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Perdue walks budget tightrope
Story Date: 2/26/2018
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Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE. 2/23/18
After delivering remarks at Ag Outlook, Perdue met the ag press corps for the first time since the administration's budget was released last week. Suffice it to say, there were several questions about how it all went down and where the secretary stands on spending issues.
The White House's budget blueprint was disappointing for farm groups and anti-hunger organizations because it called for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and crop insurance - two pillars of the farm bill. Perdue, taking part in his first Agricultural Outlook Forum as secretary, faced numerous questions about the budget and walked a fine line in his defense of the Trump administration's fiscal priorities, reports Pro Ag's Helena Bottemiller Evich.
"It's not appropriate to talk about my private conversations with OMB, but I argued about a lot of things," Perdue said, responding to a question about whether he specifically pushed back on capping premium subsidies for crop insurance - something that's deeply unpopular with farm interests but was included in the budget plan.
"From that standpoint, we believe crop insurance is a viable part of the safety net, and certainly in terms of the subsidy we believe the American public gets a good deal for that," he said.
Harvest box kudos: The secretary also reiterated his support of the "harvest box" proposal for SNAP, though he backed away from taking personal credit for the concept. Last week, White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney credited Perdue with coming up with the idea, which would convert billions of dollars in food stamp benefits to a shelf-stable food box program where recipients would receive non-perishable goods selected by the department.
Perdue said he challenged his food and nutrition team at USDA to come up with ways to do "literally more with less" and emphasized the concept was still being developed.
"How can we get a healthy, nutritious, stable diet to people who need that?" he said, going over his instructions to USDA staff. "They were creative in their approach."
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