Democrats on a U.S. House spending panel slammed President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to farm and nutrition programs Thursday, as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins pledged to collaborate with members of both parties to address their concerns.

The president’s budget request would make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gutting programs to help feed hungry people and support farmers in need — even as the rising costs of groceries, gas and other necessities made those programs even more essential, Democrats on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee told Rollins.

“It’ll be hard for our constituents to believe that USDA serves America’s farmers and rural communities when USDA is taking away their services,” the panel’s ranking Democrat, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, said.

The proposed USDA budget for fiscal 2027 would cut $4.9 billion, or nearly one-fifth of the department’s budget. Already, due to the Republican spending and tax cuts law last year, 2.5 million people have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the department’s major food assistance initiative.

Trump overall in his budget request is seeking a huge boost in defense spending accompanied by cuts in domestic programs.

Accessibility, cooperation promised

Rollins defended the budget proposal, but projected a spirit of cooperation with the panel, which writes the annual spending bill for her department, telling Democrats and Republicans that she would be happy to address their priorities. She offered to field direct phone calls from several members.

Asked by Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar about foreign growers undercutting U.S. sugar producers, she said she was ready to take on the issue in upcoming trade negotiations.

“We’ve got a lot going on around the world, but anything you hear, Congressman, that you think would be helpful for me, any way I can lean in… I would love to get more involved in that,” she said. “We are making progress but it does need to remain a priority.”

Rollins also touted some of her department’s wins over the past year, noting that bird flu cases were down 61% and that egg prices had also dropped. 

The administration has also increased exports of key crops and Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts bill raised the exemption to the federal estate tax that allows more family farms to be inherited with fewer taxes, she said. 

She also called the Make America Healthy Again initiative that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spearheaded, with USDA also playing a major part, “one of our most important legacies.”

She agreed to Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree’s request to develop a “comprehensive overview” for the Make America Healthy Again philosophy.

Rollins vows no Farm Service Agency closures

Democrats on the panel, including leading members Bishop and full Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, hammered the budget request’s many cuts.

The budget would eliminate more than 70 USDA programs and was particularly ill-timed as prices continue to climb, DeLauro said.

“The price of everyday goods continues to escalate: Grocery prices are up, gas prices are up, utility costs, housing costs, health care costs are through the roof,” she said. “And the administration’s only plan is to decimate the public programs that help alleviate the strain on working families and farmers across the country.”

Bishop complained that assistance from the Farm Service Agency, which provides credit, disaster relief and other financial programs, would be more difficult for farmers to access.

Rollins sought to justify the proposed decrease, noting that the cuts Bishop mentioned made up only about 4% of the total department budget. 

But she also said she would never close a Farm Service Agency office and offered to work directly with the Democrat and others to address understaffed offices.

“But as we are looking to make sure we are honoring the taxpayer, making sure we’re doing the best we can with every tax dollar, while putting the farmers first, (we are) taking key advice from you,” she said. 

She added that members should contact the department “if you hear of an FSA office that isn’t fully staffed, or that the farmers aren’t getting what they need — and I realize they’re out there, I’m not living in some Pollyanna world, these are very difficult times.”

She ended her dialogue with Bishop by telling him to “feel free to call me, sir, anytime.”

Power of the purse

DeLauro and Bishop led a push to assert Congress’ power to control spending, executed by Appropriations committees in both chambers.

Bishop said he expected USDA to “not circumvent this appropriations process by refusing to spend or obligate program funding once it is signed into law.”

DeLauro quizzed Rollins about a grant program that was created in a December 2024 law to assist farmers hit by extreme weather events over the prior two years. “Not a single dime” of the $220 million appropriated in the law had been allocated to qualifying states, DeLauro said.

Again, Rollins was conciliatory, saying the issue was a priority for the department and that funding for DeLauro’s home state was “at the finish line.”

“Yes ma’am, we’re moving on that,” she said.

