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Show i THE A'n),'Tl HOLT1E Si V Town iw. J IN WASHINGTON -JeJgf Defends Farm Plan YOUR Home Town Reporter cannot can-not help but feel that at least some farm leaders are not being ,ealistic in their opposition to tne proposed new agricultural program -f Secretary of Agriculture Bran-nan. Bran-nan. That is, they are not being realistic real-istic from the standpoint of their announced reasons for opposition, namely it regiments the farmers, it pays a subsidy to the farmers and it will be too costly. To be realistic about the whole thing farmers must admit that they are being regimented today under the present law and will be more regimented under the Hope-Aiken law which goes into effect January unless congress changes it. They are receiving a subsidy today under price support and will not only get price support but direct subsidies in incentive incen-tive payments under the Hope-Aiken Hope-Aiken law. Insofar as costs are concerned, nobody knows exactly ex-actly what the present law has cost, nobody knows or can guess what the Hope-Aiken law will cost and Secretary Brannan says he doesn't know what his plan would cost, but believes it will cost no more than the Aiken plan. The department of agriculture does know, however, that prior to 1926 insofar as the commodity credit corporation is concerned, it had made a little money on its operations; op-erations; but for an overall period from October 17, 1933, through March 31, 1949, the CCC showed a net loss on all its price support operations op-erations of $322,574,785, of which $298,024,316 was lost on Irish potatoes po-tatoes in the past three years. Farmer Needs Aid We like to picture our farmer as the lord of all he surveys, a rugged individualist beholden to no one, accepting no favors, taking his chances with the elements, the pests, the drouths, the floods and the economic vagaries of the nation. As a matter of fact, however, those days are gone forever. In our modern complex economy econ-omy it is historically true that the farmer, "on his own" eventually will lose his shirt. He always has and always will. ,It is just as essential that he have government protection and government govern-ment help, and a guaranteed floor under his prices, as it is for labor to have bargaining power and a floor under his wages, or that business busi-ness be protected with export subsidies, sub-sidies, with tariffs or other various governmental aids. And to get this aid he must agree to certain things which is regimentation. And he accepts subsidies, directly or indirectly, sometimes both. And whatever he accepts costs the taxpayers. tax-payers. The Brannan plan may not be the best plan for agriculture, but to oppose it on these grounds is, in this reporter's opinion, at least unrealistic. One thing is certain, unless the administration can in sorm way, not now apparent, get a moderate labor law through this congress, Taft-Hartley repeal re-peal will again be an issue ir the 1950 bye-elections. Activitj now is transferred to the senate where Republicans have the ball on the labor bill, mainly Senators Taft, Ives and Morse. Tough Selling Job This reporter learned many years ago that you cannot sell politics like you sell soap. So Big Business, which employs big advertising agencies to sell soap and other commodities, com-modities, employs big agencies to sell our democratic political system sys-tem to the general public and fails. This was brought out at the recent convention of the U.S. chamber of commerce. We have the finest political system in the world, the free enterprise system, but we have a tough time selling our own people on it. Yet we expect the Voice of America to sell it to the rest of the world. With only 15 opposing votes the federal aid to education bill' has swept through the senate and is now up for hearing before a house committee. It authorizes an annual expenditure ex-penditure of 300 million dollars a year to states to equalize educational edu-cational opportunities, the payments pay-ments to range from $5 to $29 per child, depending on the state income. Opposition was led by Senator Wherry of Nebraska Ne-braska with help from Byrd of Virginia and Biicker of Ohio. Five freshmen senators voted for the bill. T,-.f predecessors I h 8th congress were against it; tbev mcludea c rear D-Dr i t mvi h j - , ' Jhnson (D-ie-O, Hendrickson rn , Long tD-La.) and Mundt. (R-SD ' There likely will be no t crease at this session. Instead con' gress may vote more monev "o the treasury so they can put 0 more workers to collect more taxes under the present law Million. taxes annually are evadpri k of lack of peyrsonenelV tolh'cT" turns, Treasury Says. eck re" |
