GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 699 



when you have increased unemployment, you know how difficult it 

 is going to be to get a bill through that raises money, with as much 

 opposition as there is in the country today to the wartime excise taxes. 

 The public is demanding now that we get rid of them. As a matter 

 of fact, our distinguished Senator from Colorado has a bill in to that 

 very effect now, because it is a nuisance tax and the people resent it. 

 And as long as we hav^e taxes like that on the statute books and the 

 collection of taxes that go along with nuisance taxes it is going to be 

 a little more difficult, I think, to get money out of Congi^ess than it 

 may have beea during the war period when there were so many 

 billions appropriated. I go back to 1939, when the public debt was 

 $40,000,000,000; then we had a war, and now it is $252,000,000,000, 

 so that we have $212,000,000,000 of public debt now that we did not 

 have in 1939. 



So I think no agricultural group can operate on a basis of what 

 they would like; they have to operate on the basis that they think 

 is of the greatest good for the greatest number of farmers. 



Is that right? 



Mr. Hughes. That is right. 



Mr. Pace. The Chair does want to acknowledge the presence of 

 the distinguished Senator from Colorado, Senator Johnson, and to 

 express the pleasure of the committee to have him come and sit in 

 with us at this hearing. 



Mr. Andresen. Would you agree with the chairman on his inter- 

 pretation of the proposal, which is, when you have acreage allotments, 

 that would be true for cotton as well as wheat? 



Mr. Murray. If _you would have a bumper crop of both cotton 

 and wheat, as we may have this year, probably it would leave the 

 Government o^^^ling the entire amount of cotton and wheat that was 

 under support loan, with the rest of the wheat going into the market 

 and the market fixing the price based on supply and demand. Other- 

 wise, I do not know what the Government would do with the cotton 

 and wheat. But they would be o^\^ling it and probably put it in 

 storage. 



Mr. Axdresen. What I wanted to ask particularly was this: Was 

 any consideration given at your Omaha meeting to the proposal 

 Secretary Brannan made to the Congress and the country on April 7, 

 as to whether or not your group favored the over-all proposal he made 

 of prosperity for the farmers and cheaper food for the people? 



^Ir. Hughes. No; no recommendation was made. I might answer 

 that this way: At our Omaha meeting, we felt, due to present condi- 

 tions and the ability of Congress to take care of the things that needed 

 to be done in the shortest possible time, we would limit our recommen- 

 dations to the law as it is now \vi'itten in regard to changes we felt 

 had to be made to make it possible to administer it, and whenever any 

 proposal was put into bill form so that we would have a specific 

 wording to base our discussion in, we might at a later date be prepared 

 to do that. But at this meeting we did not feel we were; so we did 

 not take any action whatever on it. 



Mr. Murray. I want to add I saw in the paper the other day, in 

 the column of some fellow out in Kansas, that he wants to try the 

 program out on hogs; that it would be a pretty good idea to try it 

 out on the price of hogs. 



Air. Hughes. I know what you mean. 



