By Ryan Hanrahan
Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for USDA again calls for making a nearly 20% cut to discretionary programs the administration doesn’t support.”
“The top line for the president’s budget released (this past) Friday is a $1.5 trillion request for Defense spending, while proposing to cut about $660 billion in non-military spending across the federal government,” Clayton reported. “For USDA, the budget requests $20.8 billion in discretionary budget authority for FY 2027, a $4.9 billion or 19% decline from 2026.”
“The 92-page top-line budget plan released by the White House focuses as much on what the Trump administration opposes rather than what the administration supports,” Clayton reported. “The proposal mentions ‘rural’ 12 times across all departments and agencies, but mentions ‘woke’ 34 times and ‘New Green Scam’ 21 times. Diversity, equity and inclusion ‘DEI’ are also mentioned 26 times while ‘transgender’ is mentioned 16 times.”
“In the executive summary of the USDA budget, the Trump administration calls the department ‘a bloated Washington, D.C., bureaucracy with multiple management layers and many extraneous programs that are irrelevant to supporting an America First agricultural policy,'” according to Clayton’s reporting. “The budget states it eliminates programs ‘such as radical transgender and Green New Scam ideologies.'”
E&E News’ Grace Yarrow reported, however, that the President’s budget is just a proposal and “Congressional appropriators have previously bucked Trump’s suggestions to cut USDA’s budget and focused on protecting funding for bipartisan programs. Last year, Congress rebuked Trump’s proposed $7 billion cut and instead funded the department at a similar level to the previous year as part of a November spending package negotiated to end the government shutdown.”
Ag Research Funding, International Food Aid Targeted for Cuts
Bloomberg Government’s Skye Witley reported that “the budget proposal would ax the Food for Peace program, which USDA operates on behalf of the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development, for ‘wasting taxpayer dollars.’ Trump also wants to do away with the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, a second federal initiative to ship food aid abroad. The request asks Congress to rescind $1.2 billion and $240 million allocated to the respective programs.”
Source : illinois.edu