Senator Criticizes Farm Foreclosure Plans as ‘Cynical’

The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said Saturday that the Reagan Administration was “cynical and cruel” for announcing a week after the elections that 80,000 American farmers face foreclosure.

In an interview with UPI Radio, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) confirmed a New York Times report that the government plans to begin notifying the 80,000 farmers Tuesday that their farms may be subject to foreclosure as a result of delinquent loans.

“We’ve known for some time that this was going to happen,” Leahy said. “The Administration claims that it’s purely coincidental . . . . That’s baloney. It’s based on legislation that Reagan signed on Jan. 6 of this year.”

Official regulations permitting the foreclosure notices were published on Sept. 14 and became effective Oct. 14. The newspaper said the notices could have been mailed out any time after Oct. 14.

But Vance Clark, administrator of the Farmers Home Administration, in an interview with the paper, denied that election politics played any role in the timing of the announcement.