One of the last surviving wartime-emergency measures for bolstering the domestic economy is the rigid, 90%-of-parity price support for "basic" crops (corn, wheat, cotton, rice and peanuts). Last week the U.S. Senate put the Government-support program on a flexible 82½%-90% formula.
The 90% level, needed in wartime to encourage food production in the face of shortages and inflation, was due to go out within two years after President Truman declared war's end in 1946. But farm-bloc Congressmen of both parties found that 90% was the sweetest manna in the political crib. Democrats conveniently forgot that in prewar 1938, Congress set the...
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