DAILY Bites
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The USDA is suspending federal financial awards to Minnesota and Minneapolis amid ongoing fraud investigations, according to a letter sent to Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey.
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Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins said on X the suspension is effective immediately, “until sufficient proof has been provided that the fraud has stopped,” citing estimates that billions were lost and referencing a nearly $250 million Feeding Our Future case.
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The Department of Health and Human Services also froze certain assistance funds, though a judge on Friday temporarily blocked the freeze.
DAILY Discussion
Most Americans don’t think about the U.S. Department of Agriculture unless a storm wipes out crops, a drought hits, or the grocery bill jumps. But farmers think about it every day. We think about it the way you think about your paycheck clearing. The way you think about whether your insurance is real. The way you think about whether the rules you planned your life around will still be there next month, because farming is not a one-season decision. Instead, decisions are made years, decades, and generations at a time.
That’s what made this week so alarming.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and the Trump administration announced that USDA would suspend all federal payments to Minnesota last week. Not a single program and not a single organization deserving investigation or punishment; instead, they decided to punish everyone. This is not a targeted enforcement action. Instead, more than $129 million in active and future awards has been suddenly stopped…