In 2025, actions of President Trump’s second term resulted in significant cuts to various funding sources for McLean County programs. A new citizen group wants to document the totality of these cuts in an initiative known as The Documentation Project.
“…There were a number of people in the community who came together trying to identify the impacts on McLean County of a lot of federal actions,” said John Freese, a retired chief circuit judge. “Everything from DOGE to recission by Congress of previously allocated monies to executive orders — kind of the panoply of things of federal actions.”
Freese and co-founder Camille Taylor, a retired educator, wanted to form a group of McLean County residents to document how the actions of the Trump administration were affecting them.
“We thought that so much information, or so many people, I should say, believe that the impacts are really on the east coast or the west coast or large cities, but we’re one of 3,100-plus counties in the United States, and our goal is to try to bring home those impacts to our own county,” said Freese.
Taylor said after some biweekly meetings, the project was able to identify key categories: health and well-being, work and economic security, civil law and justice and access to knowledge.
“And under those categories, you have things like housing and environment, health care, food insecurity, and under work and economic security, you have business and insurance and labor and agriculture,” she said. “So, as you would imagine, under these overarching categories, you’re going to cover many of the areas where the impact of the budget cuts would affect our citizens in McLean County.”
Taylor said it was eye-opening to discover the breadth of the federal cuts. Freese said one of the most impactful was the loss of rural broadband access.
The group is working in collaboration with the McLean County League of Women Voters to host a forum on Feb. 3 to gather community feedback on the cuts.
Economic security and agriculture
Mike Doherty, formerly of the Illinois Farm Bureau, is an independent consultant with the project. He will be joining the forum to focus on specific categories of funding.
Doherty said over the last year or so, agriculture in McLean County has seen a direct effect from Trump’s trade wars.
“And what we’ve seen over the last 12 months was because of the trade war, if you call it that, the tariffs that were levied against Chinese exports to the U.S. ... they retaliated with a tariff against what we were exporting to them, and that would be soybeans,” Doherty said.
Doherty said roughly 25% of all soybeans in the U.S. are exported to China, making them the largest international buyer of the crop. Some of that loss has been recouped by exporting to countries other than China.
“However, things have changed. Just in the last 10 days, China has come in and signed off on buying a significant amount of U.S. soybeans,” he said. “That came from the discussions that were started by the [Trump] administration with China last fall.”
As the president did in his first term, he has pledged to make direct payments to farmers to help offset the costs. Doherty said he has been calculating what payments may look like in the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program.
“It’s going to be a shot in the arm to our local farmers here,” he said. “So, it definitely has helped where farmers would have taken a loss of income in 2025, they’ll now break even. Those who were breaking even in 2025, they will now have a slight increase in farm income.”
Doherty said he’s not sure if the program will be a net positive. As Trump waged similar trade wars in his first term, the problem is China will shift to buying soybeans from other countries, he said.
USDA cutbacks and local food program cuts from last year also have proven to be tough, he said. Doherty did a consulting project with the United Nations on U.S. local food programs that saw the subsidization of local foods nearly eliminated.
“It grew into a billion dollar a year program under the Biden administration, and it was virtually [eliminated],” he said. “It’s going to be just a very small portion that they have now ... some of the states have stepped in and providing funding for local foods purchased by schools.”
Other McLean County cuts
One of the arguments for the federal cuts focuses on out-of-control spending in Washington, D.C. and that somehow the nation’s debt must be reined in.
But Freese said the programs are primarily focused on social service agencies.
“So, there appears to be money to spend for other needs based upon recent budgeting, and even the budget that’s going to be coming before the Congress, hopefully this week,” he said. “Well, I think everyone has been following the news and understands that there are some substantial billions of dollars that are in budget for other needs, but not for some of the needs that really impact ... people in McLean County.”
Freese mentioned cuts to Home Sweet Home Ministries and the partnership between Unit 5 and The Baby Fold.
“When parents don’t have a place for their children to go after school, that cuts into their ability to feel safe for their children, have that security of knowing, while they’re still at work that their children are safe and secure,” Taylor said. “So, these cuts ... you can’t always see the long-term impact, but they definitely will be there when you start affecting vulnerable communities like children and families.”
After the Documentation Project’s Feb. 3 meeting, organizers hope to plan another sometime in the late summer.
