Tom Vilsack

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Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican questions why the Department of Agriculture is spending money on starting wine festivals, marketing a Bloody Mary mix and helping homeowners on tony Martha's Vineyard while Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack says the sequester is forcing him to cut off food aid for 600,000 needy women and children.

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“You can’t point to a time when Congress has been this reluctant to pass farm legislation,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (Associated Press)

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FILE - In this July 18, 2012, file photo, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talks about the drought during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. Vilsack has some harsh words for rural America: It's "becoming less and less relevant," he says. A month after an election that Democrats won even as rural parts of the country voted overwhelmingly Republican, the former Democratic governor of Iowa told farm belt leaders this past week that he's frustrated with their internecine squabbles and says they need to be more strategic in picking their political fights. "It's time for us to have an adult conversation with folks in rural America," Vilsack said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the Farm Journal. "It's time for a different thought process here, in my view." He said rural America's biggest assets — the food supply, recreational areas and energy, for example — can be overlooked by people elsewhere as the U.S. population shifts more to cities, their suburbs and exurbs. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack talks about the drought during the press briefing at the White House in Washington on Wednesday, July 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack listens to U.S. Trade Representative Ronald Kirk (left) during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday on Russia joining the World Trade Organization and the administration's views on the implications for the United States. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announce new dietary guidelines at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Monday to help Americans make healthier food choices and confront the obesity epidemic. (Associated Press)

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announce new dietary guidelines to help Americans make healthier food choices and confront the obesity epidemic at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on Monday. (Associated Press)

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,left, and Agriculture Tom Vilsack, take part in a press conference at George Washington University in Washington, Monday, Jan. 31, 2011, announcing new dietary guidelines to help Americans make healthier food choices and confront obesity epidemic. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack embraces former department official Shirley Sherrod in Washington on Tuesday. Sherrod, ousted in a racial misunderstanding last month, declined to return to the agency.

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells reporters that he acted in haste in firing Shirley Sherrod, a black U.S. Agriculture Department official, after it appeared she had made racist remarks in unfair and heavily edited video posted on a conservative website, during a news conference at the Department of Agriculture in Washington on Wednesday, July 21, 2010. Mr. Vilsack said he is taking personal responsibility for what happened. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells reporters he acted in haste in firing Shirley Sherrod, a black U.S. Agriculture Department official, after it appeared she had made racist remarks in unfair and heavily edited video posted on a conservative website, during a news conference at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Wednesday, July 21, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells reporters he acted in haste in regards to Shirley Sherrod, a black U.S. Agriculture Department official, after it appeared she had made racist remarks in unfair and heavily edited video posted on a conservative website, during a news conference at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Wednesday, July 21, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

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Associated Press photographs Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stands with Rep. Barbara Lee, California Democrat, and other Congressional Black Caucus members after their meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to discuss the Shirley Sherrod case.

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Associated Press ACT OF CONTRITION: Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod, fired Tuesday by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack after a video appearing to show her making racist remarks went viral, got an apology Wednesday from Mr. Vilsack.

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday, July 21, 2010, that the Agriculture Department will reconsider its decision to oust a black Agriculture Department employee, Shirley Sherrod, on Tuesday July 20, over racially tinged remarks at an NAACP banquet in Georgia, following new evidence that her remarks were misconstrued. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree, File)