Free Republic

Democrats thought Donald was done – he’s just getting started! Thanks to President Trump, the U.S. economy is on fire like never before. Jobs are coming back and wages are on the rise. Companies are competing to keep Americans workers. In fact, there are more open jobs than people looking for work! But as good as things are, Trump wants them even better. The economy can only thrive when people are jumping in and getting back to work. But there’s one program that keeps people poor and out of the workforce. A program that also costs the taxpayers billions a...

The Trump administration Opens a New Window. proposed new rules to limit access to food stamps on Tuesday – a move that officials said would end benefits for about 3.1 million people – by closing a loophole that allows states to automatically enroll residents already receiving other welfare benefits. “This proposal will save money and preserve the integrity of the program,” Sonny Perdue, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, said in a conference call. “SNAP should be a temporary safety net.” According to data provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Opens a New Window. , about 40 million low-income people...

Employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are quitting at a rapid clip as Secretary Sonny Perdue prepares to move forward with plans to relocate two offices far outside the Washington, D.C., Beltway. Federal employees at the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) – two small but important agencies within the USDA – are unhappy with Perdue’s plan, announced last August, to move the majority of their staff from current offices in the capital to an area closer the country’s agricultural centers. “This move does not serve a public purpose,” Peter Winch, a...

A cold, wet spring that caused record slow corn planting has the 2019 crop squarely behind the 8-ball. To recover lost potential, production must run the table with near-perfect conditions the rest of the growing season. Otherwise, a smaller crop could wipe out much of the surplus USDA forecasts for the coming year. While the slow start doesn’t doom the crop, the unusual political and economic environment of 2019 could make recovery more difficult than in other years with major delays. Related: USDA crop progress: Corn fails to reach the halfway mark USDA reported only 49% of the crop planted...

The Trump administration is setting out to do what this year’s farm bill didn’t: tighten work requirements for millions of Americans who receive federal food assistance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday is proposing a rule that would restrict the ability of states to exempt work-eligible adults from having to obtain steady employment to receive food stamps. The move comes just weeks after lawmakers passed a $400 billion farm bill that reauthorized agriculture and conservation programs while leaving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves roughly 40 million Americans, virtually untouched. […] Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18-49 without children...

Chocolate milk is coming back on the school lunch menu. So is white bread and saltier food. Several paragraphs tucked into in a massive 1,665-page government spending bill released on Monday would relax Obama-era nutrition standards for school lunches. On page 101 of the spending bill due for congressional votes later this week, the Secretary of Agriculture is directed to allow states to grant schools exemptions so they can serve flavored, low-fat milk and bread products that are not whole grain rich. “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition...

The Trump administration is discontinuing a signature girls education initiative championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, according to officials. The "Let Girls Learn" program, which she and President Barack Obama started in 2015 to facilitate educational opportunities for adolescent girls in developing countries, will cease operation immediately, according to an internal document obtained by CNN. News of the program's end came the same day President Donald Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, was visiting an elementary school in suburban Virginia to announce changes to another initiative spotlighted by the former first lady, healthy school lunches. Perdue was set to unveil...