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Perdue Using Taxpayer-Funded USDA Podcasts To Promote Trump

Perdue Using Taxpayer-Funded USDA Podcasts To Promote Trump

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer used a taxpayer-funded USDA podcast to suck up to their boss, President Donald Trump, and praise his agricultural trade policies, which have left farmers hurting. 

Lighthizer joined Perdue for the latest broadcast of the USDA’s monthly podcast The Sonnyside of the Farm, which purports to cover “the issues facing America’s farmers, ranchers, producers and foresters.” The podcast has recently featured former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich. 

Perdue peppered his podcast with Lighthizer, the president’s top trade policy adviser, with his signature praise of Trump. Introducing his guest, Perdue described Trump as “an unapologetic advocate for America around the globe” and said that he wanted to congratulate Lighthizer because he “can’t think of anyone who can support President Trump better than you have in these trade negotiations. You’re tough and you reinforce his ability to use leverage … You’ve been quite a sidekick to the president.” 

Turning to the topic of farmers, Perdue said, “I don’t think people would understand how much [Trump] really cares” and later said that farmers appreciate Trump’s “toughness” and that in return, Trump sees in farmers “the values that embody the American spirit, who really built this country.” Lighthizer agreed, saying that Trump also “appreciates” that “so many farmers have basic values, the kind of values that not only made the economy, but made our communities.” Lighthizer also told an anecdote about Trump supposedly caring about farmers more than anything else and said Trump refers to them as “his farmers and ranchers.”

When Lighthizer praised Trump for being willing to “stir it up” on trade, Perdue responded by saying that was “the amazing thing about President Trump” before praising the president’s “trading acumen.” Lighthizer added that working with Trump is “a hoot,” that he has “been kind of a consistent, steady leader,” and that the two have never had a disagreement. 

Perdue ended the show by saying to Lighthizer, “I want to applaud you on behalf of the United States of America for supporting our president,” and added that “like the president said, I’m not tired of winning yet.”

On the issue of farmers affected by Trump’s trade war with China, Lighthizer said, “On this question of the farmers, and the farmers being being bothered by some of things we’ve done, and, as you say, it’s now been proven that we were right and the numbers are coming in.”

But that’s not the case. In 2018, Trump started a trade war with China, imposing additional tariffs on the importation of $34 billion of Chinese goods. In response, China placed tariffs on U.S. agricultural products such as soybeans and dramatically reduced importation of U.S. soybeans in favor of increased purchases from other countries, in particular Brazil. The trade war caused serious additional financial problems for soybean farmers. (Disclosure: This author’s family farms corn and soybeans in Illinois.) 

Overall, Trump’s trade war with China has been absolutely devastating for U.S. farmers. In January, Trump touted his signing of the so-called “phase one” trade deal with China as evidence that he was bringing the trade war to a successful conclusion. But as Vox reported, the deal “stops short of the comprehensive trade and reform agreement the Trump administration wanted when it launched its trade war with China in 2018” and “it’s still not clear if China can or will totally fulfill this obligation to buy US products, and even if it does, the guarantee is only for two years.” Writing for The Hill, Daniel Griswold, a senior research fellow for the conservative Mercatus Center, called the trade targets in the “phase one” deal “unrealistic” given that they would require an “unprecedented” increase in exports to China. 

In any case, significant damage has already been done. Writing at Forbes on the “crushing truth” about Trump’s trade war, Erik Sherman noted that because of the standard business model for small farmers in the U.S., “small family farms (90 percent of all family farms) are in deep trouble normally” and that “these latest shocks are helping to drive up farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides.”

Sherman said relief given to farmers as a result of the trade war in the form of subsidies has not been equitably distributed, noting that “the biggest [farm] organizations sucked up the bulk of the money, putting small farmers ever further behind.” The release of the Sonnyside of the Farm episode comes days after Politico published an extensive expose about dysfunction under Perdue at USDA. Of many of the issues discussed in the report, Politico delved into payments to farmers, noting that “many in the industry” considered them insufficient to offset losses from the trade war, including corn farmers — who “were outraged about receiving just one penny per bushel under the 2018 trade aid plan” compared to an average 44 cent per bushel drop in corn prices — and blueberry farmers,who were alsoaffected by the trade war but received no subsidies.

Perdue hosted the inaugural episode of the USDA podcast in October, when he traveled to Arkansas to meet with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is likely to run for governor in that state. They discussed farm policy only minimally during the podcast, and only in defense of Trump’s policies. Instead, Perdue and Sanders spent the majority of the episode heaping lavish praise upon Trump. 