WASHINGTON — The White House budget director on Wednesday defended the administration’s latest request for Congress, testifying before the House Budget Committee that a 43% increase in defense spending and a 10% cut to domestic programs is the best path forward. 

Democrats on the panel were highly critical of that proposal, which lawmakers will debate in the months ahead and is unlikely to be approved in full.  

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle, ranking member on the committee, said the administration’s request to increase defense spending so significantly while not bolstering health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid or helping people pay for child care “is a reflection of priorities that are out of whack,” with what Americans truly need. 

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said during the three-hour hearing that the administration believes a significant boost to defense spending “is meant for significant paradigm-shifting investments.”

“For instance, the president and his Department of War are exhibiting tremendous leadership to build ships, planes, drones, munitions and satellites faster without the backlog of status quo,” he said. “For the industrial base to double or triple and build more facilities, not just add shifts, it requires multi-year agreements to purchase into the future. That cost has to be booked in this first year.”

Vought said the administration’s preference is that Republicans place about $1.15 trillion in the annual Defense spending bill, which will require bipartisan support to move through the Senate, and put another $350 billion in a budget reconciliation bill, which Republicans can advance on their own.

He believes that will avoid Democrats demanding that each $1 increase in defense spending be matched by a $1 increase in domestic spending. 

“This Congress has changed the way we can spend money through the reconciliation process to avoid the pitfalls that really caused two decades of not being able to accomplish anything,” he said. “And I think you should be commended for that.”

Republicans used the complex budget reconciliation process last year to enact their “big, beautiful” law and are looking to advance another reconciliation bill in the coming months that would further bolster spending on immigration enforcement activities. 

No numbers on Iran war spending

Vought testified before the committee that he isn’t yet able to provide a ballpark estimate for how much in additional defense spending the administration plans to ask Congress to provide for the war in Iran. 

“We’re not ready to come to you with a request. We’re still working on it,” he said. “We’re working through to figure out what’s needed in this fiscal year versus next fiscal year.”

The current fiscal year will end on Sept. 30. 

Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee raised concerns about what such a steep increase in defense funding would mean for a department that has consistently struggled to account for all of its spending during several audits. 

Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal questioned whether the Trump administration was serious about addressing fraud in every department, given its proposal to bolster funding for the Defense Department by more than half a trillion dollars. 

Vought responded that the “department is making progress towards the audit.”

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman was even more frustrated with leadership in the Defense Department, saying that there “is so much arrogance in that agency.”

“I keep holding my nose because defense is the most important thing. And they just say, ‘We don’t have to do an audit. We’re so damn important. We don’t care what Congress thinks,’” Grothman said. “I hope that they dial up this audit and have the guys work around the clock, complete an audit by July 31 or before we eventually have to pass this stuff.”

Vought sought to reassure Grothman and other lawmakers on the panel that the Trump administration does want to address how DOD spends money. 

“The notion that we’re not trying to find any kinds of inefficiencies at the Department of Defense is not true,” Vought said. “Our view is that we would want to plow those into being able to invest in procurement and research.”

What’s next

The House Budget Committee won’t actually draft the dozen annual government funding bills. 

That is up to the Appropriations Committee, which will hold hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency leaders in the coming weeks to hear more about the president’s budget request for the fiscal year set to begin Oct. 1. 

The Appropriations subcommittees will then draft and debate the spending bills that account for a fraction of the $7 trillion federal budget. A much larger chunk of annual funding, about $4.2 trillion, goes to mandatory programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Another $970 billion goes to interest payments on the debt. 

While defense spending predominantly goes to the Pentagon, with a bit going to the Energy Department for nuclear security programs, domestic spending that the administration wants to cut overall is allocated among dozens of agencies. 

The departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, State, Veterans Affairs and numerous smaller agencies all share the total spending level for domestic programs.  

During fiscal year 2025, which ended last September, defense spending totaled $893 billion, while non-defense programs received $980 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.