U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today detailed which functions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will remain available in the event of a lapse in government funding.

“There may be a lapse in funding for the federal government, but that will not relieve USDA of its responsibilities for safeguarding life and property through the critical services we provide,” said Secretary Perdue.  “Our employees work hard every day to benefit our customers and the farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers who depend on our programs. During a shutdown, we will leverage our existing resources as best we can to continue to provide the top-notch service people expect.”

Some USDA activities will be shut down or significantly reduced and some USDA employees will be furloughed.  However, certain USDA activities would continue because they are related to law enforcement, the protection of life and property, or are financed through available funding (such as through mandatory appropriations, multi-year discretionary funding, or user fees).  For the first week of a potential shutdown, 61% of employees would either be exempted or excepted from shutdown activities.  If the shutdown continues, this percentage would decrease, and activities would be reduced as available funding decreases.

USDA activities that would continue in the short-term include:

• Meat, poultry, and processed egg inspection services.
• Grain and other commodity inspection, weighing, grading, and IT support services funded by user fees.
• Inspections for import and export activities to prevent the introduction and dissemination of pests into and out of the U.S, including inspections from Hawaii and Puerto Rico to the mainland.
• Forest Service law enforcement, emergency and natural disaster response, and national defense preparedness efforts.
• Forest Service employees will continue to work on managing and maintaining the current forest system lands and sustaining the health and safety of the lands for their continued use.
• Continuity and maintenance of some research measurements and research-related infrastructure, such as germplasm, seed storage, and greenhouses.
• Care for animals, plants and associated infrastructure to preserve agricultural research and to comply with the Wild Horses and Burros statute.
• Eligible households will still receive monthly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for January.
• Most other domestic nutrition assistance programs, such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, WIC, and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, can continue to operate at the State and local level with any funding and commodity resources that remain available.  Additional Federal funds and commodities will not be provided during the period of the lapse.
• The Child Nutrition (CN) Programs, including School Lunch, School Breakfast, Child and Adult Care Feeding, Summer Food Service and Special Milk will continue operations into February. Meal providers are paid on a reimbursement basis 30 days after the end of the service month. Carryover funding will be available during a lapse to support FY 2019 meal service.
• Minimal administrative and management support, including to excepted IT systems and contracts, will be maintained to support the above activities.
• Provision of conservation technical and financial assistance (such as Conservation

Reserve Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and easement programs).

• • Some farm payments (including direct payments, market assistance loans, market facilitation payments, and disaster assistance programs) will be continued for the first week of a shutdown.
  • Market Facilitation Program payments.
  • Trade mitigation purchases made by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service.
  • Agricultural export credit and other agricultural trade development and monitoring activities.

• USDA’s Market News Service, which provides critically important market information to the agricultural industry.

The following USDA activities would not be continued and would be shut down in an orderly fashion during a government funding lapse.  These activities include:

• Provision of new rural development loans and grants for housing, community facilities, utilities and businesses.
• All recreation sites across the U.S National Forest System, unless they are operated by external parties under a recreational special use permit.
• New timber sales.
• Most forest fuels reduction activities in and around communities.
• NASS statistics, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, and other agricultural economic and statistical reports and projections.
• Investigation of packers and stockyards related to fraudulent and anti-competitive activities.
• Assistance for the control of most plant and animal pests and diseases unless funded by cooperators or other non-appropriated sources.
• Research facilities except for the care for animals, plants and associated infrastructure to preserve agricultural research.
• Provision of new grants or processing of payments for existing grants to support research, education, and extension.
• ERS Commodity Outlook Reports, Data Products, research reports, staff analysis, and projections.  The ERS public website would be taken offline.
• Most departmental management, administrative and oversight functions, including civil rights, human resources, financial management, audit, investigative, legal and information technology activities.
• Mandatory Audits (Financial Statements, FISMA, and potentially Improper Payments) will be suspended and may not be completed and released on the date mandated by law.
• After the first week, farm loans and some farm payments (including direct payments, market assistance loans, market facilitation payments for those producers who have not certified production, and disaster assistance programs).

A summary of USDA’s shutdown plans can be found here.

A list of shutdown plans by USDA agency and office can be found here.  Note that the National Finance Center information can be found on pages 7 to 9 of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) document on that page.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO US 

 By Jim Redwine

If the message of Christmas were simply gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, etc., etc., it would have died out about as unceremoniously as the current stock market. Therefore, we should probably consider if there are other possibilities.

When the Jews were conquered by the Romans they reacted as most oppressed people would. Their cultural myths concentrated on deliverance. In general, deliverance from an omnipotent force can take three approaches: armed rebellion; assimilation; and/or peaceful coexistence.

To some of the Hebrews, their hoped-for messiah would be a warrior who would throw off the Roman rule. To others, the approach was more of total capitulation. But for many, the thought was a Prince of Peace would provide the best hope. To fight Rome, as the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 A.D. showed, was to court annihilation. As the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius chronicled, a revolt by the Jews brought total devastation to their society.

On the other hand, the Romans and Jews of that time did not appear to be interested in peaceful coexistence except upon terms set by Rome. That left real deliverance from bondage for the Jewish people to be more metaphysical, that is, through philosophy, not armed resistance. And it took 2,000 years, the horrors of WWII and the benevolence of the world’s new Rome, the United States of America before Jewish self-determination could be realized. Still, true peace as called for by Jesus is elusive. The Middle East continues to be an area where armed rebellion is both ubiquitous and futile.

Perhaps we should give the true message of Christmas a chance. I know President Trump has his faults and I carry no brief for much of what our government does in our name. However, to withdraw from foreign conflicts that simply kill thousands, destroy cultures and cost trillions appears to me to be the course Jesus would call for. Merry Christmas and welcome home to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else we are engulfed in endless counterproductive conflicts. And if we really are the new Rome maybe we should learn from the military fiascoes of that ancient one.

The debacle on Wall Street might best be addressed not by quarreling over interest rates but by investing our treasure in ourselves instead of squandering it in the vain pursuit of a Pax Americana.

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