In December, Perdue hosted Gingrich for an episode in which the two attacked people who receive food stamps, with Perdue suggesting they don’t contribute anything to society. The cruelty has endured on that front, with the Trump administration pushing a proposed USDA rule that could leave more than 3 million people without access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cause nearly 1 million children to lose their automatic enrollment in a program that provides breakfast and lunch at school. 

Perdue Will Cut Food Stamps, Free Lunch For Millions Of Kids

Perdue Will Cut Food Stamps, Free Lunch For Millions Of Kids

The Department of Agriculture proposed a new rule that would kick roughly three million people off food stamps, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The new rule, meant to tighten eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, the official name for food stamps), would also mean a quarter of a million children would no longer receive free lunch at school, ThinkProgress reported.

The proposed rule aims to end automatic eligibility for food stamps by individuals and families already receiving state or federal assistance. It also imposes an assets test on food stamp recipients, meaning families who may have money in a savings account would no longer be eligible.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue did hot hide why the Trump administration is willing to put millions of people at risk of going hungry.

“This proposal will save money and preserve the integrity of the program,” Perdue said. The administration claims the new rule, if implemented, would save $2.5 billion.

Some members of Congress are not buying the administration’s budgetary concerns, and are focused on the human cost of such a rule.

“The same administration that gave a $1.3 trillion tax giveaway to the richest people in this country is now attacking a program that millions of families, including 1.4 million low-income veterans, rely on,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in response to the proposed rule.

“This proposal is yet another attempt by this Administration to circumvent Congress and make harmful changes to nutrition assistance that have been repeatedly rejected on a bipartisan basis,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in a statement. “This rule would take food away from families, prevent children from getting school meals, and make it harder for states to administer food assistance.”

Advocacy experts also weighed in, noting the new Trump rule would hurt working families.

“Instead of punishing working families if they work more hours or penalizing seniors and people with disabilities who save for emergencies, the president should seek to assist them with policies that help them afford the basics and save for the future,” Stacy Dean, vice president of food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told the Post.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has targeted working families with food stamp cuts. In December, Trump begged Congress to implement tougher requirements on the program in the farm bill, which governs the SNAP program. His efforts failed, but that did not stop the Trump administration from trying to find more ways to punish those most in need.

This latest rule is not final, and must go through a mandatory comment period before it is implemented. In her statement, Stabenow advised the administration to stop trying to meddle with the program Congress put into law.

“The Administration should stop undermining the intent of Congress and instead focus on implementing the bipartisan Farm Bill that the President signed into law,” Stabenow said.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Trump Preparing To Take Food Stamps Away From 750,000 Americans

Trump Preparing To Take Food Stamps Away From 750,000 Americans

When Americans are struggling, you can always depend on Trump to kick them while they’re down.

Right before Christmas, the Trump administration proposed a draconian new rule that would kick about 750,000 Americans off of food stamps. The public comment period for that rule is ending Tuesday, NPR reports — and if the final rule looks like the proposed one, three-quarters of a million people are likely to lose their badly needed food assistance later this year.

Even more people, likely millions, would lose their food stamps or have their benefits slashed under Trump’s proposed budget. But unlike that budget, which is unlikely to ever become law, this rule change by Trump’s Department of Agriculture can and will hurt a lot of people very soon.

Under current rules, the overwhelming majority of able-bodied adults who receive food stamps for more than three months must also work, volunteer, or get job training for at least 20 hours a week.

But not everyone lives in an area where jobs — or even job-training programs — are easy to find. That’s why states whose unemployment rates are at least 20 percent higher than the national rate can apply to waive the work requirement, so that families can keep putting food on the table even during a localized economic downturn.

Trump wants to change all that. And Trump Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has a disgusting justification for taking food out of Americans’ mouths: “We believe the purpose of our welfare system should help people to become independent rather than permanent dependency,” he recently told the House Agriculture Committee.

In other words, Perdue thinks helping people feed themselves while they look for a job promotes “dependency,” and that starving them will magically encourage them to “become independent” and find other income sources faster.

It’s important to note that nobody is living large off food stamps. The average benefit per person is about $126 a month, or $1.40 per meal. Many people who rely on food stamps also have to rely on charities like food pantries in order to get enough to eat every month.

And despite Perdue’s gross, ill-informed claims about “permanent dependency,” the average beneficiary stays on the program for just seven to nine months.

The rule change is also yet another end-run around Congress, much like Trump’s move to declare a fake “national emergency” to get funding for his racist border wall. Trump’s team proposed the rule change right after Congress refused to pass the same proposal — and Democrats in Congress have threatened to sue if the rule change goes into effect, because they say it’s an abuse of executive power to override Congress’ power of the purse.

Between this proposal and the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on health care, you could be forgiven for thinking Republicans want people who aren’t wealthy to die faster.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

IMAGE: A local food pantry with supplies for hungry families.