Democrats defy Trump on agricultural spending

Democrats on Wednesday released a $24.3 billion agriculture spending bill, rejecting President Trump’s request to slash the budget at the Department of Agriculture by nearly 15 percent.

The $24.3 billion bill adds $1 billion to current spending levels, not including automatic spending.

{mosads}“We are proud that our first bill rejects the Administration’s drastic cuts and instead provides robust funding to assure that all Americans have access to safe, high quality, and low-cost food, medicine, and medical devices,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), who chairs the House Appropriations agriculture subcommittee.

The bill includes $1.8 billion for farm programs, $1 billion for food safety and inspection, $3.3 billion for the Food and Drug administration and nearly $4 billion for rural development and infrastructure.

It also allocates $680 million for expanding rural broadband service.

Trump’s proposal had called for moving the Economic Research Service outside of Washington, D.C., which the Democratic bill would prohibit, as well as eliminating an international food program and scrapping a loan program for housing.