00:00Great. We'll take a couple of questions before we wrap up. Yes, ma'am.
00:05Can the FDA ensure food safety now that so many jobs have been cut?
00:09And for you, Secretary Rawlings, you spoke about better nutrition for children.
00:13How can schools – there were recently millions of dollars in cuts in a cooperative program
00:18between local farms and schools. Is that money coming back? Is something similar coming back?
00:23Go ahead.
00:24In terms of FDA's capacity, the cuts in all of our agencies are not affecting science,
00:30so the science jobs aren't preserved.
00:33The frontline enforcement jobs and health delivery jobs are preserved.
00:38HHS was a bloated agency, and it was not doing its job.
00:45Our health – during the past four years, we saw a 38 percent rise in its budget,
00:51and health care continued to decline.
00:54So we're reorganizing HHS so it can do its internal job, which is to make America healthy again.
01:01Yeah, and I appreciate the question on the food programs.
01:04There's been a lot of confusion about what has been cut.
01:07The first thing I'll say is that we are realigning, as all of our agencies are,
01:11but at USDA we're realigning the agency around what works well, what's important.
01:16Almost 80 percent of the USDA budget of $280 billion, I think,
01:20is actually in the food and nutrition program space.
01:23It's actually not even in the farming and ranching space.
01:26And so as we look at that, and under the last four years, under President Biden,
01:31it was almost a 40 percent increase, tracking close to where HHS expanded as well.
01:36So what we are pulling back now is the COVID-era programs that were affirmed
01:42under the last administration that were always meant to come back,
01:47and a lot of the money that we're pulling back is money that is, all of it actually,
01:51has not been spent or committed.
01:53It is future money, again, under COVID-era programs.
01:56Every child in America that is hungry will have good food to feed them.
02:01And if they don't, then we will immediately realign to ensure that they do.
02:05And the other thing I'd like to say is that the programs like today,
02:09that are so inspiring and watching these incredible kids,
02:12a lot of them from food-challenged families,
02:15that this is what we should be supporting at USDA.
02:19This is why we're realigning, so that the status quo that has been bloated by 40 percent
02:24in the last four years, that that's not going to work anymore.
02:27That instead we need to realign around leaders like are part of this school
02:31that have completely rethought this and have done such an amazing job
02:34in moving farm-fresh produce as much as is possible into the schools
02:39and into these kids' snacks and lunches.
