President Joe Biden is set to release his fiscal 2025 budget even as lawmakers are still trying to finish work on some of the biggest and most contentious of their FY24 spending bills.
Congress narrowly averted a partial government shutdown this weekend when the Senate on Friday night cleared the package of six of 12 FY24 spending bills, including those covering departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Commerce, Justice as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration.
Negotiators have yet to reach agreement on the final six FY24 bills, but they must be enacted by March 22, ahead of the two-week Easter recess: Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations.
Biden's budget for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, is set to be released on Monday.
Biden previewed one aspect of his budget plans in his State of the Union Thursday night, where he called for a new 25% minimum income tax rate on billionaires and a 21% minimum tax on corporations.
As usual, the president’s major budget proposals will be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill, but they do serve to set talking points for both parties in the 2024 campaign.
The next Congress is likely to be dominated by a massive battle over taxes with the expiration of individual tax provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Republicans want to extend the cuts and as a matter of long-standing party philosophy don’t believe that they need to offset the lost revenue with spending cuts or tax increases.
A White House summary of Biden’s tax policy reiterated that he “supports continuing tax cuts for families making less than $400,000, but opposes extending tax cuts or restoring tax breaks for those making more than $400,000 per year. And he believes that any extensions should be paid for by asking big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share.”
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Biden’s proposed FY24 budget for USDA included proposals to make permanent a lapsed $5-an-acre subsidy program for cover crops and to boost climate-related funding at the department by $2 billion to $7 billion. Neither proposal materialized.
Biden also sought to boost agricultural research spending by $299 million to $4 billion in FY24. Congress ultimately gave a modest increase to the Agricultural Research Service, which conducts in-house research but trimmed the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which funds research through colleges and universities.
Also this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will headline the National Farmers Union’s national convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. Vilsack will find an especially receptive audience in NFU members; the relatively populist group has long championed the crackdown on corporate market power, which has also been a priority for the Biden administration.
Vilsack will “announce new actions and investments to deliver more and better choices for farmers and consumers and enhance transparency and competition,” according to a USDA advisory.
Vilsack last week released the latest in a series of rules tightening regulations on meat and poultry processors. The latest rule would, among other things, prohibit processors from retaliating against producers found to have communicated with a government entity, joined a producer or grower association or explored a business relationship with another entity. An earlier rule is imposing new restrictions on contracting practices in the poultry industry.
“Family farmers and ranchers deserve the right to stand up for themselves when they’re the victims of unfair practices,” NFU President Rob Larew said in a release praising the rule.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EDT):
Monday, March 11
National Farmers Union annual convention, Scottsdale, Ariz.
North American Millers' Association Spring Conference, Marco Island, Florida
Indoor Ag-Con, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tuesday, March 12
8:30 a.m. — Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the monthly Consumer Price Index.
10 a.m. — Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the findings and recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, 366 Dirksen.
10 a.m. — Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the America's Conservation Enhancement Act, 406 Dirksen.
10:15 a.m. — Senate Budget Committee hearing with Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young.
11 a.m. — House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing on access to care at home in rural and underserved communities, 1100 Longworth.
Wednesday, March 13
Thursday, March 14
8:30 a.m. — USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
10 a.m. — Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, “A Nation on Fire: Responding to the Increasing Wildfire Threat,” 342 Dirksen.
American Coalition for Ethanol, DC Fly-in and Government Affairs Summit, Washington, D.C.
Friday, March 15
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