GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 345 



on, but 3^011 will have to assume for the time being what your carry- 

 over is going to be. 



Mr. Andresen. Carry-over on what? 



Secretary Brannan. If there is a carry-over in a particular com- 

 modity. 



Mr. Andresen. I thought you eliminated the cost of these bones 

 on storable crops. 



Secretary Brannan. We wiJl state it as nonstorables. 



Mr. Pace. Will the gentleman yield right there? 



Mr. Secretary, you have another assumption. If you assume that 

 the Aiken bill is going into effect on the 1st day of January, under the 

 terms of the Aiken bill many of the support prices will drop consider- 

 ably below their present support prices that you, under the direction 

 of Congress, have made on all commodities. For instance, there is 

 the possibility that under the Aiken bill the support price on cotton 

 next year will be substantially lower than it is this year and if it is as 

 you say, it will cost you an unknown figure. 



Mr. Andresen. I am not talking about the Aiken bill at all. I am 

 talking about the Hope bill for 1949. 



Mr. Pace. I do not think the Secretary can give you anything like 

 an accurate statement unless he takes the Aiken bill into account. 

 If the Aiken bill goes into effect, if the Congress permits it to remain 

 on the statute books, it can cost the Government billions of dollars. 



Mr. Andresen. I may agree with you. 



Mr. Pace. We may as well say so now. 



Mr. Andresen. I am dealing with the present year. 



You have stated, \h\ Secretary, that your proposed program will 

 not cost an}^ more than the present program. 



Secretary Brannan. That is right. 



Mr. Andresen. \Miat I am trying to get at is what will the cost of 

 the present program be? Do you have any estimates on that? 



Secretary Brannan. No; and I do not think anybody can make 

 that kind of an estimate. 



Mr. Andresen. Then jou cannot make any estimate on the cost 

 of your program? 



Secretary Brannan. No; but we can make a commodity-by-com- 

 modity comparison which would begin to give you some ideas. 



Mr. Andresen. We will just take one commodity. You have 

 stated that on milk, if it comes dowai 1 cent a quart it is going to cost 

 $150,000,000. Did you state that? 



Secretary Brannan. I said if you wanted to arbitrarily reduce the 

 price by 1 cent a quart on every quart that was consumed, it would 

 cost $150,000,000, but you and I know that you could get a reduction 

 on all the milk consumed without paying the cent on every quart of 

 milk that was consumed, because you and Mr. Murray have been 

 pointing out that in some parts of the country the milk is already seU- 

 ing in that neighborhood. 



Mr. Andresen. WTiat the farmer gets out in my district now is 

 between 5 cents and 6 cents a quart. But you do not propose to take 

 care of that. That is a matter we have to talk over at a later date.. 



I am trying to get at some comparable figure to go by here. I know 

 that you are the only authority we can go to unless we use our own. 

 I'udgment in figuring these things. 



91215 — 19 — pt. 2 15 



