The Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget plan had a familiar feel to it Monday, including provisions that have been floated before by this and other administrations.
The administration included legislative proposals that would lower the adjusted gross income (AGI) limit to be eligible to obtain farm program payments to a maximum of $500,000. And the limit would apply to more benefits than just those under the farm program.
Plus, the administration said the separate pay cap for peanuts of $125,000 needs to go and there needs to be a limit of $125,000 per person on Marketing Assistance Loan (MAL) benefits.
On crop insurance, the administration proposes cutting the crop insurance subsidy on harvest price option (HPO) policies by 15 percentage points and by 10 percentage points on policies without the HPO. That item would save $21 billion over 10 years.
But the legislative proposals floated by the administration will not be picked up and ran with by lawmakers. However, the proposals indicate that the administration will keep this as a focus should Trump win another term in November.
So even though these proposed cuts are not expected to materialize, ag interests are on notice that this will be a recurring theme ahead.
The budget documents also make no mention that a 2020 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) is in the cards, with their projections showing that more than $9 billion under the MFP 2 effort for 2019 will still go out to producers in FY 2020.
As of late Monday, USDA had not updated their figures for funds paid out to farmers via the final installment of the MFP 2 payments.
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