GOP Budget Bill Boosts Crop Insurance Payouts to Wealthy Corporations, Insurance Middlemen

By Anne Schechinger

Almost $37 billion in federal crop insurance payments went to a small number of insurance companies and agents, a new EWG analysis finds. And the House-passed GOP budget bill and the bill proposed by the Senate could send even more money their way.

The bill would hike those payments in part by slashing billions in food assistance funds, harming millions of hungry people to benefit wealthy companies and relatively few agents. 

The Department of Agriculture’s Crop Insurance Program already pays billions of dollars every year to farmers experiencing reductions in crop yield or revenue. Taxpayers fund much of this.