USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue will defend President Trump?s budget in front of House Ag Appropriations Subcommittee today.
The president unveiled his fiscal year 2018 budget proposal Tuesday.
The USDA budget request as a whole for fiscal year 2018 is $6 billion less than the current budget.
?For the department, as a whole, the discretionary funding request for 2018 is $18 billion. That is compared to $24 billion under the 2017 continuing resolution,? Acting Deputy Secretary Mike Young said.
USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue says there is no reason to sugar-coat this.
?We?re going to do what it takes and goes as far as we can. I think there are some positive points the president?s budget has for agriculture. There are some downturns there that may have been proposed before but we?ll see how congress deals with this.?
A legislative proposal drawing major concern is a cut to crop insurance. Legislative proposals are sent from the Administration to Capitol Hill to make mandatory spending changes.
?There would be some proposals to limit crop insurance premium subsidies to $40,000. There is a proposal to no longer offer the premium subsidies for harvest price revenue products and then to limit crop insurance subsidies to producers with an adjusted gross income to $500,000 or less,? Young said.
The budget?s final form is yet to be determined by congress and the president.
