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Note: Spending figures are based on each department's discretionary budget authority.
AGRICULTURE
Spending: $19.4 billion, down 9.6 percent
President Bush's budget would shed $587 million from farm price supports, mainly by cutting payments to farmers by 5 percent and reducing the annual ceiling on payments from $360,000 to $250,000. It would also close loopholes allowing big cotton and rice operations to get payments well above the limits, as well as reduce loan availability.
Food stamp spending would grow by $3.5 billion, or 10 percent, to $36 billion, to cover 2.7 million more recipients and food price inflation. Also, school lunch spending would grow $550 million to $12.9 billion, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, would grow by $335 million, to $5.6 billion.
Crop insurance spending would drop by $140 million annually -- but not for another year. Minimum coverage levels would rise and direct payments would require producers to buy crop insurance.
The administration would move $300 million from the department's foreign food aid program to the U.S. Agency for International Development. This would allow USAID to buy food products overseas for foreign aid, rather than from U.S. farmers.
COMMERCE
Spending: $9.4 billion, up 49 percent









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