AGRICULTURE: New Year’s Greetings

Congress this week made sure that U.S. farmers would have a prosperous and happy New Year. By doing nothing about farm prices, it tacitly guaranteed to support them through 1948.

The farmers owe this price-support gift to a law jammed through Congress by the powerful farm bloc during the war. Under the law, the Government must pay farmers 90% of parity for two years following the official end of hostilities. Since neither President Truman nor Congress declared the war officially at an end in 1945, the Government must now keep its promise through 1948, instead of just 1947.