De-Icing the Farmer

Back to Congress last week with a crisp rejection slip from President Eisenhower went the 1958 farm bill. For the second time in two years, said Ike, Congress had sent him farm legislation "which I cannot in good conscience approve." Intended to freeze 1958 price supports at not less than 1957 levels, the vetoed bill, like the one in 1956. was an election-year stratagem by which 1) Democrats hoped to embarrass the Administration, and 2) farm-belt Republicans hoped to horsefeather their re-election chances.

In refusing to be part of this political pact, the President listed half a dozen ill effects on farmers if the bill were allowed to become law. Among them: it would reverse notable progress made to date in balancing farm supply with the demand for farm products, pile up more Government surpluses, discourage the growth of new markets for farmers' products, postpone the day when farmers can be freed from the straitjacket of controls. Regarding those, said Ike. "what the farm economy needs is a thaw rather than a freeze."

If Congress really wants to help farmers, he wrote, it should get busy and pass the program he sent up last January, which would further widen the range of price support flexibility and end the present escalator formula under which price supports automatically rise as surplus falls--to build up another surplus.

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