Debt-reduction panels target rural programs

Several rural programs are the target in the budget plans issued by two high-level government sponsored groups in recent weeks. The plan garnering the most attention comes from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, created by President Obama and headed by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles. The NCFRR proposal includes nearly $4 trillion in total deficit reduction including several rural programs, Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder reports.

The NCFRR report includes farm subsidy cuts of $3 billion a year by reducing direct payments, Conservation Security Program funds and funding for the Market Access Program. The report also proposes raising the retirement age to 69 by 2075. Bishop writes the authors have missed the "geographic component of mortality rates," noting the gap between rural and urban mortality rates has been widening. "People in urban areas are simply living longer than those who reside in many rural counties," Bishop writes. "The decline in longevity is particularly evident among women in the South and in Appalachia." (New York Times map)

The NCFRR plan also includes cutting payments to states and tribes for abandoned mines, reducing spending in the universal service fund and eliminating $500 million of spending by the Rural Utilities Service. The proposal would raise the gas tax by 15 cents per gallon to boost transportation funding. We recently reported on a study that suggested rural states were most vulnerable to spikes in gas prices. The NCFRR also proposed cutting $1 billion in Army Corps of Engineers projects and requiring the Tennessee Valley Authority to impose a transmission surcharge on electricity rates. (Read more)