Senate
Democrats assail Trump's $16B bailout for farmers
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - President Donald Trump’s
$16 billion bailout package for farmers hurt by the trade war with China
unfairly benefits the South at the expense of the North and wealthy producers
over smaller farms, Democratic senators concluded in a report released Tuesday.
The report, one of the sharpest
congressional critiques yet of the Market Facilitation Program, said five
southern states receive the highest average payments per acre under the program
- Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas. The analysis by
Democratic committee staffers concluded that farmers in the Midwest and
Northern Plains have been hurt the most.
It also asserted that the U.S. Department
of Agriculture has done nothing to target the assistance to vulnerable small,
medium and beginning farmers. Instead, it said the agency doubled the payment
limits, directing even more money to large, wealthy farming partnerships.
The USDA said in a statement that payments
are based on trade damage, not regions or farm size.
“While we appreciate feedback on this
program, the fact of the matter is that USDA has provided necessary funding to
help farmers who have been impacted by unjustified retaliatory tariffs,” the
statement said. “While criticism is easy to come up with, we welcome
constructive feedback from any member of Congress with recommendations as to
how the program could be better administered.”
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan, the top
Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the program also lacks any
plan for rebuilding or replacing the markets that farmers have lost since they
became caught up in the trade war last year. She leveled the charges in a
letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that accompanied the 12-page
report.
“This Administration’s chaotic trade agenda
has irreparably harmed farmers, on top of the market instability and extreme
weather challenges they already face,” Stabenow wrote in the letter signed by
14 other Democratic senators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer,
of New York.
The agency has set aside nearly $16 billion
under MFP for the current crop year, up from the $12 billion inaugural edition
for 2018 crops. The agency has paid farmers over $6.8 billion so far in first
installments. According to the USDA, the states collecting the highest overall
totals as of Tuesday - more than 60% of the total funds - are Iowa, Illinois,
Minnesota, Texas, and Kansas.
A separate analysis by the American Farm
Bureau Federation released later Tuesday backed up the USDA’s assertion the
dollars have flowed mostly to the Midwest, even though the per-acre rates are
higher in parts of the South. The Farm Bureau report said that’s because most
of the acres planted in crops that are eligible for MFP payments are planted in
the Midwest. The group did not address the Democratic senators’ claim that the
formula is unfair.
The USDA is expected to approve second
installments in the next few weeks and could release a final round in January
if trade woes persist.
An Associated Press analysis in July found
that many large farming operations had no trouble circumventing the program’s
payment caps. A separate AP analysis last month showed how a farming business
owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice - a billionaire who’s the richest man
in his state - collected the maximum of $125,000 then allowed under the
program.
While the senators called on Perdue to
“improve” the program before more payments go out, they proposed few specifics.
Until now, Congress had been relatively
muted in its criticisms of MFP. Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota,
who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, sent a less-sharply worded letter
to Perdue earlier this month, pointing out several “inequities” and urging him
to consider fixes.
The 2018 and 2019 versions used very
different formulas for allocating aid. The program originally was based on a
farm’s production of certain crops. About 83% of the money went to soybean
producers because they had suffered the most from China’s retaliatory tariffs.
For 2019, farmers get fixed per-acre
payments based on their county, varying from $15 to $150 per acre, based on how
much the USDA calculated that each county had been hurt. Counties qualifying
for the highest per-acre payments are concentrated in the South, the report
noted. And the payment caps were doubled, from $125,000 to $250,000.
Roger Johnson, president of the National
Farmers Union, said the report highlights “gross disparities” from region to
region. He noted that producers in western and northern soybean country, who
typically shipped their crops to the Pacific Northwest for export to China, suddenly
took a big price hit because they had nowhere to send their beans. Yet, he
said, it shows the money flowed disproportionately to southern farmers.
The USDA could have designed the program
better if it had consulted with Congress, Johnson said, because the agriculture
committees have experience in minimizing regional and other inequities.
Brooke Appleton, vice president of public
policy at the National Corn Growers Association, said the Democratic senators’
report, along with Peterson’s letter, “raised important issues regarding the
impact on northern state corn farmers who have faced additional hurdles due to
limited export opportunities in the Pacific Northwest.”
The administration has not said if it will
extend MFP for 2020, when Trump will be counting on maintaining his base of
support in rural America as he seeks re-election.
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