Federal watchdog: Trump’s USDA overpaid corn farmers by $3B

By DAVID PITT
Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal watchdog says the Trump administration overpaid corn farmers by about $3 billion in federal aid in 2019 and that farmers in the South were paid more for the same crops than elsewhere in the country. The Government Accountability Office said in a report released Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s methodology for computing damage for 2019 was flawed. The USDA chief economist says the analysis was based on a widely accepted trade model and methodologies, and that USDA economists offered options to policymakers who chose which methods to use to decide how to pay farmers.