything that you can eat….only what they can smoke and get high on!!!
\_______________
Blacks don’t grow marijuana. White Americans and Canadians, and Mexicans, grow marijuana. Blacks consume marijuana.
Posted by at 12:00 AM on July 10
I can’t stop laughing. The gravy train just never runs out of fuel.
Another fine example of white people, once again, not putting their feet down.
Posted by GetBackJack at 12:18 AM on July 10
The shakedown continues. V
Posted by at 12:46 AM on July 10
American Renaissance wrote an exhaustive report on this scam the first time around. “Who wants to be a Black Millionaire?” is in AMREN archives of February 2001. The whole scam “discrimination against black farmers in lending” was pulled off with the help of the Clinton administration. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in the Clinton Adm. completely rolled over and conspired with Clinton judge Paul Friedman to hand money out to any black who requested it with no standards of proof. About all a black had to do to collect was to say he was thinking about becoming a farmer. The government paid millions of dollars to bring field office workers to Washington to review the claims, with the result that “possible” discrimination was found to have occurred in only five of 956 claims reviewed.
Glickman suppressed these inconvenient findings and accused the field officers of being liars. He also told them to destroy their notes.
Glickman then moved heaven and earth to conspire with Judge Paul Friedman to shovel money out of the door to any black that wanted it. Now, this is going to happen again????????????.
Black farmers make up about 1% or less of farmers in America.
Read “Who wants to be a Black Millionaire”, it will drive you crazy.
Posted by JAKE at 12:03 PM on July 10
What this really is, is backdoor reparations and the list of “black farmers” will only grown.
Posted by Proudinfidel at 3:04 PM on July 10
Every taxpayer in Amarica should be outraged, the politicans have no shame when it comes to giving our money away, for nearly any reason, to the most undeserving group they can find, The first program was so filled with fraud, it was a joke, now that the socialist liberals are in charge of congress this may become a neverending program.
Posted by abc at 5:05 AM on July 11