Heading for a Veto

Ever since falling farm prices and higher costs put the squeeze on their incomes last year, the nation's farmers have pushed for "emergency" legislation that would boost Government price guarantees. With help from liberal urban Democrats, the politically skillful farm bloc has shepherded one package of supports for corn, dairy and other agricultural products through the House (TIME, March 31), propelled another, more generous version through the Senate, and engineered a compromise that emerged from a conference committee last week. The measure promptly sailed back through the Senate; it will pass the House this week and then land on President Ford's desk--where it is expected to be vetoed.

If the President does plow under the "emergency" measure, it will be an act of mercy toward consumers, but a blow to farmers. To shore up net farm income, which nearly doubled in 1973 but fell 17%, to $27 billion, last year, the measure would increase the support price of milk from 75% to 80% of so-called parity, raise "target" prices of wheat, grain and cotton (giving farmers cash subsidies if the price falls below the "target" level), and allow the Government to make larger loans to growers. It would also raise grocery bills. According to Agriculture Department economists, the addition to retail food prices this year would cost the consumer several hundred million dollars; milk, butter and cheese would all be higher.

Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz, who normally backs any proposal that helps farmers, believes that this one would only encourage them to produce for Government guarantees. Its effect, says Assistant Secretary Clayton Yeutter, would be to take the nation "back into the dark ages of farm policy." Indeed, for four decades Government policy consisted of a labyrinth of props under income that expanded until it cost taxpayers $4 billion in 1972. By overhauling the old system, the Nixon Administration trimmed the price tag to about $500 million last year. Unless Congress can now override a presidential veto of the 1975 bill--which seems unlikely--the cost of farm supports may well continue to decline.

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