Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration

Madam Chair, thank you for yielding.

The revised spending allocations presented today contain only technical corrections to the initial allocations, which were adopted on a party-line vote two weeks ago.

Because there are no substantive changes from the initial allocations, I must once again oppose them.

They do not change the topline spending levels for any of the subcommittee bills – even though Members on my side of the aisle have consistently asked for bipartisan cooperation on funding levels.

These spending levels continue to short-change our national defense, while providing huge increases to domestic programs. Non-defense spending would increase by nearly 17% overall, and some agencies would receive unprecedented 30-40% increases above fiscal year 2021.

Underfunding our national defense while giving such extreme increases to domestic programs is unacceptable to Members on my side of the aisle.

Madam Chair, thank you for yielding.

These spending allocations will increase discretionary spending by hundreds of billions of dollars to an all-time high of $1.5 trillion.

This nearly 9% increase above fiscal year 2021 comes at a time of record-high deficits and debt:

• This month, the national debt reached an astonishing $28.3 trillion.
• In the first 8 months of this fiscal year, we have already borrowed $2.1 trillion.

We must exercise fiscal responsibility and return to reasonable levels of federal spending, now that the pandemic hopefully is nearing an end.

Although these allocations do not show the exact split between defense and non-defense programs, we know the topline is based on the president's budget. Those numbers included an enormous, 17% increase to non-defense programs. At the same time, the president's budget cut defense spending to below inflation.

Chairman Bishop, thank you for presenting the fiscal year 2022 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

I also want to recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Fortenberry.

I know both of you have worked together to fund priorities of Members on both sides of the aisle.

While this bill funds many important programs, it is based on a funding framework that does not have bipartisan support.

To put it simply, the increases proposed for non-defense bills like this one are just too high.

At the same time, the funding for our nation's defense is too low to meet the security challenges we face worldwide.

If we want to fund the good things contained in this bill, we must work together to develop spending levels both sides can support. We also need to agree to leave out controversial provisions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today so that we can hear Secretary Vilsack's plans for the Department of Agriculture.

The events of the past year have affected virtually every sector of our economy. This is especially true for our farmers and ranchers. Thanks to the staff at USDA, programs were quickly implemented to help those affected by the pandemic.

In addition to providing direct support to our farmers and ranchers, USDA provided temporary assistance to families who had their incomes reduced. I am especially thankful for the efforts of the department and our local communities to ensure children were fed when they were not in school.

Not only were our schools closed as a result of the pandemic, in-person doctor visits were limited, and it was a challenge just to conduct normal business transactions. The urgency to close the digital divide in Rural America has never been more clear.