Vilsack refutes CCC’s ‘slush fund’ claims

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is a government-owned and operated organization established in 1933 to stabilize, support, and protect agricultural incomes and prices. Today, Republicans are accusing the $30 billion CCC of being used improperly.

“I’m excited about my friends in Congress. They say, ‘It’s a slush fund.’ He just uses it for what he wants to do. ” no i don’t. We can’t do that because we have lawyers,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “We have 230 lawyers in the General Counsel’s Office, and they’re scared to death of not getting into the guardrails. So they come to me and say, ‘Secretary, we can do this, but… This is not possible.”

But not only Democratic presidents, but also Republicans, have a different view. Sen. Chuck Grassley accused former President Trump of raiding the CCC to offset retaliation for China’s tariffs.

“He realized that it was having a negative impact on agriculture, so he went out of his way to give $28 billion to farmers to offset the negative impact it would have on American agricultural exports. I call it a slush fund.”

That’s why Grassley and other Senate Republicans urged them to introduce the USDA Expenditure Accountability Act and ensure reporting requirements in the just-passed FY24 farm spending bill. But Vilsack argues that the key examples Republicans have cited of misuse of the CCC are not abuses at all.

“So when we approach ‘climate-smart’ farming, we don’t just say, ‘Let’s do sustainable practices because we have the money.’ We say, ‘Let’s do sustainable practices because we have the money. ‘Let’s take this initiative and create a new category of product and have the market value that new category of product,’ because that’s how we fit into the CCC.”

Republicans agree that the CCC is legally used to subsidize agriculture and promote trade, but even the Comptroller’s Office has ruled that the USDA should ask Congress first. It is claimed that the