In Indiana, like elsewhere in the country, farming and rural counties helped send President Donald Trump to the White House. Now, they are the target of some of Trump’s proposed cuts designed to balance the federal budget.
Trump has proposed limits on crop insurance subsidies and the addition of more food inspection fees. His budget also calls for the elimination of the $498 million Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program, the $477 million Rural Economic Development Program and the nearly $3 billion Community Development Block Grants.
His goal is to balance the federal budget in the next 10 years, based on sustained 3 percent economic growth.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s funding would be reduced by $18 billion, or about 21 percent from 2017 — most of which would affect the rural blocs of voters who helped push Trump to victory in swing states such as Wisconsin and Iowa, and who helped him gain a sizable victory in rural Indiana rural counties.
Nationwide, Trump claimed 62 percent of the small-town and rural America vote, after a campaign focused on keeping jobs in America.
According to the Indiana Department of Agriculture, Indiana ranks 10th in the country in agriculture sales, and 83 percent of the state is covered by farms, forests and woodlands. Indiana was one of the top five producers of pork, soybean and corn in 2012, according to the USDA.
Randy Kron, president of Indiana Farm Bureau, said the farmers he represents are most concerned about maintaining subsidies for crop insurance premiums. Under Trump's plan, funding for that would be reduced by $2 billion in 2019.
Kron used this year as an example of why Indiana farmers need the funding, with temperature swings and rain making it difficult for farmers to plant and maintain their crops.
They can't always depend on crop sales and prices staying consistent, he said.
“There’s some real concern as we move forward for farmers here in Indiana,” Kron said. “Agriculture stepped up to the table and was willing to take some serious cuts in the last farm bill, and now we’re being asked to take more budget cuts. … That’s a concern to start with. It needs to be a little more equal."
An even larger concern for Matt Greller, executive director of AIM, a group that advocates for Indiana municipalities, is the elimination of Community Development Block Grants. Those grants go toward local projects that combat poverty, provide housing or build infrastructure. Cities and towns of various sizes have benefited from those projects.
Rural Clinton and Vermillion counties received a collective $1 million in grants in 2016 for wastewater drinking water. Cities in Benton and Gibson counties also received money in 2016.
"Who knows what congress will do," Greller said, "but I would be shocked if they allowed that to move forward as introduced."
Greller also worried about the negative consequences of cutting the Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program, which he said rural communities use constantly.
"Often in rural Indiana, you don’t have the density you do in other areas. The cost to install those systems is astronomical," Greller said. "You could have a whole host of problems from not installing those services."
Andy Downs, a political scientist at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said he wasn’t surprised Trump’s budget cuts targeted rural communities, despite the high level of support Trump had in those areas.
He said that if Trump cannot or won’t touch military or entitlement programs and wants to make cuts, he has little choice but to target social service and rural programs.
“If you say you’re going to cut the budget, you’ve got to cut the budget, and he has not been a candidate, he has not been a president who seems to be as concerned about blocs of voters as other folks have,” Downs said.
While it could have an impact on some of Trump's supporters, many will give the president a pass, Downs added.
Tipton County Commissioner James Mullins is among those in his largely Republican and rural community who voted for Trump in November.
While Mullins is concerned about the impact on his agriculture-based county, he doesn’t believe Trump’s proposal unfairly targets his or other rural communities.
In Tipton County, Trump won more than 74 percent of the vote. In most other Indiana farming counties, he won close to or more than 70 percent of the vote, compared to the 56.5 percent of the vote Trump won in the state as a whole.
Mullins said he understands everyone will need to make cuts to balance the budget and the budget is far from final.
“I think if they happen the way Trump really wants them to happen, most of those cuts will impact excess administration, not the programs themselves,” Mullins said. “Now, the people who are in charge of the programs don’t want to lost their jobs, so they may cut programs rather than administration, but he is trying to thin out government.”
The budget likely will change as lawmakers work through Trump's recommendations.