Political Quotes

“Madam President, even though he has left the floor, I would like to thank the distinguished Senator from Wyoming for permitting me to proceed. I want to comment on what the distinguished Senator from North Carolina spoke on because that is my topic as well. We hope to be able to bring up this issue on the Senate floor and get some justice for the Black farmers. I come to the floor today to speak about justice and the Department of Agriculture. Let me go back a few years. Though civil rights legislation in the 1960s was supposed to have outlawed racial discrimination, at least on the Federal level, a 1982 report issued by the Civil Rights Commission stated that the USDA was ``a catalyst in the decline of the black farmer.'' That year, African-American farmers received only 1 percent of all farm ownership loans, only 2.5 percent of all farm-operating loans, and only 1 percent of all soil and water conservation loans. That year, too, the Reagan administration closed the USDA's Civil Rights Office-- the very arm that investigated discrimination complaints. Adding insult to injury, when African-American and other minority farmers filed complaints, the USDA did little to address them. In 1983, President Reagan pushed through budget cuts that eliminated the USDA Office of Civil Rights--and officials admitted they ``simply threw discrimination complaints in the trash without ever responding to or investigating them'' until 1996, when President Clinton ordered the office re-opened.…”