December 2025 - Sweetpotato Speak

Congress recently ended the longest ever government shutdown of 43 days, by passing a Continuing Resolution (CR) through January 30, 2026 to fund the government. Included in this agreement was the full year funding for FY2026 Appropriations for Agriculture, Legislative Branch and Military Construction (through September 30, 2026).Congress is addressing the remaining funding bills for FY 2026 and their intent is to address these legislative funding bills prior to January 30, 2026. The ACA subsidies from Obamacare are set to expire at the end of 2025 and Congress is attempting to address this issue with some other healthcare matters. If Congress can’t come to an agreement, there is a possibility that House/Senate leadership will address it through a process similar to the Big Beautiful Bill passed in July 2025 - Budget Reconciliation which requires simple majority votes to pass. In addition, they could include some Trade and tariff measures to codify the tariff proposals that the Trump Administration has temporarily put in place. A “slim” farm bill is unlikely at this time with most of the farm bill measures being addressed in the Big Beautiful bill and FY 2026 Agriculture appropriations passage.

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