The Trump administration is seeking to cut $4.7 billion from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s discretionary spending budget, according to a budget outline obtained by The Washington Post, but the administration so far has provided little information about how it will carry out the cuts.
The White House Office of Management and Budget’s 2018 spending blueprint requests $17.9 billion in funding for the USDA, down $4.7 billion from its 2017 funding level, or a reduction of about 21 percent. The programs facing cuts fall under “discretionary” spending, which includes food safety, rural development and conservation funding, research grants and international food aid. The cuts will not affect mandatory spending programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP, also known as “food stamps” — and crop subsidies for farmers. Read more
