Retroactive Cuts to SRS Payments

Retroactive Cuts to SRS Payments

Retroactive Cuts to SRS Payments. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Last week it was brought to light that the Obama Administration was retroactively subjecting Secure Rural School (SRS) payments made to counties in January based on fiscal year 2012 revenues, to the fiscal year 2013 sequester. That would amount to $17.9 million in SRS and 25% fund payments that have already been disbursed. Yesterday House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings and a bipartisan group of 30 Members of Congress sent a letter to Agr Secretary Tom Vilsack and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients questioning that action. Congressman Doc Hastings.

HASTINGS: Two points to be made; first of all doing something like this retroactively strikes me as being absurd and it’s an attempt by the Obama Administration in my view to provide as much hurt as possible on something that the President suggested, mainly the sequester.

The 31 signatures on the letter are from bipartisan supporters.

HASTINGS: The fact that there is bi-partisan signatures on this letter hopefully will cause Secretary Vilsack Budget Director Zients to reconsider this. So we’ll wait their response to our letter but to ask recipients of this to send money back when they knew that a potential sequester was in place just doesn’t make sense to me.

Hastings says there is another plan in the works and we’ll talk about that on Monday.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. 

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