Dem senator: Keep crop insurance cuts in budget deal

A Senate Democrat is pushing back against farm state lawmakers who fought to kill deeper cuts to a crop insurance program.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told Senate leaders Tuesday that the chamber should not scrap $3 billion in cuts to the program, which had been included in the recently passed budget deal.

{mosads}Following pushback from agriculture-friendly lawmakers in both parties, congressional leaders agreed to roll back the cuts in an upcoming government funding bill, which were included to help offset the $80 billion in new spending authorized by the deal. Bipartisan leaders of both chamber’s agriculture committees blasted the cut, arguing the program already was trimmed as part of the last farm bill.

Those lawmakers were only convinced to back the budget after leaders vowed to undo the cuts at a later date.

But Shaheen called the program “wasteful,” and said there was ample room to cut further.

“Federal spending on the crop insurance program is out of control,” she wrote.

The included cuts in the budget deal reduced the maximum rate of return insurers could realize on crop insurance, but Shaheen noted that the cuts did nothing to reduce the subsidies insurance companies receive for backing crops.

Rather, she depicted the pushback as a sop to the insurance industry on the back of taxpayers.

“I am concerned with the reported agreement to roll back these modest reforms, not only because it will increase the deficit, but also because any commonsense efforts to reform the crop insurance program have been stymied by the insurance companies,” she wrote.

Lawmakers are aiming to pass an omnibus funding bill later this year.