Rural Texas residents stand to be hurt if President Trump’s proposed budget is adopted, reports the Texas Observer. The White House budget cuts billions in federal aid for residents of Texas’s most sparsely populated areas, including the Panhandle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture currently awards grants to small communities through its Rural Development Office. That money goes toward economic development, home repairs, and infrastructure fixes including road and plumbing repair.
In the last year of the Obama Administration, $100 million in grants and loans were given to rural Texas communities for water and wastewater projects alone. The Trump budget would slash such funding, and it makes no allowance for any new budget proposals for rural infrastructure spending.
Without funding, roads and water facilities in small towns will fall into disrepair.