Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins burst into the White House last week explaining that her team had found a legal way to help unlock billions in relief funds for US farmers caught up in the trade war with China, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
By tapping into a Depression-era fund and moving around leftover money from the prior fiscal year, Rollins was able to scrounge together enough funding to reopen all 2,100 USDA county offices by paying two employees per office to come back to work. Only then could they get the crucial assistance funds out the door, the sources said.
“We had to pay the employees in order to bring them back. We had to find the money,” a USDA official told CNN.
The maneuver unlocked more than $3 billion in emergency aid and regular program assistance that had already been approved by Congress, money that will be used for things like crop insurance and disaster assistance made to farmers across the country.
But while the agency was able to get that money out the door, it’s unclear whether farmers will also be helped with a much larger relief package.
Continue reading the complete article on the original source
