KS - May 13 2025
House GOP Reconciliation Bill; Kansas Food Aid Cut?; Kansas Efficiency Ideas; Hawkins Runs For Insurance Commissioner; Missouri Stadium Aid
House GOP Races to Push $230 Billion in Cuts, SNAP Reductions in Late-Night Budget Bill
Kansas Lawmakers Scramble as Trump Budget Targets Key Overseas Food Initiatives; $1.8 Billion in Cuts Proposed
Kansas Senate Panel Sifts Through Over 3,000 Public Ideas to Boost Government Efficiency
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins Enters Race for State Insurance Commissioner
Missouri House Approves Last-Ditch Stadium Aid Plan to Keep Chiefs, Royals from Kansas
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House GOP Races to Push $230 Billion in Cuts, SNAP Reductions in Late-Night Budget Bill
WASHINGTON — The House Agriculture Committee gavels in at 7:30 p.m. ET tonight to race through a 900-page “committee print” drafted to meet its reconciliation orders under the FY-2025 budget resolution. The Republican text would carve roughly $230 billion in ten-year savings, almost entirely by shrinking SNAP-food stamps, a Democratic priority-redirecting a slice of Inflation Reduction Act conservation money, raise crop reference prices and crop-loan rates, and loosen payment-limit, dairy, cotton and livestock rules—all folded into the sprawling budget-reconciliation package GOP leaders hope to send to the floor before Memorial Day.
The late-evening start lets members file straight from a 6:30 floor vote block, but Democrats are poised to complain that working into the night muzzles the press and truncates amendment debate. Because the bill moves under budget-reconciliation rules—requiring only a simple House majority and immune to a Senate filibuster—the GOP majority can advance the package without Democratic votes, banking the SNAP savings and farm-policy tweaks even as broader, bipartisan Farm-Bill talks remain stalled.
citizen journal
Kansas Lawmakers Scramble as Trump Budget Targets Key Overseas Food Initiatives; $1.8 Billion in Cuts Proposed
A pair of international food aid programs with Kansas ties would be eliminated under President Donald Trump's budget proposal. Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole are defunded by Trump's blueprint for fiscal year 2026 discretionary spending.2 The programs use American-grown commodities for food assistance in developing countries. Trump's budget plan cuts $1.6 billion for Food for Peace and $240 million for McGovern-Dole. Some members of the Kansas congressional delegation have introduced legislation to save Food for Peace by moving it to either the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the State Department.3 Neither the House version nor the Senate version have advanced. "This constructive use of U.S. farm abundance is one of the most inspiring activities ever undertaken by any country in world history," former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, said of Food for Peace. "The program has helped the U.S. maintain its position as the world's leading exporter of food and fiber and shares U.S. abundance with friendly peoples abroad, effectively supplementing world agricultural trade."4 U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, was among the senators who asked Rollins about Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole.5 "When we saw what was happening with Food for Peace, USAID and the State Department, we introduced legislation to transfer the authority to manage and operate Food for Peace to the Department of Agriculture," Moran said to Rollins.6"It was my understanding that both OMB and the Department of Agriculture — your department — responded to that idea favorably.
cjonline.com
Kansas Senate Panel Sifts Through Over 3,000 Public Ideas to Boost Government Efficiency
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate Committee on Government Efficiency dug through hundreds of online submissions Tuesday and set an agenda for the coming months tackling issues from transparency to auditing. The meeting agenda, released Monday, said committee members would discuss suggestions received through the COGE portal, where Kansans were encouraged to share ideas to make the government more efficient. Erickson said 3,254 submissions were made to date, with topics ranging from specific ideas about government efficiency to people who were venting frustrations. There also were a few recipes, she said. She has read all the submissions and with the help of committee staff had winnowed the number for consideration to 349 “COGE-like submissions,” Erickson said.
kansasreflector.com
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins Enters Race for State Insurance Commissioner
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins announced that he is running for Kansas Insurance Commissioner.7Hawkins was sworn in as the Representative for Kansas House District 100 in January 2013.8 The Republican lawmaker has served as Kansas House Speaker since January 2023. Prior to his time as Speaker, the 64-year-old Hawkins served two terms as House Majority Leader and two terms as Chair of the House Health & Human Services Committee. Hawkins ran his own small business providing employee benefits for nearly two decades and is a veteran of the Kansas National Guard.
kwch.com
Missouri House Approves Last-Ditch Stadium Aid Plan to Keep Chiefs, Royals from Kansas
JEFFERSON CITY - The Missouri House on Tuesday approved a last-minute plan to keep the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals in the state, opening a path for Missouri to potentially offer state aid to help pay for new or upgraded stadiums for the teams.9 The GOP-controlled House voted 108 to 40 on the proposal, after Gov. Mike Kehoe pitched the plan to lawmakers earlier in the day. The stadium-funding package now heads to the Senate, where its future appears murky in the final days of the legislative session. The vote marks Missouri’s first major retaliatory shot against Kansas in the ongoing fight over the future of the teams. “We need to compete with Kansas. We need to compete now,” said Rep. Chris Brown, a Kansas City Republican from Clay County who offered the proposal on the House floor. “The state of Kansas has been aggressively negotiating with the Chiefs and the Royals to try and lure them away from Missouri.” He added later: “These are Missouri teams.10 They need to stay in Missouri.” The 11th-hour vote came after a two-hour closed-door meeting of House Republicans in the last four days of the session, which ends at 6 p.m. Friday. The plan, which relies on bonds and tax credits that could pay for up to half the costs of upgrading or building new stadiums, would allow the teams to apply for the aid but the state would have to sign off on each project. Under the plan, the total amount of state funding will be capped at 30 years and cannot exceed 50% of the total project costs. The proposal will also require contributions from local governments.
kansascity.com
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Sources
- citizen journal
- https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025/05/13/usda-secretary-talks-trump-budget-cut-to-mcgovern-dole-food-for-peace/83513209007/?tbref=hp
- https://kansasreflector.com/2025/05/13/kansas-efficiency-panel-wades-through-public-input-creates-plan-to-tackle-transparency-access/
- https://www.kwch.com/app/2025/05/13/kansas-speaker-dan-hawkins-announces-run-insurance-commissioner/
- https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article306310496.html#storylink=cpy