The Department of Agriculture under President Trump has repeatedly rolled out policies and program changes without accurate data, a report from Politico found. From trade war bailouts to cutting food stamp benefits to relocating essential USDA agencies, several members of Congress, experts, and former USDA officials say the department is playing loose with facts as it moves its agenda forward.
“They operate much more on anecdote and ideology than facts and data,” Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine told Politico. “I’ve seen a dramatic shift with this administration using less reliance on data, less interest in talking about data, or completely ignoring it when the facts don’t go their way.”
In June, for instance, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue rolled back his plans to relocate a Forest Service jobs program that trains low-income youth to the Department of Labor. The plan would have laid off 1,100 people and was sent to the Forest Service with just four days’ notice. Neither the Labor Department or USDA provided data or other evidence to support moving the program.
Experts and former USDA officials have also said the agency miscalculated when deciding how to allocate billions of dollars in trade payments to farmers. The agency also introduced a proposal to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program without accurate figures for how many people would lose benefits under the plan. An analysis published several months after the initial proposal found that nearly twice as many low-income children would lose free or reduced-price school meals under the reforms than the agency originally estimated.
The full report from Politico can be found here.