Market News & Headlines >> Trump Budget has 15% Cut for USDA

President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2020 budget, unveiled by the White House on Monday, contains a steep cut of 15% or $3.6 billion in funding for USDA, including cuts to premium subsidies for crop insurance. 

The Trump budget, which refers to farm subsidies as “overly generous”, also calls for limiting the number of producers who would be eligible for insurance subsidies and tightening commodity payment limits. 

The budget seeks to reduce expenditures on the crop insurance programs by cutting the average premium subsidy from 62% to 48%, limiting eligibility to farms with income of $500,000 or less and capping underwriting margins at 12%. 

Democrats were quick to slam the bill. "The President’s budget request is a road map for how to make things worse for farmers, ranchers and those who live in rural communities," Collin Peterson, Democratic chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement. 

With Democrats in control of the House, the Trump budget would appear to have little chance of being passed.