Monday, April 29, 2013

U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination



“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it” ― Frederic Bastiat


From The New York Times:

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp. Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal.

They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm. But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs.

Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.

 They were wrong.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/farm-loan-bias-claims-often-unsupported-cost-us-millions.html?pagewanted=all