A Place to Prune

Congressional chatter about cutting the $72 billion Federal budget has so far centered on defense, foreign-aid, schools and health-and-welfare expenditures. Last week in Houston one of the nation's biggest cotton men, Lamar Fleming Jr., board chairman of Anderson, Clayton &

Co., world's largest private cotton dealer, suggested another place where Congress might apply its shears: the huge $5 billion farm-subsidy program. Says Fleming, noting that federal farm programs this year may total 42% of net farm income: "I believe a time has come when thoughtful cotton growers will come to the conclusion that a business which depends on Government support, obtained through logrolling, is a dangerous business."

The bad thing about price supports and other subsidies, says Fleming, is that they cost so much to help so few people, "Only 7.3% of the population is dependent on farming for a living. Only a few crops get price supports or other farm subsidies. All the people pay the bill as consumers and taxpayers."

What is accomplished by this kind of payment? In cotton, says Fleming, "for a while we could keep some people in a precarious living, growing cotton where it cannot be grown economically or efficiently. This would help them continue a struggle in which ultimate defeat is certain." At the same time, notes Fleming, price supports high enough to cover marginal farmers' costs yield a bonanza to the owners of productive land. As for markets, high supports have helped make U.S. cotton so expensive on world markets that foreign production has increased more than 100% since 1930. while domestic production has actually declined. Now, to dispose of surpluses acquired under price supports, the U.S. Government is dumping cotton abroad, adding "economic warfare with the world to the cold war against Communism.

"Even if we want the consumers and taxpayers to continue bearing this burden, can we expect them to acquiesce? I believe their reaction to this federal budget shows they are waking up. I believe that, more and more, efficient cotton growers will accept the proposition of a gradual reduction in price-support levels until they lose significance except as what Secretary Benson described as 'disaster insurance'--to be accompanied by complete cessation of Government control over acreage as soon as the present surplus is reduced to manageable proportions. That is the dignified, self-reliant status that proud men want for their businesses."

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