Biden is emboldening Dems to come up with increasingly progressive bills. Dems have been talking about universal healthcare and reparations. So it Senator Corey Booker has decided now is the time to introduce a bill that would charge taxpayers to buy farmland for Black Farmers. So During this pandemic when many are struggling to put food on the table, Booker wants to use tax money to buy farmland to give away to black folks. Makes as much sense as reparations 150 years after the fact…
Booker tweeted about it:
“I’m proud to team up with @ewarren and @SenGillibrand to introduce the Justice for Black Farmers Act. We need to balance the scales after decades of systemic racism within @USDA have harmed Black farmers.”
“…the bill would, among other things, create an Equitable Land Access Service within the USDA, including a fund that devotes $8 billion annually to buying farmland on the open market and granting it to new and existing Black farmers, with the goal of making 20,000 grants per year over nine years, with maximum allotments of 160 acres. It would also fund agriculture-focused historically Black colleges and universities as well and nonprofits like the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust to help identify land for the USDA to purchase, and “help new Black farmers get up and running, provide farmer training, and provide other assistance including support for development of farmer cooperatives,” the bill’s summary states.”
“In addition to the land-grant program, the bill would create a Farm Conservation Corps, which would focus on young adults from socially disadvantaged communities with USDA-funded apprenticeships on farms, with the goal of providing “academic, vocational and social skills necessary to pursue careers in farming and ranching.” While the program would be open to anyone from a disadvantaged background, Black trainees would be given priority for land grants from the Equitable Land Access Service.
The bill also attempts to purge the USDA of its ongoing legacy of racism. It would create an “independent civil rights oversight board to conduct reviews of any appeals of civil rights complaints filed against the USDA, to investigate reports of discrimination within USDA, and to provide oversight of Farm Service Agency County Committees,” and monitor the activities of the existing Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.”
Our economy is starting to come back around again just as COVID is spiking. Dems have been preventing Americans from getting any sort of additional Corona Relief package and Dems are instead thinking up new ways to spend money… Do Dems really think we should be finding new ways to spend money right now when the economy has not even returned to pre-pandemic levels? The bill itself is ridiculous but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Sen Booker.
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