Faithful Breitbart News readers know the Pigford “black farmer settlement” story by now. Billions in claims were paid to people who never farmed a day in their lives.
The Pigford reparations payoff scheme was just the beginning, however. Even though there was no court order, the Obama administration took it upon itself to create new settlements for women and Hispanic farmers that had the exact same “attempted-to-farm” loophole that led to so much fraud in Pigford.
That woman/Hispanic claims process is open for business right now and the Obama administration is advertising it.
Welcome to the wonderful world of USDA outreach.
The outreach money from the USDA goes to everything from media buys on radio stations to ads in magazines like the Cattleman to community-based organizations like the Texas/Mexico Border Coalition, and it’s all being spent to help give your tax dollars away.
According to this document from the USDA, the agency spent over half a million dollars on outreach about the women and Hispanic settlements in 2012. The same document shows that there were only 370,000 total women and Hispanic farmers, which means it cost over a dollar per farmer to get the word out that the Obama administration would like to give out money–and that total doesn’t seem to include the wage costs.
The USDA doesn’t want you to miss out on your Attempted To Farm cash. In fact, they have a handy webpage so you can download audio, video, web and print ads, in both English and Spanish. That makes it easy for radio listeners across the country to listen to the dulcet tones of USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack letting you know that the new fraud scheme is open for business.
Vilsack directs listeners to the official government website, FarmersClaims.gov. Go there yourself and you’ll learn that what they call “Tier 1” is set up just for these “attempted-to-farm” claims and there’s 1.33 billion dollars set aside to pay them, plus an extra 25% that will go to pay the taxes.
Read through the form and you’ll see that you can collect $50,000 by filling out the paperwork properly with no proof required other than a sworn statement. If you aren’t Hispanic or a woman, don’t fret; you can always collect for a deceased relative, like your grandmother.
What’s to keep someone from collecting $50,000 tax free by just making up a claim and saying that they or a long lost loved one went to apply for a farm loan when they never did? Not a thing. Nobody is going to check to verify whether what you say is true. That’s because, as the Government Accountability Office pointed out a few months ago, the settlement is set up so that nobody can verify anything.
It’s not that the government doesn’t take fraud seriously. After all, the postal system recently announced it plans to sue Lance Armonstrong for fraud. Meanwhile, time is running out for you to join the thousands of others who are collecting Obama’s–your–“free” money. The deadline for filing claims is Monday, March 25.
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