Durbin: President Trump’s Budget Request Undermines Our Farmers & Rural America

Mar 13, 2019 10:35 AM

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WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee, today released the following statement regarding cuts to farmers, livestock producers, and rural towns across America in President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget request:

“After signing the Farm Bill in December and saying ‘we have to take care of our farmers …and we will,’ President Trump is abandoning them in order to fulfill his campaign promise of building a big and beautiful wall. With this budget request, President Trump is telling rural towns across Illinois that his wall is more important than their access to high speed internet, crop insurance, or clean drinking water.”

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President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget request calls for $267 billion in Farm Bill cuts – a nearly 31 percent hit. That is on top of the proposed 15 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for implementing the Farm Bill and supporting rural communities across America.

President Trump’s proposed budget cuts nearly $26 billion from crop insurance, kills jobs by eliminating support for rural small businesses, neglects crumbling rural water infrastructure, and eliminates job creating renewable energy projects. More than 310 million farm acres protected by crop insurance would be at risk and 70 million farm acres enrolled in conservation would be lost through eliminated conservation stewardship programs thanks to President Trump’s proposed budget.

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