The Senate is still at work on President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but they are also looking over next year’s budget. It includes the numbers for USDA, along with a nearly $25 billion cut proposed by the White House.
On the radar right now are the Farm Service Agency, NRCS, and the Forest Service. Combined, Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins says the proposed cuts would come out to $23 billion, with the Forest Service seeing the largest decrease at more than 75 percent, but much of that would be transferred to the Interior Department.
SNAP is also under debate with possible cuts next year. Senator Chuck Grassley says cuts to SNAP could end leftover pandemic spending.
“We don’t have the pandemic now as the excuse for spending money. It seems to me it’s legitimate to go back to the program that was pre-pandemic. Otherwise, the pandemic has just been used as an excuse to spend more money, and we don’t need excuses to spend more money with the $36 trillion debt.”
In a call with reporters this week, Senator Grassley voiced support for the bill to bring whole milk back to public schools. Hours later, that bill was passed out of the Senate Ag Committee.
