It’s racial reparations by the back door.
Hidden inside President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill is a special program that will dole out race-based cash to black farmers, says GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“In this bill, if you’re a farmer, your loan will be forgiven up to 120 percent … if you’re African American, some other minority,” Graham told Fox News last week. “But if you’re a white person … no forgiveness.
“That’s reparations,” Graham said. “What does that have to do with COVID?”
The American Rescue Plan sets aside $10.4 billion for agriculture support, with about half of that amount set aside for minority farmers, according to reports.
That means any farmer who has been “subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group” will be entitled to extra federal funds on top of reimbursements they claim for losses due to the pandemic.
African Americans own about 35,000 farms in the United States — less than 2 percent of the nation’s total, the USDA reported in 2017.
But House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said the overpayments were justified.
“Lindsey Graham … knows what the state of South Carolina and this country has done to Black farmers in South Carolina,” Clyburn told MSNBC Wednesday.
“We’re trying to rescue the lives and livelihoods of people,” Clyburn said. “He ought to be ashamed of himself.”
