I recently read a story about a young black woman whose family has been farming for generations, seeking a $50,000 loan from the USDA to start her own farm.
She was denied the loan for reasons that included a missed college loan payment 10 years ago.
If the missed loan payment was the primary reason, all can agree it was faulty reasoning and she and any others should have received the loans.
Sen. Smith has the solution. Instead of addressing the faulty reasoning, Smith is co-sponsoring a bill that would create a new bureaucracy costing $8 billion a year and doing four major things: Buy land and give free of charge 160 acres to existing and new farmers of color, create another federal bank to support this, establish a program to expose children of color to the skills needed to run a farm, and create an internal civil rights board to oversee this.
This is on top of the current language in the COVID-19 bill, which would pay 120% of any existing government loans currently held by farmers of color.
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So Sen. Smith's answer to the issue is more government’s decision spending. So typical.
Dale Probasco,
Backus
