Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is continuing to blast the government’s recent discrimination settlement with African-American farmers as “reparations” — and even predicting that the new Republican-led House will investigate it.
In an interview with local western Iowa radio station KCIM, King discussed the oversight efforts that the new GOP House would undertake. First and foremost, he said, would be his pet cause of investigating ACORN — which no longer exists as a national organization, but whose activists at the state level could be targeted.
“And there’ll be other investigations looking into the Pigford farms issue,” King added, “which I think is full of fraud, that’s — what it amounts to is paying reparations to black farmers in America. We don’t do reparations in America.”
King has previously attacked the settlement for discrimination in past decades by the Department of Agriculture as “slavery reparations”.
He also famously described a hypothetical fraudulent claim that might result from the settlement: “The fraudulent claims might be, well Johnny, yeah he was raised on a farm but he wouldn’t help his dad. He went to the city, became a drug addict, and when Daddy needed the help, Johnny wouldn’t come and help his daddy. But now his daddy’s died and Johnny wants the $50,000 that comes from the USDA under this claim.”
The full quote from the new interview:
“There has been a list of government oversight and investigations that needs to be taken up. And it’s just a natural thing that people that are in charge don’t want to investigate their own party. I saw that happen to some degree when Republicans were in charge, and I clearly see it happen now with Democrats controlling the presidency and the House and the Senate.
“So I think that you will see investigations of ACORN, for one. You’ll hear a lot more in the news about ACORN, and about the insidious nature of them — about how the national organization of ACORN now has been fractured, but they’re reforming in the states with the same people, the same players, the same intentions.
“And there’ll be other investigations looking into the Pigford farms issue, which I think is full of fraud, that what amounts to is paying reparations to black farmers in America. We don’t do reparations in America.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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