The Trump budget may never materialize but the threat of cuts to farm and food programs has caused legislators to rise up and defend expenses that impact their constituents.
It is said that a farmer will vote for the last guy who gives him money, but the inverse may also be true: They will vote against the last guy who took it away from them. Run this chronology and you?ll see why Congress is now jumping out in front of budget cuts.
The next budget year starts on October 1 and the next farm bill goes into effect (if completed) on October 1 of 2018. The next election for all members of the U.S. House and 1/3 of the senate is November of 2018.
A Senate Agriculture Committee hearing left no doubt where agriculture lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle stand on the administration?s proposed cuts to key programs for rural America.
Republican Committee Chair Pat Roberts recited a litany of gloomy ag statistics, warning against more spending cuts on top of cuts in the last farm bill and earlier cuts to crop insurance subsidies.
“Let me emphasize that crop insurance is the most valuable tool in the risk management tool box,” Roberts said.
Roberts made the point three times, at the urging of committee Democrats and Republicans, leaving no doubt the White House proposal to slash premium subsidies $29 billion over ten-years has little, if any, Senate support.
Committee Ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow, on the broader USDA budget request, cited USDA office closings, food stamp cuts, and ending export and rural development programs, while eliminating the undersecretary for rural development as part of a USDA reorganization as major issues.
“This proposal cuts $231 billion from farm bill programs. That’s ten times more what we worked so hard to achieve in the last farm bill. Frankly, it would make a five year farm bill virtually impossible to pass,” Stabenow stated.
USDA Chief Economist Robert Johansson painted a grim picture of still declining prices for corn and soybeans, falling land values, tighter margins, higher debt and lower repayment levels, and poor payouts for cotton and dairy programs.
Johansson defended some programs the administration wants to cut by saying, “I think one of the reasons why the committee has moved to more of a title one program is due to the success of the Title 11 programs in dealing with the 2012 drought. So, I think that’s a very good illustration of why crop insurance is such an important tool for producers.”
Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank official Nathan Kauffman said most lenders would require crop insurance to limit downside risk and help them extend credit. Both Kauffman and Johansson agreed on the importance of ag research to boost productivity, and trade to boost demand.
