I’m old enough to remember when Congress — like most Americans — worked during the summer.
Sure, the pinstriped, air-conditioned gang took a few weeks off every August, but they usually earned it by spending June and July piecing together Farm Bills and budgets and, during the hot summer of 1974, for instance, the impeachment of a president.
Not anymore. The U.S. House calendar shows members in session only nine days between July 4 and Aug. 31. Then, after that sweatless effort, a lengthy Labor Day recess because, you know, they’ve labored. Probably.
It gets worse, according to Punchbowl News. If you take out the silly, do-nothing “fly-in days” on the House calendar, “there are just 18 real legislative days before the midterm elections.”
That’s 18 working days in four, count ‘em, four months. Good grief.
The Senate plans to work just 20 days before Labor Day, when — of course — it will take a two-week break to mop its collective brow.
In the meantime, the ax-wielding political appointees at the Department of Agriculture will continue to chop through U.S. Department of Agriculture programs without one cogent explanation or one oversight hearing from our out-to-lunch, dinner and supper ag committees.
That means USDA intends to implement its “reorganization” plan without one elected official acknowledging that it “would relocate more than half of its Washington, D.C.-based headquarters out to five regional hubs across the country,” explains the Federal News Network.
With no one challenging the power grab, federal employees’ unions and some nongovernmental organizations recently filed a lawsuit to show what’s really behind the relocation plan: an effort to hinder or shutter many USDA programs the Trump White House wants axed but can’t get the votes to do it the old-fashioned way: via Congress.
Instead, it’s rushing through the back door. In an “April 2025 document, outlining its workforce reduction and agency restructuring plan… USDA wrote it ‘is anticipating that a significant number of employees will decline geographic reassignments out of the [national capital region] or existing regional or state offices…’”
That means, the lawsuit points out, “USDA’s actions will force many of the experienced and dedicated employees … to leave, thereby gutting programs, interrupting and eliminating the delivery of important services … “
And, it continues, “The harms are as certain and as widespread as if USDA had imposed a … cut in program staff directly” — something it cannot do without violating the Farm Bill enacted by Congress and the White House.
Congress blocked USDA from moving forward with its downsizing last year when it set USDA’s 2026 budget. In it, Congress “rejected the agency’s proposed multibillion-dollar cuts, and included language … that barred USDA … funds … to relocate offices or employees … without congressional approval.”
Republicans in Congress weren’t about to make that same mistake this year; there are no plans to offer any budget anytime soon. In fact, no one on Capitol Hill has even mentioned the 2027 USDA budget, let alone the federal budget, due Oct. 1.
So, with the silent Republican majority in Congress declining to stop USDA, political leaders there have renewed efforts to implement the downsizing plan that, according to USDA’s own internal documents, will reduce its workforce “by approximately 23,177 which is a 23% overall reduction.”
And all this despite no farm group or rural constituent calling on USDA to slash its staff by 10%, let alone almost 25%. Nor has any farm group asked that USDA sell its historic Beltsville, Maryland, research farm or half of its office complex just off the National Mall.
None of this is new to the Republicans running both ag committees, but they would rather take a nap than take a vote.
(The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. Contact information is posted at farmandfoodfile.com. © 2026 ag comm)
