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Show A WELL-BAITED TRAP By Creston J. Foster News Director, American Farm Bureau Federation Direct government payments, production payments, and cash subsidies will be often-used terms during the 1964 farm program debates. These terms will sound familiar to many who recall the stunning defeat farmers, through Congress, gave the former Secretary of Agriculture, Charles Brannan, when he proposed a program of direct payments to farmers for most agricultural products back in 1949. But to the cursory reader, a plan calling for such a subsidy program may sound new, and if he believes the proponents, it offers a way to cut government costs of farm programs, reduce prices to consumers, and give full parity to the farmer. This payment myth has been exploded completely as far as iost farmers are concerned, but labor leaders find it a convenient plan to support because of its false consumer con-sumer appeal to their members, and even some businessmen business-men who should know better are fooled by its seeming simplicity. The payment approach has a number of variations. Under the original Brannan plan, farm commodities would be sold by producers for prices determined by private agreement with buyers. The difference between the average aver-age of prices thus agreed upon and some pre-determined legislated target price would go to the producer in a check paid directly from the federal government. Under some current plans cooperators would get a fixed payment per bushel or pound of eligible production. The hidden evil of these schemes is that they would destroy the very heart of our market economy which is based on supply and demand being the primary factors determining price. It places a dangerous weapon in the hands of any who would want to destroy or change our economic system. Government payments would make farmers dependent depend-ent on Congressional appropriations for much of their total income and impose rigid controls on farm production. produc-tion. Such plans would encourage inefficient farm production produc-tion and force consumers to pay higher prices for food which would be concealed in increased taxes. And taxes could be an important item as the costs of such programs would be fantastic even under the most conservative estimates. esti-mates. Since farmers would base production plans on the market price plus the expected payment, production would be stimulated. This would drive prices below the level that would prevail in the absence of a government program. pro-gram. So payments would take us in the direction of more controls over production and marketing. In order to hold down costs, Congress almost certainly cer-tainly would penalize the efficient producers by limiting the amount of the payment that could be made to any individual. Some argue that the present wool and sugar programs pro-grams provide precedents for extension of the payment aproach to other commodities. However, both wool and sugar are deficit commodities that must be imported in large quantities. |