Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

July 2021 – Part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the 2021 COVID-19 Stimulus Package, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11. The $1.9 trillion package was touted as a relief bill designed to aid people from every facet of American life, anyone who had been affected adversely by the yearlong COVID-19 pandemic.

One specific portion of the Rescue Plan targeted Americans working in agriculture and food supply, designating $10.4 billion in relief grants for farmers and farmworkers. These grants appeared to be a clear-cut effort to aid all farmers who supply food to the rest of the nation.

But the federal agricultural grants were ultimately available only to “socially disadvantaged” farmers, thus allowing minorities, but not whites, to apply.

Subsequently, on April 29, five white farmers from four states filed a federal lawsuit against the government in the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) represents the farmers in this lawsuit, which challenges the blatantly unconstitutional racial discrimination of the rescue plan.

“There should absolutely be no federal dollars going anywhere just based on race,” said Adam Faust, one of WILL’s farming clients from Calumet County, Wisconsin. “The economic impact from COVID-19 didn’t hurt any race more than another as far as agriculture goes.”

will-law.org, 4/29/21; onenewsnow.com, 4/30/21